 Good afternoon everyone welcome in Good to see some of you guys go ahead and Let us know your where you're from how news has been for you You made it to the last works shop session And we're glad you're here. So feel free. Just let us know where you are where you're from How you're doing how's news are going? We're just glad you're here Welcome welcome everyone go ahead and Just let us know where you're from How you thought news is gone you've made it you've made it to your last session For the conference your last workshop session. We still have a few more things to do Today and tomorrow, but we're just so glad you're here and we're glad that you have stuck it to the end with us So welcome Okay, good afternoon everyone. I'm Tabitha Butler and I Am excited to be a room host today for the maintaining service continuity during uncontrollable circumstances You guys are gonna enjoy hearing from Chris Harper today Before we get started just a reminder. I know you've heard it a hundred times, but there is The chat function so you can go ahead and put your feedback there and then there is a Questions tab underneath the chat bubbles. It looks like a teacher standing in front of a chalkboard You may put questions there. However Chris was unable to be with us today and His co-worker and himself are going to respond to you guys via email if you do have any questions So you can either send them straight to Val. That's gonna be in the chat at the very top I pinned it or if you do put something in the questions tab Just be sure to put your contact information So that Chris can follow up with you after the conference. So Just want to make sure that you knew that if you do have questions and you They will be responded to so you can either send them straight to Val or you can put them there in the question tab and Then below that where the three people are that's where you can click the three people You can see everyone that's in the session with us if you click on their name You can privately message them So if you needed to tell me something in the middle of the presentation You could click on my name and send me a direct message and then below that we have some files included It looks like the three paper sheets of paper and it looks like Chris has been gracious enough to share the presentation with you And it looks like a video So he has included some files there for you as well, which is very nice of him And so with that I'm gonna go ahead and get us started Like I said Chris Harper who is with our solid waste division here at the city of Fort Worth He is a contract compliance Administrator was unfortunately unable to be with us very unexpected He was so excited about being here with all of you that he took some time really quick the other day to Pre-record the presentation, but he wants to know that you guys are more than welcome to send Val his co-worker her email address is at the top any questions or you could also leave him You can also email him directly or I'm giving you the option to put some questions in the question tab Just make sure that you put your contact information And then I will send that over to Chris and Val after our presentation so that they can get back to you guys So without further ado, I'm gonna go ahead and hand it over Chris and His workshop maintaining service continuity during uncontrollable circumstances Good afternoon, my name is Chris Harper. I'm a contract services administrator for the city of Fort Worth for solid waste Very happy to be here today. Thanks everybody for coming to the news of conference. We are proud to host it as Fort Worth Today we've been talking about maintaining service continuity during an uncontrollable circumstance. Obviously that is COVID-19 so we'll Dive right into it here. I'll give you a little bit of context about the city of Fort Worth how our Solid waste program runs so you understand How important external contractors are to our success? So my theme today is going through this together versus going through this independently at the same time So right what do I mean by that? There's a big difference between going through a challenging time at the same time as others each on your own and Actually doing it together. So the benefits of doing things together are additive right in what we were hoping for what we achieved Is that one plus one equals three result? So again, as I said, my name's Christian Harper the privilege of leading the contractor point team here in the city Overseeing teams that handle residential collection. That's garbage recycling both yard waste Recycling processing residential park program mulching and city facilities collection also includes our southeast landfill that's owned by the city and our Waste connections CND landfill that we knew I've been with the city about three years and it has been a Incredible experience so far Little background on our leadership team Brandon Bennett is our code compliance director. He's been with the city of Fort Worth Since 2004 he's been the director for the past 11 years Robert Smouse who's our assistant director of solid waste has been with us for six years So both of them have seen quite a bit of evolution in our program So these are the people that really make it happen. I became of three contract compliance specialists Dossel and Johnson Christian and Val Familow. So Again, they've been here all over 18 years Since the beginning of the program so invaluable resource to me and to the city and to the residents So again background the city and waste management have actually been working together since 2003 when the CART program was initially rolled out This is a well-established relationship Our MWB subcontractor Knight Waste has been working with waste