 Welcome on a cool night and thank you for joining us this evening. A couple of things I think most of you are aware that there was some youth that were involved in a shooting earlier this morning, not in our district I think district two I think where there were some six middle school children. District four. District four, thank you, six, two unfortunately passed away due to the shootings for our in the hospital one is critical so before we open I'd just like to take a few just a minute just have some silence as we you know continue to come together in this participation to try to work with our police officers to help reduce the shootings but unfortunately you know now it's middle age middle school children who are involved so just have a moment of silence to remember the six victims and their and their families. So thank you. Well this evening, we'll go through our normal committee members will be presenting, but we also have a guest speaker Elaine towner with the fire department she's going to be talking about home safety during the winter season and so we'll go through our, our departmental presentations and then at the end of that Elaine will go through her presentation so Elaine thank you so much for coming on this evening and we look forward to the presentation that you have for us. Thank you for inviting me. Yeah, you're very welcome. And so with that I'm going to turn it over to Rebecca and she's going to take us through the remaining part of our meeting back up. Thank you Brian and I also like to say happy holidays everyone and also to. We just have to continue to keep the great city of Durham, you know in our prayers with the sadness of the youth. I just wanted to share you know just my heartfelt feelings when you hear something young people, unfortunately involved in, in tragedies like that but it's good to see everyone. So we'll start with our monthly department presentations with our police department we have commander Robert Gatti here, and he will share with us. What's going on in district to it's yours. Thank you, thank you. Good evening to everyone and always for being here and taking the time out to try to make a difference. This should. We've only, we had a homicide. As a matter of fact, I told Nick, I got on the last time we were here, Nick was bragging and said he put it in here that we didn't have any homicide. Probably the day after he said that's when we had one so he jinxes, but we've had one homicide and that was at 2309 lead them straight that was on 1113 2021. So far this year today, we've had seven in the district. We did see a decrease in robberies there were nine robberies in November versus 14 from October. And then you know as always we really want to remind you not just just be aware of your surroundings when you're out shopping. You know if you're buying bunches of things bags and all that, make sure that you can put them away in your car out of sight out of mind. If you're ordering packages we've seen some package steps. And, you know, just if you can, there's a place you can send them when they don't sit on your porch, they get home from work that would be great. Or if you can, you know, a neighbor's house or something like that somebody that you know to be home. That's one of the suggestions we would make just to prevent people from coming in and trying to take your items that you've ordered for Christmas. We've seen a decrease aggravated assault. We had 16 incidents versus 19. In the previous month, 16 incidents where we actually had 19 victims in the 19 incidents we had 19 instances with 26 victims, but this means to say there's a decrease. Burglaries have decreased as well, 36 in November versus 43 in October. And all our larcenies have decreased significantly. We were had we only had 174 versus 221 larcenies in October. And so the of the larcenies that we had of the 174 82 were from motor vehicles. And so about 75% of those vehicles will unlock at the time. And they're again just remember, don't leave variables in the car. If you have a nice laptop, take it in. Bring it to your house, take it in the house with you, particularly folks that like to leave weapons and cars. A lot of times these folks are breaking into cars looking for guns or whatnot. And so they will break any car steal the gun and unfortunately that's another weapon out in the street. And so just be mindful of that. We are looking at several different operations aimed at quality of life throughout the district. I think that you all have seen the increase. If you hadn't noticed it, of the homeless population on Hillsborough Road, guest road, no point drive area. We're working with our CIT crisis intervention unit to provide different types of relief or shelter for these folks and try to get them out of the situation that they're in. And I think one or two people that have actually entered into the program, and I would also back it and so it's just a good opportunity for them to get a new lease from life and started in a whole new direction so we will continue to do that. As I talked about package deliveries, and as I caution you all what to do, we're also doing some things for you. We have officers and Mark and on Mark vehicles in your residential areas. We have a local vehicle. You definitely call 911, but it could be my officers out there just doing surveillance, trying to catch somebody and act or some packages and so we'll hopefully kept some of these folks that are doing that. In terms of if you have any specific quality life issues that you want to have addressed please reach out to Lieutenant Cloninger or myself. We can be emailed. Here's Nicholas.cloninger and what I'll do I'll put that in the chat and I'll put mine in there