 Communities all have requirements about building a house so that the lowest floor of the house is above the height of the flood. So that if a flood occurs, the house really isn't damaged. But every one of those houses is built in compliance with this floodplain management of the community. We'll have a fuel tank sitting on the ground that will probably float away. Heating oil is used nationwide. Primarily in New England, in the mid-Atlantic states, most of these tanks sit outside their homes and they sit on the ground. And the only things that hold those tanks to the ground is gravity. First night at about four o'clock in the morning when it got the highest, everything went. Rising water is going to act on those tanks and make them buoyant. They will float. And when they float, what happens? Well, they're not going to be at the side of the house anymore. They're going to float into the yard, they're going to float next door, they're going to float downstream. You're going to lose all the oil that you put in those tanks, which today for a heating oil tank that's like around 285 gallon tank, you're looking at around $500 to fill one of those tanks. That's a lot of oil value to lose. Then I started sucking the oil out, but I had no place to put it. I mean, it takes a very expensive cleanup to remove the oil and then more importantly, remove the odor. Damage is everywhere. His house is about to destroy. My oil tank fell away. The water was up to the window, to that air conditioner, the water was up to the window. They said once it's wet, that's the end of it. Isabel taught us that when in fact we do get floods, these tanks will upset and will cause an environmental disaster. We estimated at the beginning of the operation that there were approximately 2,000 tanks that were going to need to be pumped. We have an oil spill from these upset oil tanks that we're paying out about $15 million to clean up now. The idea is that we don't want this to happen again. We want this to be mitigated by anchoring these tanks. Mitigation is actions taken to try and reduce or eliminate damages from future disaster events. In new homes that are built or new businesses, the flooding program says that you have to anchor any tanks. However, the guidance on how these tanks have to be anchored has been very skimpy. All this can be avoided by strapping the tanks down and ensuring that the flood water doesn't get in the tank and the oil doesn't get out of the tank. Let's talk about propane because propane gas is used much more nationwide. A lot of the folks that heat with oil will cook with propane. Propane tanks, when they float away in a flood, they many times will clog up at bridges. We can have literally dozens of propane tanks that are all banging together clogged up against the bridge. Even if that roadway is not submerged, that roadway will be out of service. I can guarantee you emergency management staff and the police will have closed that bridge because of the risk of fire and explosion. So you have a considerable public safety issue with propane tanks. Propane tanks are pressurized tanks and you're not going to worry about the propane leaking out of those. With a propane tank just anchored the tank to the ground so it doesn't move. Now heated oil tanks is a whole different situation because they're not pressurized tanks. You have to put a fill cap on the top of that tank that will not allow flood water into the tank, will not allow oil out of the tank. And that means a screw on tight fit gasketed fill cap. Most of the older tanks have a flip top fill cap which is very easy for the oil supply company to come flip it open and fill the tank. So when the tank floats turns over, flip top cap flips open and all your oil runs out. It's probably going to go inside your house and when the water goes down it's going to be in your yard and all over your house and your cars. And if you use a well it can very likely be contaminated by oil percolating down into the soil. So simple measures can be taken and the way you do that is to anchor the tank so it doesn't float. If you have a flood, basically we're talking about homes that are located in areas that risk flooding. If you don't have enough anchoring strength to hold down an empty tank fully submerged it isn't going to work. There's lots of different ways you can anchor tanks but the thing is a lot of the ways are very expensive. We are here today to suggest a very inexpensive though very effective way to anchor fuel tanks so that they will not float. And the way you do that is to use ground anchored. Now they can be anchored directly to the ground by using the same type of ground anchors that are used nationwide to anchor manufactured homes, mobile homes. The engineered system to anchor manufactured homes works just as well on holding down fuel tanks being your propane tank or your heating oil tank. It's a very simple system. It requires just two straps going over the top of the tank and two anchors on each side so that you have a total of four anchors and two straps holding down your