maintenance since 2006. So we are very fortunate to have excellent partners who have a ton of experience that was brought to bear over us, you know The past year so Fort Worth at a Glynis if I see me 895,000 residents 13th largest in The u.s. We service over 240,000 households weekly Something that shocked us. We grew at the city at over 3% during the pandemic So to put that in perspective our three-year average is just over two percent as is the five-year average. So at a time when Everything was was happening with increased tundish. We were also growing at a rapid pace So services at a glance and I mentioned we at the city We use all outside contractors for residential collection recycling processing disposal operational landfill Organics recycling and carts So we're heavily dependent on our outside partners and our program is all cart-based and we use asl trucks. It's been that way since 2003 Quick breakdown waste management night wastes Service all residential collection. Republic services is our partner for recycling processing disposal at southeast landfill City collections drop-off station hauling coder is our cart partner all of our Organics recycling and mulching goes through living earth and we also have a contract with waste connections to use their cnb land bill here in Fort Worth So residential collection yard waste including craft bags yard carts small brush all that is is collected by hand in rear loaders We also have boom trucks obviously for large bulk and bulk waste or brush weekly collection of garbage recycling in yard waste our bulk program is monthly Currently we till mingle large brush and bulk trash There's about 500,000 carts in service So we've got a lot of carts out there and the city does own all the carts Recycling processing again is with republic services at the north texas recycling complex in that way since 2018 100% of what's picked up at the curb in our blue recycling carts is taken there Our disposal city forward owns the southeast landfill republic services under contract to manage it all of our Waste goes to that landfill as do all the residuals from the murk some bulk is Disposed there the remaining bulk is disposed to add the waste connections cnb landfill Living earth does all the organic recycling like I mentioned the contract is actually with republic services Living earth is actually on site at the landfill and they do all the work Again totter provides all the carts. They also provide cart delivery cleaning maintenance and repair We have four drop-off stations in an environmental collection center. Those are open to all residents for full line of services, which is you know, garbage recycling yard bulk You can drop off house household hazardous waste scrap metal tires electronic. We even offer document trading Give you an idea how popular these things are they receive over 300,000 resident visits per year and over 46,000 tons of material comes through these locations The environmental collection center services over 20,000 residents just at that one facility A 2.2 million pounds of material come through there, which we're really proud of because all that means all of that material Is actually disposed the way it should be We also have an in-house call center here operated by a communications team Last year they answered a little bit over 86,000 solid waste calls So how we're organized internally the city actually maintain the small fleet of boom and roll-off trucks Those are used by our illegal dump crews that equipment has been Just a blessing for us to have for not only storm damage but over the past year with cobin with the increase in not only illegal dumping but in folk So as I mentioned those trucks can be used to back up other Other programs. So we have six staff members who are dedicated to Working with waste management and verifying that all of our Fault piles are collected on time. We have six staff members called the blue crew who actively Audit our blue recycling carts and look for contamination and help educate our residents to increase the percentage and quality of recycling We also have six account tax. Then they're dedicated to customer service setting up accounts changing accounts all of that So how did it start right for for all of us it started in march And I will say that the city is fortunate to have a former first responder is our director of coast compliance Brenda Bennett actually serves two roles for the city Some of you may not know that he's the director of coast compliance. He's also the director of health Okay, side note. He's an iron man, right? So how else would he have the energy to perform two completely separate jobs and do it all it's sent on in In the 24 hours he has in a day So his philosophy that that permeates the organization all the way down to the frontline staff is always be prepared He's a situational leader Which means that we are flexible and adaptable and that put us in a very good position when cobin hit Because we are able to change when we need to and take care of what needs to be taken care of But i'll say like the rest of you we were not really prepared for a pandemic. We have a coop. We have all of those plans that this was Something unexpected. So we have literally updated our coop plans Continuity of operational plans. We plan for a disruption. We didn't know at the time how long that would last I don't think that we originally planned for the duration of over a year in the scale it was at But we did have a number of contingency 24 including staffing and equipment. So that helped So what really actually helped us in the normal course of business in march Our whole staff is ramping up. That is the beginning of heavy yard and bulk season We were bringing in storm