as well. That way if you have any quality life issues that you want to look at want us to address we're happy to do that. In terms of directed patrols. We conducted 2,135 directed patrols during the month of November which is a lot. And of course, you know, you will always see the increase because of Christmas holidays and so that's kind of what's going on in district two. I think, you know, it's an unfortunate incident that happened in district four and my heart goes out to the families as well as it relates to that and we'll just keep everybody in and then grow some prayers. And so I'm looking through the questions. Yeah, I guess with the incident people are concerned if there's any specific things that you're doing, you know, with the violence and the shooting that you normally just don't do just to keep us safe. And part of what I will tell you, and I see friend Captain Webster and Captain Whitaker both up here. We've done a lot of work with Sheriff's Department to do joint operations as well as our own staff as much as we can between calls for service, unfortunately due to our staffing issues and our patrol section particularly, we have not have the opportunity to get out there and do a lot of work with it. But if we notice things that are going on, I've referred stuff to my gang union. And they've been very vigilant. We've had some issues out in Briar Rose. We're in downtown which is either in a swan's meal and all that. And so I know that they've been very active in that area as well as Old Oxford Manor. And so as we see areas, we get information that things are picking up, we're definitely sending that information out there. And it says all the shootings gang related, some of them are and honestly, I would hate to tell you that they're all gang related, because I don't work that area. And so what I can do, I'm happy to have one of the SOD commanders join us on the next pack meeting if we need to get some of those questions answered about gangs. Somebody also was asking about is the homeless take kind of related to, you know, people being released from hotels on certain areas of town. I don't know. I think it's definitely a more of a COVID issue, not just so much hotels but just in general, people not working or not receiving the assistance that they once received. And so I think that that's where you see a lot of uptick in it from. And I've dealt with people here recently from other areas like Charlotte from across the different state Asheville that we've ran across talking to them as they're out there panning. And so this I think is more than just the hotels is is greater spreading than just that. I also have a question. What, what is the staffing number that is normal for district two. And what's the shortage. And so, you know, we tip on the regular here recently probably been running about 57 to 60% 62% staffing. And so it just, it varies, you know, it could this could be a number of things if another district is short, then they may pull staffing from district to supplement that or if I have people that call out sick or family emergencies and so it kind of fluctuates, but on average we're probably running on 57 to 62% staffing, but just my staff, but now there's also supplemental control that comes in. And also, we have a slide unit that comes in that boasts that 62% up to 70, I think it's high 77% so 62 that that number I gave you is just what my staff is the vacancies I have. Thank you. I have a question. Captain Gatti has to do with, you know, you hear on the news, you know, over and over and over that, you know, Durham doesn't have enough police officers blah blah blah blah blah blah. But I also know or at least I've been told that our police department does not get paid as the surrounding counties or cities do. I'm a police chief, and I know the previous police chief was very active in trying to raise the salaries for our police officers. And now that city council has been voted in that stun so that's not going to change. What is it that we as citizens can do to help support the increase in wages so that people want to be police officers in Durham as opposed to driving 10 miles someplace else where they can make more money which I don't I don't blame them for that so I just, I would like to support the idea of raising wages for the police officer especially since city council gave themselves a price increase, their own cost increase of $10,000. So I would like to, I would like to know how we can help make that change and make it happen as quickly as possible. Well, and what I would tell you, just just first of all, professionally, I think we, every agency across America has experienced the same thing with the ability to get people to apply for the job and become police officers. So, you know, it's a, it's not just a, a pain thing per se. However, that does pay into play into it. And so what I will tell you that I know for a fact is that the city manager, they've done a workplace study, and so hopefully they'll be presenting some numbers to the city council that shows where we are in relation to other cities. I think that, you know, if anything, if you, the biggest thing is to urge your, you know, your ward representative or your even, even, even, even the mayor and people like that, that, you know, as citizens urge them to this is important as it all just get paid, and we don't lose them to that. So if you want to help us, that is usually the biggest thing I will tell you is just talk to your representatives and the people that we as community members have elected to represent us and make sure that they're holding our best interest at heart. When it comes to things like public safety when it comes to any type of thing that affects the community as a whole. