Kevin Peters 0:10 welcome everybody to our 2021 hurricane season, initial damage assessment training, thank everybody for joining us this afternoon, it's not as not as friendly an opportunity to speak as we had in the past where we were all able to come to the public safety complex and see each other face to face in a train room and hopefully that time becoming in the not too distant future, hopefully not for a storm but just for future trainings on this topic. Kevin Peters 0:42 Again, this is our initial Damage Assessment Overview training HV that's joining us today will have a role with initial damage assessment, following any possible hurricanes or severe weather we may see this summer, initial damage assessment is one of the first things we'll begin to do following the impact of a landfall and it's one of those, we'll talk about a little bit one of the very critical pieces of activities that we do here with Leon County and Tallahassee to help start the recovery process for our community members. Kevin Peters 1:20 So some of the key staff and some you'll hear from here today is emergency management is me, Kevin Peters, the Director of Emergency Management. Alex McKinnon is the emergency management coordinator with us. The task force leader for initial damage assessment when we activate is going to be Scott Brockmire to Tallahassee. Kevin Peters 1:43 Task Force Leader, it will be Dana Morgan, and the sport team from Tallahassee, Leon County GIS, Ned Cake, Elizabeth Ostrus, Carolyn Novak and Franklin Bailey. This is a core team that will help facilitate the IDA process and who will be engaged in the instructional opportunities today. Unknown 2:04 I guess before we go down. I think Scott did you want to say anything before we really get rolling Scott Brockmire Thank you, Kevin. Scott Brockmire 2:12 For those that haven't met my name is Scott Brockmire I work over dfcm I've been with the county for nearly 20 years, and I just wanted to say thank you all for coming and attending this training. Your efforts are so important in determining you know the scope and the severity of damage, post disaster. I was fortunate enough to volunteer, the last couple storms and I met some pretty amazing people and I'm so impressed with the volunteers that step up in such a desperate time. So, I just wanted to say thanks to Ned his team the EEOC Of course at first responders, what they're going to show you today is just leaps and bounds sufficient over the first time that ever participated in these efforts. And they've paid attention to, I believe the comments and feedback they've received from staff so they've made our job a whole lot easier. And I think you're going to find. Scott Brockmire 3:12 This is going to go a lot more smooth compared with years pass, Not that it wasn't smooth. But anyhow, my contact information is on the screen there for you, you're welcome to call me with any questions you have a mood of this role but I'm learning as much as I can within the short window. Oh, we have a quiet season. Scott Brockmire 3:32 But if not, I'll be meeting all of y'all soon and thank you so much thank you Scott. And we agree here we hope it's a quiet season, I guess, real quick before we kick off with the presentation. If you hadn't heard the news. Kevin Peters 3:47 We are still looking at a slight chance, about a 60% probability of an above average hurricane season. This summer, so while while while we know that part, well we don't know yet is the win and aware of any storms will form so being prepared is always critical and again that leads us back to why we're here today is to be prepared, should we need to do an initial damage assessment this summer, as I said a little bit when we started out, initial damage assessment is really one of the, the key steps and it's the primary step for helping the the residents in our community become eligible for FEMA assistance following a disaster. Kevin Peters 4:30 The slide here on the screen, describes the seven step process of the disaster declaration and initial damage assessment the activity that each of you will be engaged with following a storm is the number two step on the list. You can see it happens after the incident. Number Two's the local officials, click the initial damage assessment, all this training is geared towards what we do in step number two because the data we collect in step number two feeds all the following steps. It goes up through the State Emergency Management Agency, it prompts a preliminary damage assessment sounds kind of the same but it is different a preliminary damage assessment or PDA. We're state emergency management, and a representative from FEMA will come through and they'll validate the data that's collected in this process. If they concur with our assessment, they'll submit it to the governor's office to be included in the governor's request for a presidential disaster declaration that governor's request goes through FEMA review and then ultimately makes it to the desk of the president united states to make a final determination. So, really, when we're out there. Going through the communities, looking at the impact and then collecting all the data on the damages. The better job we do on the front end, can, can, again, ultimately affect our ability to get that presidential disaster declaration which turns into funding assistance for citizens throughout our county to help meet those uninsured, disaster costs that they may have incurred, help them get recovered and get back on their feet and hopefully restored their lives in a positive way. Again, I don't mean this to sound like there's a lot of pressure on us. You know, I think Scott said every time we've done this, we've done