chaser crews which waste management does on a manual basis to take care of the increased volume So again for two of this because they they hit the ground at the exact right time So i'll say at the beginning we were prepared we prepared to jump in and start navigating On our own right talking to each department and talking to our health department But we quickly realized that there would be a huge benefit from collaboration, right? This means other people department city industry groups want The the cog so it's always better to navigate this situation together so again The the the one plus one equals three is the the result we were we were going for in which we got So initial planning scenarios we extended plan for an extended time frame We've had plans in place if we lost 40 of staff Being out here to obit. We extended hours. We knew we were going to have increased overtime And we reallocated staff and equipment to support essential services A good example of that is our blue crew It was no longer safe for them to go and physically look in blue Recycling carts for contamination. So we turned them into a hot shot crew. They worked at the drop-off station They worked in any capacity that was needed To do until they could return to their job So one of the biggest challenges that i'm sure everyone on Here faced This was a nationwide challenge. We were used to emergency situations where A situation is confined to a usually a geographic location, right? So personnel and equipment can be brought in from other areas of the country in this case everybody was You know subject to the same emergency situation, so yeah, we we had to Reallocate resources within because there was nothing coming from anywhere else, right? And we Certainly didn't have extra staff to to share so Planning assumptions again, we knew residential volume would increase The tundishes that are typically generated at work, whether that garbage or recycling we're going to be generated at home We were going into spring break, which we knew would be an increase anyway followed by summer when you get an adult home, so We also expected commercial To go down which it did due to at home orders and in multiple businesses closing We had originally assumed that the growth of new households in the city would slow down, but boy, we're rerolling on that one so Two plan and action just to highlight the big things where the safety plan safety had to come first We had to ensure that we were able to keep That helping and safe in order to form the work right that meant that some people went work from home That meant other people uh continue to come into the office But we we followed all of the safety rules, uh, and and as did our partners and I think we were very successful in that We looked at everything that we could possibly control and exerted as much control over those factors as we could Right and realized that hey, there's a whole lot that we don't control and that we're just going to have to be flexible, so the biggest benefit Our improvement that we made is we increased the daily data gathering and reporting So we needed to know what's happening had to curve on an hourly basis so that we could respond Again like everyone on a call all of our solid waste staff were designated essential staff members All contractors were designated essential staff. We immediately prioritized garbage then recycling the bulk of the yard Good example here of essential workers Excuse me Waste management had a placard that they put in all their trucks As did republic services and night waste they actually had these in their personal vehicles as well So that during the stay home orders here in texas in case they were pulled over or questioned People knew that they were on the way to their job Forward staff did the same thing and in fact in an effort to cut down Person-to-person contact each of our team was given a placard to put in and put their own cell phone number So even if they were doing an investigation or talking to a resident literally outside their house They didn't be a phone from inside their car I had to throw this in here it was so sweet There was a a group of kids who had created this thank you essential worker sign So we absolutely loved seeing that You know everybody at home was having a hard time too and it was it was kind of great To feel the love from the the community that we were still out there working hard on their behalf So biggest change right daily operations calls and this was multiple a day This was an open exchange of information and ideas any idea was welcome Right, we were trying to figure out this this pandemic as we went along any Risk mitigation strategy that we come up with we met a list of so in case we encountered it we knew what to do We had the contingency plans who would back up who right and this goes back to But I mentioned before the city does have some folk or some boom trucks and those did come in handy backing up our partners So again continuous Communication gathering data analyzing it, you know turning that data into actionable information that can go out to our our fields And go out to the community and executing and you know, we had to do it over and over again because things were constantly changing Again, our partners our eyes and ears are all of the hard-working people inside the city and at all of our partners who were out you know in the city every day Gathering information and sending it back. So one of the nice things was we have our own communications person here for solid waste We took all the information we got Turned that into usable information fed it to The communications team the engagement team the call center team. So we got that information back to the residents Who called