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Any other questions. If you don't, if we don't have anything right. Let me see, do we have anything left in the. I guess people were talking about. What is it. Previous shootings I guess we've sort of addressed it I mean, if you have anything specific that you want to address we're going to continue on with our department of briefings. But Captain Gatti will be here with us. And so he is going and ready to answer any questions, but please just get specific in the chat so we'll know exactly what you're talking about. And we'll make sure that he gets those. At the end of the presentations or during the presentation. All right, let's go to our sheriff's department. And I see we have Captain Whitaker, do we have Captain Webster here. Yes. Yes, Captain Webster I see you. Captain Webster. What's going on with the sheriff's department. Let us know. I'm going to turn that over to Captain Whitaker tonight. Captain Whitaker, let us know. Right. How's everybody doing this evening. Everybody's doing well. Everybody had a great Thanksgiving and happy holidays. For the month of November, the sheriff's office patrol division responded to 2393 calls for service. Our residential break-ins outside the city limits of Durham did drop with only 15 break-ins in November. However, there were 46 break-ins to motor vehicles, which is slightly higher than the previous month. On five of those break-ins, the type of motor vehicles, fire arms were stolen. We seized 28 firearms in November, which puts us at 185 seized guns so far this year and recovered two stolen firearms last month. And 29 stolen guns have been recovered year-to-date. 61 traffic accidents were investigated where 32 were property damage only and 29 did result in injuries. We conducted 592 directed patrols. 421 were property related and 171 were directed patrols for traffic. A total of 490 traffic stops were conducted, of which 80% of those were speeding violations. The first division received 114 ritz of possession, which is residential padlocks from landlords and apartment companies. Out of those 114 padlocks, unfortunately, only 13 were returned to the renters being able to pay their balance or working out something with their landlords. The last four, I'm sorry, 101 padlocks were actually conducted in November. And lastly, there were five incidents where people suffering from some kind of cognitive impairment or mental illness were located after being lost or wandering off. All five of those citizens were a part of our what we call a project life-saving program. For those that are not familiar with our program, it's a free service we provide that saves lives and reduces potential injuries by quickly locating adults and children who will wonder due to automers, autism, dementia, or any other related conditions. There were a small personal transmitter around either their wrists or their ankles, and it emits this tracking signal. If the client goes missing, the caregiver notifies us, the sheriff's office, and we have a trained search team that will go and respond to the missing persons to their last known area. The average project life-saving clients are located within 30 minutes or so. And that is it from the sheriff's office, although Captain Webster has anything else that he wants to share. I just have one other thing. We did a Captain Gaddy, I'm going to stay your thunder here just a little bit. This past Saturday, Captain Gaddy spearheaded a FOP cops and kids event at the target at the old South Square Mall, where he had pulled together a lot of law enforcement officers to go shopping with kids who are in need. And that made a lot of children's Christmas and the faces and just the kids themselves had a wonderful time, but I want to publicly thank Captain Gaddy for doing that and putting that event together. Well, thank you Captain Webster for highlighting our commander out here in district two. We always feel like we have, you know, between the police department and sheriff's department. We're very fortunate. So I'm not surprised you did it. And everyone was involved. So that's a wonderful thing. Congratulations Captain Gaddy. Well, you're welcome for sure. We're going to continue on. And like I said, make sure that if you have something specific put in the chat and me and Brian will be, do you have something there. Yeah, there is a Nancy. I'm sorry. That's okay. Yeah, she just said that she read the sheriff's department was awarded a grant called the NC governor's highway safety program how does that assist the sheriff's office in our county. We're going to see another kudos to district two out here the sheriff's and in tandem with our wonderful police department. So, you know, we just got to, you know, tip our hats to the brave law enforcement out here in district two so kudos to y'all and congratulations once again. We're going to continue on with parks and recreation, and we have calling tumor to me is where it's calling. She's here, but my reception is not working well. Give me a thumbs up if you can hear me okay. We can hear you calling so that's good. Okay. All right, so I'm sorry, can't see my shining face. Anyhow, I'm glad to see everybody out here we have a good group tonight that's encouraging. All right, so quick we have a holiday parade is coming up this Saturday everybody prayers it's supposed to be 73 and rain right now so we all have to pray that there's no rain the 73 would be wonderful, but you know, rain, no rain, even better. 