fuel tanks. And if you do that and if you use the right length anchor the tank will not float. So the three things that you have to do to make sure that you have a what I'll call a flood proofed tank is you have to anchor the tank. You have to extend the height of the vent pipe above the height of expected flooding in your area. And you have to take the fill cap and change it so that you have a tight fit gasketed screw on cap that won't leak. What you need is to access the same people that and the suppliers that provide for mobile home tie down. And you can use those products to tie down fuel tanks. It's very, very easy to do. The Environmental Protection Agency has said that one gallon of oil can contaminate a million gallons of water. In other words it takes a very, very little amount of oil to do a considerable amount of damage. The cost of cleaning up the oil contamination is huge. The cost of just replacing the oil is a significant cost at the time you've also got flood damage. Why face additional unnecessary losses and contamination if it can be avoided by anchoring tanks? Anchoring tanks is a good idea for you, the property owner. It's a good idea for the environment. It's a good idea for your neighbors. It's a good idea and it's inexpensive. Homes that have heating oil tanks or propane tanks that are located in low-lying areas may be flood-prone. Now this could be along rivers, it can be along coastal areas, it can be along bays. But if you're in a low-lying area, it's important to anchor the tanks. Because it's possible that you could have rising water, you could have tidal surges that could float the tanks off the ground. Most tanks are not normally tied down. The simplest way to tie down tanks is to use ground anchor. Ground anchors have been used for many years to tie down mobile homes. They are metal rods that screw into the ground. They have an auger head on them and you use a machine that screws them into the ground. Now before you start anchoring tanks, the first thing you want to do is you want to check with your local utilities and make sure there are no buried utility lines. I'm talking about water lines, natural gas lines, electric lines, sewer lines, telephone lines. It could even be a sprinkler system at the home. You want to make sure that you're not going to try and auger a four-foot-long ground anchor into anything but dirt. The best way to install ground anchors on fuel tanks is you install two anchors on each side of the tank. When they're in the ground, four feet, they have a pull-out strength of around 5,000 pounds. So these anchors are very strong. Ground anchors are installed with a specialized machine. This machine is used by people that install anchors for mobile homes. Now once the ground anchors are installed, two on each side of the tank, you merely run the straps over the top of the tank. And there's a slotted bolt on each one of these ground anchors' heads. The strap goes through and then you just literally wind it up and tighten it. And then you lock those bolts in place and the tank's anchored. It's just that simple. Now we recommend that you use galvanized anchors and we recommend that you use stainless steel strap. It would be a good idea to put some kind of rubber sheathing on the straps. The tanks are painted and you do not want to damage the paint, which is a protective finish on the tanks. Tie-down systems will last as long as the tanks they're holding down. Propane tanks, which are the horizontal tanks, have four anchors, ground anchors, and they have two straps going over the top. The vertical propane cylinders have a harness that goes around the top of the vertical propane cylinder and they attach to a ground anchor on each side of the cylinder. Heating oil tanks are not pressurized. They have a vent pipe and they have a fill cap. Both of these are places where water can get into the tank, so you want to extend the height of the vent pipe. Now how high do you extend that vent pipe? You'll have to talk to your local floodplain manager at your local community. They will give you an idea how high you may expect flood water to rise at the location of the tank, which means that you'll know if is it going to be a foot above the tank or is it going to be four feet above the tank. Once you determine that flood height, you want to extend your vent at least one foot higher than that level. The oil fill cap is another problem area on a heating oil tank. Make sure that the oil fill cap is a screw-on cap that has a gasket so that if flood water rises above the height of the cap, that water will not get into the tank and oil will not get out of the tank. In summary, the three things we do to a heating oil tank is we anchor the tank to the ground so it will not float. We extend the height of the vent pipe so flood water will not get in and we use a sealing fill cap so that no flood water will get in and no oil will get out. What we have now is a tank that's flood-proofed. You will not cause pollution at the location of your home and your neighborhood. It's a good thing to do.