as soon as we thought this was so Again, following all internal city safety teams Advice and guidance our partners did that with their safety teams as well We had a lot of conversations on Best practices what to share what we were learning and how we could help one another So When we got to Probably the third week in March and realized, okay, we're gonna have to really figure this out So we put ourselves in the residents shoes and we said, okay, we've got to emphasize with the people who were actually Generating the waste, right? So what flexibility that we have in each program and ordinance? How could we extend all of that flexibility to the residents? And I guess it to state a different way What program adjustments could we make immediately, right to help the situation that we didn't need to clear illegal That they need to go to city council for approval because speed and flexibility were critical So we really is a hard look at What we could do, right? So we were very successful to come together with waste management in that place Go through all these these ordinances and programs and come up with a plan So we actually Came up. I think we met on a Wednesday Put the plan together got that approved of the chain and actually had full implementation that that following monday One of the biggest things was extra bags, right people putting bags on the ground people were putting bags Taking the snowman out of the cart and they were putting them on the lid So we had to figure out how to get those bags off the ground Luckily, we had a mechanism and the contractor already to compensate our contractor for extra bags And really what was driving us is we didn't have time to go back Again, right if the truck was there we had to figure out a way to collect Everything the first time right and again waste meant that in night waste were were critical in in helping to figure that out so this was the Meeting summary right from wednesday to monday created the plan got that implemented So operational issues, you know to put in pictures worth a thousand words We had so many people who were at home That were just parking on the street and this picture illustrates what our guys had to go through on a House by house basis, right? So not much space for them to put the sl arm in There was a lot of getting in and out of that cab these drivers really really worked their tails off to get this done Perfect example what I mentioned before you know any bags In the cart bags on the ground which again we we turned that into More of a normal collection because that that became the norm It was expected was actually kind of nice came across some of you didn't have a bag Our residents got a little creative on I'm sure it's the same in every other city people were just cleaning out everything addicts garages You name it and whatever they decided to clean they dragged out to the curb Other people must have had barbecues and and other things going on because again We we saw a lot so something like this we We just basically would take take the cart and everything on there and then would would bring them a new cart So we did have some operational issues due to covet unfortunately Our environmental collection center was closed for a week, which is not truly a seven-day week. They have a three-day operational We several staff members have tested positive and exposed other staff members. We immediately Cleaned and disinfected that we had an outside company who was able to clean and disinfect. We also had the folks at our police department had Disinfecting equipment, which was fantastic because the response time was much much faster and honestly the cost was was much cheaper This thing so we did lose one drop off station For a number of hours And if you remember the volume of people that and in tonnage. I said was going through there every hour counts We had lines of you know 50 to 100 people waiting to get in there So luckily all of those supervisors have the training the knowledge to address those situations get those Staff members take care of get those facilities clean and get those facilities back online in a safe way so Just a glance into our tonnage right and in one of the challenges with covid with all tonnage decrease across the board so waste management had to Utilize every pizza before then everybody on staff as in that waste as in the city because no one had extra resources So garbage immediately went up over 12 percent both went up over nine yard waste increased 16 The southeast landfill had a total of over 10 percent increase which when you consider that at any given time commercial was down in North Texas around 30 percent the residential volume more than made up for that The murph I think we ended the year at just over 17 percent increase in tons of material received in process it was going At most of the time seven days a week the only time that they had down time was for repairs and maintenance to keep all that going and they did a great job Again our drop-off stations increased tonnage increased residents visits increased members of 40-yard roll-off containers that we filled and then haul so the drop-off stations were a tremendous outlet for Residents and really really took some pressure off of the city took some pressure off of Waste management which was good for everybody so Our response as I mentioned Had to adapt and evolve things were changing constantly. We were seeing different shifts in volumes in different neighborhoods Based on their spring breaks based on what was going on with with summer we had to contend with safety changes at the national level state level local level all of these different things coming in had to be Red understood and sent out and followed one of the biggest