11am straight down Main Street starts at the health department and heads all the way down along the route there so seating will not be provided so inspectors are encouraged to bring your own chairs and blankets. The masks are optional outside our parade Marshall will be our new mayor Elaine O'Neill, and then the parade emcee this time is the WRAL evening anchor Lena till it. So, if anybody is going to be in the parade. Thank you. And I know that our Durham police and sheriff county sheriffs will will be there. But we are looking forward to reinstating our parade once again. We're going to be going into the new year. Exciting news that the WD Hill Recreation Center, located on Fayetteville street is has a new look for the new year if you haven't been by there. And you'll see that facility renovated both inside and out. And there's going to be a special day on Saturday, January 8 from two to five recognizing Martin Luther King day and an official reopening official ribbon cutting ceremony. We're also going to be at a room dedicated to the Algonquin tennis club this club was originally way back when was the original part of the original founders there at WD Hill so we've got that news the Weaver Street Recreation Center has had a facelift and that grand reopening celebration will be Wednesday January 19. We don't have any residents or friends in the Weaver Street area. You could plan to attend that. We have the Dean Durham senior games are coming back again registration opens Monday, February 1 with the kickoff opening ceremony in April. So we'll continue to talk about that. We have new engagements coming up for the community after the first of the year. If you haven't been out to the Hoover Road, new park property. That's exciting to see all the new fields we have a new playground going in up there. And across the street at wheels we will begin to have some listening sessions for the community so watch for announcements if you are interested in providing feedback on the wheels property. Any questions, comments. All right, well thank you Colleen for that wonderful information and the parade. I'm going to try to get down there I think I hope it doesn't rain. We're going to continue on our departmental presentation. And we have the health department is. Good to see you all on. I didn't see Brian. Did you see you? Yeah, she is. Good to see you. Happy holidays. Happy holidays. Good to see you all too. And Aliyah is going to is joining me today. She's going to go ahead and she's going to go ahead and take over with a with the announcements. Thank you so much. All right, go right ahead. No problem. Do I have the ability to show my screen. Yes, Alexis can. Fingers crossed it's been a technology day for me so. Oh wait I don't have the rights. I thought you did. Do I have it now. No, it's still not available can someone give me screen sharing capabilities please. I'm going to give you guys a quick update about the on the con variant and then just some health department updates on with our new vaccine schedule. Okay. Alexis, having screen problems and unfortunately she's the host. I'm here give me one second. Okay. The whole screen just went black. I'm sorry it must be contagious. It's a Monday in December. Okay, go ahead and try now. Okay. Good. And even just let me know. It's good. We can see your notes. Okay. There we go. So hello everyone. My name is Aliyah Brown and I am here with Yvonne Ressa. And even feel free to jump in because I can't see any of our notes. Feel free to jump in whenever you can. Okay. Okay. What we know about the virus. So how easily does I'm going to spread and even if you can share a little bit of information about this. Let me go ahead and pull it up. All right, so just are you guys able to hear me. Yes. So as far as the Omicron what we know how easily does it spread so the Omicron variant likely will spread more easily than the original stars. COVID to virus and, and how easily Omicron spreads compared to Delta remains unknown. The CDC is expected, expects that anyone with Omicron infection can spread the virus to others, even if they are vaccinated or don't have symptoms. So it causes a severe illness. More data is needed to know what the know if the Omicron infections and especially re-infections and breakthrough infections and people who are fully vaccinated cause more severe illness or death and infection with other variants. So everything is still very new. So they're still trying to go ahead and get all that information. So basically there's not too many cases. So they're trying to nip it in the bud, but it is spreading. Will vaccines work against the Omicron current vaccines are expected to protect against severe illness hospital hospitalizations and deaths due to infection with the Omicron variant. However, like, like with the other variants breakthrough infections and people who are fully vaccinated are still likely to occur with the other variants like the Delta vaccines have remained the best effective and preventive measure for severe illness and hospitalizations and death. The Omicron further emphasizes the important vaccinations. So the rest of the information Leo will go ahead and cover as far as our hours and all that stuff. And the variant has boundaries way to North Carolina. It is not in Durham County as of yet, but the one confirmed case that's in the state is in Mecklenburg County. So update from the Health Department from us. So we have Pfizer booster vaccinations are available for our youth age 16 and 17 beginning today at the Health Department. Misconceptions. If you've already had COVID-19, you can pass it along to others you can be reinfected do need to be tested. So continue to wear your mask. And of course continue to promote vaccinations to others because that is the number one recommended precautions against COVID-19, as well as the additional variants. So