better and better. And I can tell you that when we got to step three and step four this when FEMA shows up to do that preliminary damage assessment. The last couple of storms, they've been very impressed with the work that the individual or the initial damage assessment teams have done. They've consistently say that Leon County Tallahassee provides them. Some of the best and comprehensive initial damage assessment that they see in NAV are places they've been to so that's a, you know, very high praise for the work that each of you is engaged in these initial damage assessments. So, again, hopefully that takes some of the pressure off, you know, knowing that the data is important in, you know, know that we do a good job. And hopefully that puts your mind a little bit at ease with this training session to knowing that this is kind of a refresher for a lot of folks and that it's going to put you in the right spot for. Are there any questions on kind of the declaration process and how, what, what initial damage assessment is and how it fits into the big picture. If not, I think we'll be able to slide along here net to the next slide. So when we do these damage assessments. Kevin Peters 7:38 It depends on the disaster situation on what we're looking for. Kevin Peters 7:43 It could be like what we've experienced in the last few years, A land falling. Excuse me, hurricane, somewhere near our area and it creates a lot of wind and a lot of wind damage. Kevin Peters 7:55 It may also be a slow moving, tropical system that drops a lot of rainfall something like tropical storm Fay, way back in 2008. Kevin Peters 8:04 It could be the type of incident that we'll need to assess. So there's specific criteria for each, each type of disaster, whether it's wind damage or flood damage, and on the screen is an example of some of the criteria. In, you don't need to focus too hard right now on, on the individual elements of these different things. You know, we'll go into that a little bit but just just know that when we, when we have an actual event of disaster, we're going to bring everybody in for a team briefing before we send it to the field, and we're going to get into a little bit more of the nuts and bolts of the details of what these damage impact levels really mean that we'll probably be more beneficial to each of you to hear that before you go out the door than if you're here today on, you know, at the end of May, and instead of not using it for several months, so we're not going to get too much into the details of how high the water must be but the key thing that you need to take from this slide and remember is that there's four classification levels that we're looking for in the field, whether it's a destroyed structure a major impact minor damage or merely affected in to kind of break it down, you know, things that are affected are really not going to be too structural they may be cosmetic effects to the, to the property, minor impacts are going to be effects to property. The residential structure that that don't affect the living areas. And then we get into the major the destroyed that's where you're talking about trees are on the structure, water, water levels are getting above, like a, the level of a electrical outlet, if we're talking about flooding. So that's when you get a lot of the major structural components are affected or a very high water level on a home so those are the four classifications though that we're really going to be focusing on is how we're going to categorize the damages when we do a damage assessment. We also made it's not on the chart but in the liner notes here. There's also an inaccessible classification. There may be times where you can't get to an area that's in your assessment zone for whatever the reason is, whether it's, you know, a flood floodwaters or a washed out road or keep out signs inaccessible it's going to be a classification level when you just can't get to something. Kevin Peters 10:33 Next slide, Ned. Alright so, like I said, you know, this is our initial training this is our refresher. But when we have an event, and we have to activate each of you to do damage assessment, we're gonna have everybody rally here at the Public Safety complex number one easterwood drive, that's where the Emergency Operations Center will be I think many of you have been here but if not the map here shows where we're located, we're just off easterwood drive off of Capitol circle northeast kind of the intersection of Weems Road and easterwood drive at the approach to Tom Brown Park. Kevin Peters 11:09 Yeah, entering the building and parking. Kevin Peters 11:13 Truthfully, when you when you get to the complex during a disaster there is a staff, visitor parking out front, possible that the parking lot will be jammed already from those folks that are working in the building on an activation, but definitely try and access the building from the wings road access point. We're trying to have some parking available there in that location but it could be a fluid situation, we may have to make a little bit of a parking adjustment at the time of activation, but in general, that's where you would come is to the whims road access point to the complex. Kevin Peters 11:47 When you come to the Weems Road side, there's the visitor's entrance security desk at the front. If you've not been here. It's been a while since you've been here. You may not all have access cards but there's a pedestal out front with a call box you mash the button on the call box security will let you. And then as far as what to wear and the damage assessment. So unfortunately it's going to be probably one of the hottest times of the year, we tend to get these storms in the