advantages of having outside companies Work with us if that you know, for example waste management were public companies national publicly health companies they were able to Go out talk to all of their municipal people and give us ideas Okay, here's what other people are doing around the country right here's how we can do things better And just as importantly here's what you don't want to do right here's where where we've gotten into trouble so avoidance of issues and best practices that that combination was incredibly powerful for us Let's begin to get back to Disposal options in addition to the curve right we have what we call beyond the curve Which again was the drop-off stations. We've kind of covered this um One of the biggest things that We had to take into account is our contractual consideration, right? So all major municipal contracts have a uncontrollable circumstance We're no different. We have those in in all of our city At the beginning of the pandemic. We had multiple partners to clear an uncontrollable circumstance because I can't think of one that fits the bill better than than a pandemic so in To their credit and this goes across all of the uh, the companies that we worked with They continued to perform. They bent over backwards And even outperformed someone last year Even in dealing with with what they had to deal with but it was very critical that With the contractual part that we did take care of that that we did run things by legal Both at the city side and the contractor side. So one of the things that working with national companies like waste and uh, and republic helped us do to say, okay We need to plan ahead right plan for holidays plan for risk exposure We learned a lot from spring break and we learned a lot when people went on vacation And so we knew that we were going to have to be more vigilant that All of our contractors were on Halloween Thanksgiving Christmas anytime people were getting together We had to make sure that following that we had contingencies in place in case we had people out Because not only does the volume go up after a lot of these holidays But a lot of the times, uh, due to covid we had people out. So that's kind of the devil wind Additional external partners that were invaluable to us North central texas council of government They hosted multiple calls and roundtables where cities just got together and in an open forum just say Here's what we're doing. Tell us what you're doing a really positive flow of information back and forth again, what to do best practices what not to do questions were answered So huge huge resource We have a lot of other contacts at other cities that we reached out to we had cities reach out to us again to the just free flow of information was extremely valuable a little Shout out to local distilleries. Um, I don't know any if anyone else on the call or in the uh the session had this But they were a lifesaver. We would get five gallon buckets of hand sanitizer Some of it admittedly smelled a little bit. Uh, so you would smell like old tequila or Other alcohol, but I'm telling you it worked and we were we're real happy to get it We use the recollect app. We call it forward garbage and recycling app. That was very very helpful in Sending out service alerts and keeping our residents updated on scheduling and any any potential disruption So internal department coordination, right most of what I've been talking about is external Our external partners actually Interface with a lot of our internal departments besides solid waste is as well and and we encourage that So some of the biggest help we got was from our joint emergency operations center That's where all of the safety information and uh and guidance came from our safety team I want to give a special recognition to Julie raglan She started as the solid waste safety coordinator. I think a week and a half before covid so her immediate responsibility at a brand new job Was to organize responsibility of pandemic, right? So Talk about a difficult challenge, but she rose to to the occasion and has been a invaluable resource to us and and kept us all safe. So we were very happy to have her on board As I mentioned, we have an internal call center. They did over 86,000 calls for solid waste Sharon gamble runs that group. They immediately went remote To make sure that they were minimizing any exposure. It worked great. It was seamless. We had no interruption to Solid waste to our staff or more importantly to the residents community to get in touch with the city They continued to roll out my for work out which which also supports solid waste in other areas of the city Um Our administration hr and financial staff did the same thing We needed them to be in place and they they chose to go remote as well Ben Carson picked that up and uh shelly hollows for solid waste So again, they would help from it with fantastic. They were all able to go remote and we had no interruption the communications office, uh, which Is been a huge huge help and that's dianne cubby and lowland mccartney They this is what I was talking about before when we got information from the curb, right? What's happening at the curb? What's happening with uh collection times our ability to collect all that information was then Put in their hands for them to get that out to residents whether that was uh, city news other communications Um, social media all of these things it was a really a huge huge help Same thing with captain huckabee's grouping and community engagement and all of her team We provided them with information and they were the conduit to get that out to hoa the neighborhood organizations, right? The organizations where residents would say hey, what am I supposed to do