which vaccines are available here at the Health Department. We currently offer all brands and doses of the COVID-19 vaccine so you can get your first second and all boosters. All vaccines are free for people five and older with no appointment or ID needed. And so our vaccination clinic hours are Monday, Wednesdays and Thursdays from nine to four, Tuesdays from nine to six, and we are closed for lunch. So be mindful of that when making your plans. So a recent update to our vaccination clinic hours is that we will be offering Friday clinic this week and next week. So it will be this week I'm sorry so last week we had it on the 10th and then this Friday we will have it from nine to 430 and that's all doses and brands. And so you can walk in or make an appointment so you can call 5609217. With holidays coming up we also have some tips for a healthy holiday season so of course I know we're going to beat this down but get vaccinated or get a booster if you're eligible. Follow all your local and state guidelines, your social distancing, take precautions indoors, choose outdoor spaces when possible I know it's cold. And oddly some kind of, we have warm times as well too so just make some conscious decisions and stay at home if you're feeling sick. If you are in need of transportation to some of the vaccine sites around town you can call go down at 5601552 but just make sure you're calling them at least 24 hours in advance. And for those who vaccine cards getting a little flimsy or you probably lost it you can call the COVID-19 vaccine health center at 8886754567 Monday through Friday and on the weekends to receive a replacement. And also they can guide you whenever you went through any retail locations like CVS Walgreens and things like that can give you information on how to receive your information from them as well. So we still have COVID testing and that's free available for anyone regardless of the insurance documentations. You can go through here and register for a test or you can also call to get on your COVID testing scheduled as well and so these are some of the testing sites. So we have one through central Espano some of the local housing authorities as well. So if you need this information please reach out to us and of course if you need transportation to this they do offer that as well. So here are some of the links to join some of the email listings. And we send out an update every week, even though I know information comes out so fast but we try to make sure the information is up to date, and you can also access information from our COVID-19 data hub as well. And that's all for us. No, it really wasn't it was wonderful, because it's always good to be reminded we really do appreciate it because we always were asking this resident, you know, continue to give us this information because you know we're still in it. Yeah, we appreciate it. Absolutely. All right, we'll keep us updated is anything else we have any questions for the health department once again. Put them in the chat and me and Brian will make sure that we'll get them to there is there is somebody there is there is one Colleen asked what's the average walk in wait for a booster. You know what the average walk wait time is for the booster if you were just walking. I haven't seen any lines at all. Colleen at all. To be honest. It's everybody's going in as soon as they go and check in not even at the check in booth. They're going in right away. So it's still, it's still doing pretty good the first week that we started with the boosters there was quite a bit. And we're still we're seeing a frequent flow of people, but no lines have have yet to be seen yet. So, and it's important to go ahead and emphasize on for the 16 and 17 year old. Keep in mind that those boosters are just Pfizer. With the adults they did go ahead and say that once you got the booster if you decide to go ahead and get any other now that all of them are available you can go ahead and get it. And with the with the teenagers only the Pfizer up until now has been authorized. And really quick about the way. Although you don't need any appointments to come in. If you're worried about the wait time I haven't seen too much of a wait but you can always call and see this prior to you coming but honestly so far I'm seeing the longest time being actually getting into the building. Yeah, going through the screening process. Perfect. Thank you so much. Well I'll tell you what that was wonderful I thank you ladies for that information. We're going to continue on in is has just room just really supportive of district to Ms. Spana is not here this evening but we are just really fortunate to have Alexis john if there's from in Is if there's any information she'd like to share. I'm going to give the floor to her. Hello, Ms john. Rebecca and I will be really quick. I know we're getting close on time. I do want to thank everyone who came to the community conversations last month. We had over 100 folks tune in and definitely more on the YouTube and the Facebook page if you didn't see that it is available on both of those. So you can definitely go to community engagement team on Facebook and view it there. But that's only the beginning. We definitely had a good conversation there folks were able to ask questions. We received information from the community resource unit the community engagement unit and victim services, the 911 center. And there are words from Chief Andrews and Sheriff Burke head, but definitely this is the space to continue those conversations and put actions to those conversations. It's one thing to come and meet and have our questions answered but it's a whole another thing to actually put strategy to it and