dead of summer. Kevin Peters 12:15 But we do need to protect ourselves we're out in the field. Certainly Agency issued apparel if you have the agency shirt is preferred. Kevin Peters 12:24 Sorry it's jump up on the screen block my view your standby one second. Yeah agency apparently it's a short one, make sure you've got one of those. If you've been issued an agency shirt. If not, you know, lightweight cotton t shirt, long pants, jeans, you know, cargo tight pants. You know something more work pants style than slacks. Definitely no shorts, got to have the long pants on. Kevin Peters 12:53 If you've got, you know, boots or hiking shoes or a good pair of tennis shoes, that's going to be preferable, no open toed shoes, no, no, loafers that are, you know, they may not have good grip on the bottom on them, you're going to be in and out of the car, and in, you're gonna have a lot of debris on the ground. This picture is a good example of the type of environment you're going to be out in so you want to protect your protect yourself, certainly gonna be outside, you know, a hat if you've got it. Agency issued ID card, and we'll provide kind of the lime green, safety vests for you that you'll need to wear when you're in the vehicle, some additional things to consider. You be in and out of in and out of a car through the, through a shift on this so some sunscreen or hat, got a haircut like I do, You definitely want to protect your skin on your head and you know on your arms and hands, some hand sanitizer drinking water snacks, your agency, your personal cell phone, maybe a rain jacket, depending on the weather forecast mosquito spray some work gloves, and some type of mask would probably be good. You may be in areas where, where there's some, you know, dust or debris in the air, you definitely want to protect your respiratory system. So, again, some of the safety issues to consider there going to be sort of long, long days, you're going to be out throughout the community so just making sure that you have all the creature comforts you'll need while you're out riding around in a car for 12 hours is going to be very helpful. Kevin Peters 14:35 And last line there, to the greatest extent possible, and we've done this in the past. We're gonna make sure we have some, some snacks and hopefully a bag lunch, available for all the teams that go out, you know, possible that that may not happen on every day but but to the greatest extent possible we're going to try and also provide some of those snacks. Lunch Bag of drinks for you before you get in the car is too so we do everything we can to try and take care of you and get you ready for a field appointment. All right so safety precautions again. It's, it's right after a hurricane. So definitely road issues are gonna be one of the things you'll encounter, you know, avoid you know downed power lines, treat any lines. In fact that you may come across, like its power line, and always assumed that they are energized in are dangerous. Kevin Peters 15:31 You know, you don't need to try and figure out if it's a power line or a cable line or telephone line all you need to know is, there's a line down, get away from it go the other way and stay away from it, you know, be cautious of trees that are been knocked down, they could be wrapped in powerlines, you know, don't drive through flooded areas. Kevin Peters 15:51 Be cognizant of the possibility of washed out roads, and then any posted properties that say keep out. Just keep out, you know, if you don't can assess it, you can't assess it market inaccessible and keep on going. Kevin Peters 16:06 Again, following a disaster. I think everybody knows, for members of our community there they're having some of the worst days of their life, their homes been damaged, maybe destroyed. They're trying to clean up and gather all their personal belongings, which may be strewn about the neighborhood so people may not be so happy. They may not be happy to see government around in some instances, again, if you're in a contentious situation. Kevin Peters 16:36 Get out of there backup, walk away. Get in the car and go on if you can't, if you can't assess it because unfriendly citizens, you can't assess it, And it's not worth any type of personal injury to you to try and continue on that street, you can always back up and go another way. Kevin Peters 16:56 You know, it's a very contentious situation and you can't get out of it and you have serious fears for your safety. In New York, and a two person teams, somebody needs to be on the phone and calling for assistance call 911 If you're in a dangerous situation and people are threatening you, and you can't get away. Call 911 and we'll get the share for the police department out to you, to help you out. Kevin Peters 17:18 Yeah. The same thing goes for any other hazards you see out there that are life threatening you know you may come across people who have, you know whatever in the power may be out and they may or may have relied on on some type of powered medical equipment pre landfall and they've been without power for a day or two and now they are an extreme medical distress you may need to call 911 for an ambulance or you may come across a home that's started to catch fire for whatever reason, any medical emergencies fire emergencies call 911 And you know, get the hell out there. Kevin Peters 17:52 And again, after disasters animals may be on the loose. It may not be important to report every animal that you see out that may not be fenced in you know there may just be sleeping on somebody's porch and may become but certainly want to make sure that any of the the the aggressive animals or animals that are traveling and packs report those