right? Hopefully that was uh All that information was there at the hoa When they needed it all of our billing goes through the water department again huge Props to them. They were able to continue to operate. We had zero Billing interruptions, which is good for us, but it's it's critically important to the residents We understand that our residents had so many more things to worry about I mean the list goes on from child care to health the job Everything we didn't want to give them anything else to stress or worry about so we tried very hard and And coordinated internally and externally to to get that done So the reality check, right? And this is Internal and external the the human toll of operating during a pandemic So everybody was affected by that in in some way Approximately a third of our staff in solid waste in unicon had uh, kovat 19 Many staff had family and friends who had kovat we had exposures We had people out, you know and and that becomes your your focus is making sure that these these staff members of people their friends their family are Are getting any treatment and taking any precautions they need We had staff members unfortunately who lost family and friends to kovat 19 It was just an awful Situation all the way around same with our vendor partners. We would get reports from Nightways from waste management. Okay, who's in who's out how many drivers how many backup staff how many People in their their maintenance facility where we're in or out and One of the things that we really kid as hard here in solid waste is in december We actually lost a member of our our code solid waste team to kovat 19 so Out of respect for for him. I'd like to just pause here a moment and let everybody just kind of I guess reflect and acknowledge everybody in our entire industry all of our cities all country in in the world who is affected by that Getting kind of back into it We we took a hard look at our operational philosophy And really This to be successful in a pandemic it had to be about certain leadership at all levels And if you remember the three people I introduced at the beginning of the presentation Val and and see the jocelyn they absolutely Embodied this this was not about taking the credit This was about giving the credit and helping whenever and however possible. It didn't matter if it was somebody on my team It didn't matter if it was a external Contractor didn't matter if it was president Anybody who who needed help or needed everything everybody in code and through the city Provided whatever they could whenever they could so another benefit to Code is that the entire code compliance in especially solid waste the culture here is like a family They really really take care of one another A lot of people have been here for a long long time. They know each other personally and they That's what I think got a lot of people through is is that that level of care. So The other thing was we had to balance like I mentioned getting the job done not Acknowledging contractual obligations processes, but you know it Being flexible in those and you know A handshake deal and an agreement that said okay, we need to get a certain process Implemented in order to be successful and then we'll worry about Getting it on paper and formally agreed to a little bit later and a lot of that was The that first program that we we were able to implement in March I'll say again that solid waste out Just displayed an incredible Amount of bravery and pride and passion and commitment to their job has did everybody Waste management and night waste in republic and and toter Living earth everybody Did what they could we refer to that in in code compliance as an outward mindset that's uh putting the residents first exceptional customer service really wanting to Be successful in in helping again wherever you can and uh You know amazingly over the course of all of these months, you know people just seem to to find another year and be able to physically and mentally Be able to weather this you know for an extended period of time under a you know at times very adverse conditions so you know Our our staff is Daniel over there by his truck the team at night waste In the middle there. We've got all of our crew At waste management having our meetings outside getting ready to To roll out the day and in collect for our Our residents so keep people challenges that that we had to overcome and that we spent a lot of time talking to All of our partners and in other cities with staff the key from workloads, right? There's only so much people can do they've got other things to to worry about the stress from covid affecting their friends and family Um Overcoming complacency honestly from following so many safety guidelines for so long a period of time, right? Some of them just become second nature Some of them, you know, you actively have to remind people every day be vigilant vigilant vigilant And that's the only way it's going to work And then not only do You have to learn something new right something else is going to come along So you've got to adapt the new safety measures operational processes and procedures So uh a little bit of fun employee recognition. Um, I don't know if there's any hockey fans out there, but we had Jeff k from the dallas stars and uh his his Look on his face right here. It's pretty funny, but i'll i'll play you the video of what we did there And hopefully y'all can hear this Hey waste management team before word. It's jeff k public address announcer for your dallas stars On behalf of the entire city of fort worth. I just wanted to say you rock You're putting in a star performance every day all of fort worth appreciates you You're all frontline essential team members who score goals for