see where we can support. I just want to say thank you to Miss Nancy Nipkins for asking the question how do we support you, like what can we do to support you and that's so important when we're asking our questions is we're asking them so that we can then take action after the conversation is given so I just want to say thank you for that. And so as we go into the new year. Hopefully when we come to the next meeting we can continue the conversation that started with that community conversation and see what we can do as a pack. So we can actually put action to our words. And thank you. That's it. Thank you so much, Alexis. Alexis to for reminding us how it all we all really are working for together for the greater good of, of Durham. So we do have a speaker this evening we're very fortunate to have Elaine towner here from the Durham fire department and since you know we're doing these holidays and people are, you know candles and lights and then we just wanted to give something just a reminder to everyone how important it is to just be safe. So I'm going to put the floor to you Miss towner and thank you for being here. Well thank you very much Rebecca for the invitation and I've enjoyed hearing what your pack group and all the department members had to say. I really thank you for the invitation it we are always looking for communities and people in the community that want to know how to keep themselves safer keep their friends family their homes safer. And that's what the fire department is all about where we're always trying to figure out how to get the word out so this is a wonderful opportunity. I am a captain with the Durham fire department, I've been with the fire department for 27 years, and the last two and a half have been in community education. I've been on business on the meeting I've gotten to work with her and a lot of different avenues and it's always great to be out in the community, even virtually. So, the thing that I want to tell everybody and talk to everybody about tonight, we're going to kind of start with a picture that I sent out and I think Brian was going to share. A picture of that says shoes. So if you can show that Alexis I cannot this is host disabled participant screen sharing. Go ahead and try it again. Okay. Yeah, I sent this stuff out. I wasn't sure who was going to be a problem. Let me know which one you're talking about just give me just a second. It was an attachment just that it's just a steal. Right. So, when Brian gets this up. This is a board that our fire chief out in Bahama put together to use in different venues around the state it's been to the state fair. It's been in a couple of different places. And it's just to kind of show people what the fire deaths in North Carolina look like this year. So that board right there has 81 pairs of shoes on it. I took that picture a couple of months ago. There are now 110 pairs of shoes on that board, and each pair of shoes is representative of someone who died in a house fire in North Carolina this year. So we felt like that that was a very impactful way, because the they tried to get the shoes to be representative of the people. You can see the little tiny ones up there at the top there. We lost some children in these fires, the I believe the shoes that belong to the oldest person on there it was a gentleman who was in his early 90s. So you can see from the shoes on that board that fire can affect everyone and it affects everyone across our state. One of the most important things that you can do for your family and your friends for yourself for your own protection is to make sure that you have a working smoke alarm in your home. 47% of those shoes would not be on that board. If those homes had had a smoke alarm or had had a work a properly working smoke alarm in their home. So that really is the major number one message that we would like for everyone to take with them this holiday season when they're in groups when they're meeting with their families when they're visiting elderly relatives people that might not need to be climbing up on ladders to change batteries I mean that could be the best holiday gift that you could give someone is to make sure that they have a working smoke alarm in their home. We out of five deaths in homes in house fires are in homes that don't have a smoke alarm or don't have a properly working smoke alarm. The theme this year was to make sure you know what kind of sounds that your smoke alarm is supposed to make. So we all have experienced the battery beep on our smoke alarms I'm sure most of the time if they're going the battery is going to go bad. It's going to be three o'clock in the morning and it's going to wake you up for absolutely no reason. So that's just that little chirp sound that is very very annoying. That's why we encourage people to get into the habit of changing your batteries regularly. A lot of our homes nowadays have smoke alarms that are wired into our electrical system, but they're going to have a battery backup and that's so that if the power goes out, you're going to be able to still have that protection from the smoke alarm. So just make sure that you get into a habit of changing your battery, whether you have the hardwired kind of smoke alarms or whether you have ones that work strictly on a battery, just make sure you change them once a year. We used to say every time that you change your clocks, but a lot of the batteries and that we are using now are a little bit more effective than some of the older ones so you'd be in good shape if you make sure that you changed them once a year. The smoke alarms have a life, a life expectancy, and that's one thing that a lot of people don't realize they think as long as it's going to make noise that that means it's working effectively. It is not because those little sensors that are in our smoke alarms and our carbon monoxide alarms too are constantly testing the air and looking for the danger in your home. So they get old and they get to where they're not as effective. So you've got about a 10 year lifespan on smoke alarms and around a seven year lifespan on carbon monoxide alarms. So think about that the next time that you change your batteries and see if you can look find that manufacturer date on your smoke alarm on your CO alarm and replace it if it's within those times. We encourage people, even if your smoke alarm goes off inadvertently and because you burn the toast or somebody's doing a little bit of holiday cooking when they, when they weren't paying too much attention to what's going on. Use a kitchen rag, wave it, don't take the smoke alarm down because sometimes you may forget to put it back up. And that's where the circumstances come in sometime where they had a smoke alarm in their home but it wasn't where it needed to be. Some of the causes of these house fires, you probably guess what the number one is is cooking mess. That's one of the number one causes of house fires is unattended cooking. It's not that they were a bad cook or that they didn't, they didn't know what they were doing with the cooking is just that they walked away and left their stove unattended. In some of the classes that we do and the groups that we, we meet with, we try to encourage people to never walk away while there's something on the stove turn the stove off. But if you absolutely have to leave, take something with you from the kitchen take a hot pad take a wooden spoon take a spatula take something that when you see it in your hand. You're going to remember to go back to the kitchen and check and see what you have on the stove. I can't remember from one end of my house to the next while I left one room and went to the other so having that item in your, in your hand is going to be a good memory jogger for you. So improperly discarded smoking materials. I know people don't smoke as much as they used to. And a lot of people won't smoke in their homes which is good, but they may go out on their deck, they may go on a porch, and they don't dispose of their smoking materials in a bucket, or in a, in a pale water or something like that. And then the next thing you know the side of their house is on fire. We've had a couple of recent fires either in a garage or on a person's back porch, because of improperly disposed of smoking materials. So if you do smoke, or you have friends and family that smoke, especially when they're coming over for the holidays, make sure you've got a little bucket has some sand or something like that in it so or a bucket with some water in it, so that when they're done they can drop their, their cigarette butts or if they're having a holiday cigar on the back deck or something they can put it in a bucket of water or in a bucket of sand. The other thing that we see this time of year when people are using their fireplaces they're using their wood stoves and that's wonderful it's all nice and cozy. Then they get ready to clean those, those wood stoves and those fireplaces out. It takes a lot longer for that ash to become completely cool than you would think we've had people that have shoveled that ash out of their wood stove or their fireplace, and put it in one of those handy dandy Amazon cardboard boxes that everybody's having piled up on their front porches now. And they set it outside they set it on their porch they set it on their back deck because it was, it was cool enough to shovel. And the next thing you know it's gotten a little bit of air to it, and that cardboard box is on fire and the siding on their house is on fire or their deck is on fire. So, put that ash, if you have to put it in a cardboard box, then wet it down and keep it away from the side of your house. The best thing to have is a metal bucket to scoop everything out in, even if you're two or three days away from whenever you had your last fire. Put it in a metal bucket, fill that bucket up with water and let it sit overnight. And that way you're going to make sure that when you do spread that out that you don't set your yard on fire you don't set your your porch on fire. The having a bunch of people come and be with us in the holidays it's all fun but it's also sometimes a lot of confusion. So just what a yardstick looks like that three foot distance for the yardstick is just it's a distance to keep in mind that's the safe distance for keeping children and pets and anything that's combustible away from things like your stove and away from space heaters and away from fireplaces and away from wood stoves. So just kind of keep that in your mind. When your house starts to fill up with all the family and friends that you have over for the holidays, and make sure you can put a little distance between your guests and the anything that might be combustible. So just one if you will, if we have time, if you will show that video, that's the legacy. One of the reasons that smoke alarms are so important nowadays is because we have legacy homes which are older. We have heavy timber, all wood construction. So we have those anything that's probably older than 30 years old is would be considered a legacy home, and then we have our modern homes and our modern furnishings. These pictures that you're going to show or this. See this little video that you're going to see. I saw part of it in the corner, but I'm not sure where it went. Drag it back. But it shows why it's going to show why you don't have as much time now in our newer modern