our residents every day And the dallas stars salute you stay safe stay healthy and thanks again for all you do go stars And so we thought that was fun. We did a uh a burden to that for waste management for night waste We did it for our solid waste team. We did it for code compliance and it's it was just a A nice little little bump hopefully and uh a bit of of recognition at a hard time so The evolution of our response Operationally and contractually became at some point right a crisis begins to stabilize and you have to Get to a point that becomes the new normal and for us That was october 1st that coincided with our beginning of our new fiscal year, but it also Was about six months of operations which allowed us waste management at night Republic services everybody was used to What that new volume was so we we went ahead and tried to get back to Creating a that as as a new norm and then if anything changed we would Work on work on that So we also tracked data and reporting on a daily basis which then became weekly So what we were trying to do is we baselines an average of the last three to five years Depending on the category. We looked at 2020. We looked at the delta between them and then we tracked the they okay How far are we above and and When do we think that we're gonna if we were right plateau back to what we would consider a normal year or a normal year adjusted for for growth so we we actually came back to Normal what we would call normal in bulk probably in late october But one of the things that uh, I am most proud to put on the screen because there's There was so much work That went into it by countless people in countless hours is that we did not experience any meaningful delays in any service line collection from march 2020 to february 2020 and Peterman who's the executive director of swana had put out A quote that said a substantial number of cities are experiencing delays and waste collection as a result of COVID-19 pandemic so Again, we were very very happy to report that We did not I can tell you that our residents were We're sure happy as well. Did we make mistakes along the way? You know, did we get probably more missed pickups and have some hiccups? Absolutely we did But we tried very hard to rectify those issues as soon as we could We communicated with residents apologize profusely and and give the best we could So dedication and adherence to safety measures is really what allowed that to happen Because the ongoing availability of our staff and our equipment was paramount to success if we didn't have drivers that we didn't have people Doing data input Doing their job every day the the whole system wouldn't work so Funny thing happened along the way, right? We were doing so well managing a pandemic and So the insult the injury was snowmageddon The week of february 15th We actually for the first time in program history had no residential collection for a week There was a major snowstorm and believe it or not it got down to zero degrees here in Fort Worth I can attest to that. I lost our for three days. I burned every piece of firewood and anything that would burn Luckily the pipes didn't freeze. I can tell you my family was miserable and the dog Did not enjoy that at all. So Again, the only reason that we couldn't collect is that we physically our partners couldn't drive on the street. So finally The nature found a way to to have us have a service interruption So with that, uh, I will just thank everybody for taking part in the music conference it's been a pleasure and a privilege to present today and uh for the city of Fort Worth to host this conference and uh, I'm looking forward to the other Events and I didn't think this one up myself. I listen to mpr and weather hosts has a great closing I think I'll I'll leave it at you know Please take care of yourself make you can take care of somebody else Thank you very much Hey, everyone. Um, I hope you enjoyed hearing from chris. I really wish he had been here Such a he's such a nice guy and he's a great asset to our city and I just love how we ended his presentation about Taking care of yourself and if you can you know, I'm taking care of somebody else as well Um, as I mentioned at the beginning if you do have any questions for chris I know he'd love to hear from you guys You can also email his co-worker vow her email address is at the top of the chat And if you want to leave any questions for chris and vow you can put them in the question tab Just include your contact information and I will be sure to Send it all in to them and I know that they'll be um excited to respond and hear from you guys as well Um, I also believe at the bottom of your screen. You should have chris's um picture there and I believe you can click on his um His picture and then you can access his email address as well So if you guys have any questions feel free to leave them there Um, and if not, I'm going to go ahead and say goodbye. Say, um, have a wonderful evening And hopefully you guys will join us for and one of our amazing neighborhood tours Um, they're going to start at 5 p.m. Um pick one out that sounds interesting But don't forget that you will be able to see all of them On demand. Um, I believe you can see most of them right now, which is kind of cool, but Um, by monday, you will be able to access all of the workshop sessions that you weren't able to attend and all of the other awards programs and also the neighborhood tours Um on monday, so thank you guys again for joining us for the new news conference. It's been So fun. I'm hosting it. Um, hopefully I'll see you this evening at one of our neighborhood tours And in the morning as we celebrate some more amazing neighborhoods and neighborhood programs at the awards