homes to get out safely and that is again another reason why these smoke alarms are so important. We've got the natural home that's going to be wool and cotton and wood and all linen fabrics all kinds of natural fabrics fabrics that's on your left the synthetic ones are a lot of the materials that we have in our homes now they're they're petroleum based they're chemical based, you can see how much darker the smoke gets in that synthetic room and how quickly it happens. In these legacy homes years ago, when the for those older homes, you had around 17 or 18 minutes to get out of those homes safely, which means that the fire department had that amount of time to get there and get a jump on the fire. Now, in these modern homes with the synthetic furnishings and with the building materials that they're using nowadays, you've got about three. So that's a big difference. And you can see that room the synthetic room. I mean, as a firefighter that natural room I'd still go into that room with a water can a water extinguisher like you used to have in the school buildings. And you could put most of that fire out, you absolutely could not do that, you know, two or three minutes into the synthetic room, because of that toxic smoke, and because of how quickly and how hot the synthetic rooms and synthetic homes. Say that three times fast, and it goes go up. So that's probably the, the biggest and the most important message that we would like for people to realize Durham Fire Department has a five minute response time goal. But as you can see with the times that we have here and with the time that you saw those rooms on fire. Even if we get there we're right next door to you practically and we get there in less than five minutes. There can still be a lot of damage done. And we can still have people that we have to come in and save just because of how, how black the smoke gets and how toxic, toxic, it is. So those are just a few things that we would like for people to, to take with them and to remember and to have really, really safe holidays and wonderful happy gatherings with your family and your friends and share a little bit of this information everybody can can give the gift of having people be a little bit safer in their homes and with their families for the holidays. I totally agree, Elaine. And I just want to again thank you for, you know, such timely information and holiday season is people can forget. I didn't read because I'm not a smoker I didn't. I'm just thinking, when you do have people over. Maybe you should just get a can of sand anyway because you don't know who's walking out your house. Exactly. People, people smokers are polite they don't want to smoke in somebody's home but they may go out on the porch or they may go out on the deck. And if you if you know you're having smokers come over then you can make sure you've got those buckets of sand or those buckets of water or something like that. It's better than them being stubbed out on your deck or even if they just they fell off of the arm of the chair or something like that it's just just a, it's just a nice small and make sure it's a it's a metal bucket. We don't want to be doing this with a plastic bucket or something like that but you'd probably still be okay but a little metal bucket with some sand in it and they'll think you're the best hostess in the world. I think so. Well thank you once again we're going to definitely have you back. Well I'll tell you what, it's just been, you know just such a eye opening experience and just, I'm just so happy that we had, you know, all our presenters to share with District two, and just go out and let our neighbors know. And all the people that we know up here that you know this is this is the place to be if you really want to find out what's going on and we need more people to get involved so we're excited about that. So I want to thank you and I'm just going to pass it back to Brian. All right, thank you. Colleen did have a question she asked is the fire department still come to your home and replace smoke detectors if needed, or did that go away with covid or low staffing. No, we do that the we partner with the Red Cross and with the Department of Insurance office the state fire marshals office and they, they donate smoke alarms to us to be able to go and put in people's homes that need them, and we are still doing that. We have been up and down as far as the covid cases as to whether our firefighters can come and do it or whether my partner and I try to to come and take care of it ourselves. When the covid cases are high then we try to protect our firefighters and keep them from going into people's homes unnecessarily. And out of sick people's homes when they have to be on calls but we do try to keep a lot of people's homes so my partner Antoine and I can can take care of that. You go to Durham fd.org and it will show you some of the things that that you know there's just information in there about the fire department. And having a smoke alarm or a CO alarm for that matter is one of those options. Right. Okay, well thank you very much and Rebecca and I again thank you so much for all of our presenters we thank you for coming this evening and participating. A lot of a lot of good questions, and we appreciate those. So I'll just stand by wishing you a happy holidays. Merry Christmas. Try to enjoy time with your families. Specifically want to thank all of our police officers fire EMTs because you're seven, you're seven 24365 so we appreciate you guys still being available even during the holidays. Hopefully everyone will get opportunities to spend time with their families. Have a great evening and we'll talk to you guys in January. Bye bye.