for animal control the follow up on, you can do that by calling the consolidated dispatches non emergency number six to 650 800, and they can work to get an animal control officer out to take care of any animal issues but certainly safety is first and foremost for all of our personnel out there just need to be in a dangerous situation. It's a dangerous situation to get the car back up and find another street to assess. Kevin Peters 18:41 You know that kind of goes into public interactions, you know, some people will be very glad to see city accounting staff out in the aftermath of disaster but they may not totally understand why you're there, they may think that you may have resources, or you're there to do some type of assistance, other than collecting data. So a few things that you'll want to make sure they know is that you know your assessment team and collecting the information that will help them in the future with FEMA possible FEMA possible FEMA declaration. So that's what your job is out there is to collect information. You want to direct them to other resources like 211 Big Bend is probably the most important resource so we can refer folks to the immediate aftermath. If you're not familiar with 211 services, they're active 20 473 65 They're a Human Services Resource referral line. So, you know, in the course of your business today if you encountered somebody that was having some type of human service type issue they were having difficulty with their, you know, paying their electric bill or or, you know, they've recently lost their job and you're trying to get some help finding, you know how to how to apply for new, new job or benefits or things like that. That's the type of stuff that to one can help with, they do that every day and they certainly do that during a disaster. So that's one of the primary sources that you can refer individuals to is calling big one. Big Ben two and one to get involved with a referral for disaster assistance. One of the other things, too, and one also does is train crisis counselors, and certainly in a situation like this where you know people's homes are severely damaged and they've lost a lot of the property. They're going to be having, you know, some, some, some crisis counseling needs, they're certainly referring people to to and one that gives them the opportunity to to talk to somebody that can help them out with those types of mental health or behavioral health issues and they can talk them through the immediate crisis and help again referring for the human, that has mental health issues that they may be struggling with, so it's a great resource. Additionally, You can refer him to the emergency operations center 6063700 And, you know people in the UFC can can take their information and work with getting Human Services assistance through that. Kevin Peters 21:13 Through that process as well. Kevin Peters 21:17 But, you know some of the other things too, you know, you may not be in a kind of a densely packed neighborhood so getting some intel from residents about where there might be other structures. You know a lot of you're getting a lot of the landmarks to be going to be gone. And while we've got the map, some of the devices, you'll see momentarily, you may not be totally familiar with the area you're working in, so So getting that type of information from residency account or where, where you should look for other, you know other neighbors in an area that can be very helpful too they might, they might know of other damage or other impacts that you're going to pick up while you're in the field. Kevin Peters 21:53 Next slide, Ned. Kevin Peters 21:57 All right, and so one other resource, the vehicles for initial damage assessment using government vehicles, whether you're with the City of Tallahassee or Leon County or the Leon County Property Appraiser, you'll be assigned a assigned to or assign a, a county vehicle going out and teams of twos. Kevin Peters 22:25 Some of the things for the drivers of vehicles, again you got to have a valid Florida driver's license, have an updated insurance card and checking in the checking in your issued vehicle, make sure the insurance card and accurate reporting documents are in the glove box. If you start to get out of the vehicle, activating the hazard lights or or if you have a vehicle that has the yellow flashing lights on the roof, you want to activate that when you come to a stop, if you're gonna exit the vehicle. Kevin Peters 22:54 Again, be familiar with your agency's Safety Manual and motor vehicle requirements. Kevin Peters 23:01 You know we do have city teams you have county teams and we may be in a situation where we have mixed teams you where you have one county staff and one city staff member in situations like that, the, the owning entity of the vehicle. So in this pictures case, a Leon County vehicle that was a mixed team with a city, city rep and a county rep. Kevin Peters 23:24 The county rep would be required to drive the county vehicle on that team, and vice versa if that was a city vehicle and a city rep or county rep the city person would be required to drive the city vehicle we can't, can't, can't really mix up on that with the, you know, different entities driving other entities vehicles so that's that's going to be some of the vehicle related stuff again follow all posted speed limits obviously after a hurricane, you probably could probably do even slower than what the posted speed limit is. And I don't, I don't know if we address that on this slide or another one but the team, Team configuration, if you're the driver, you're only the driver, you're not going to use of technology to do assessments, the other team member would do that. Ned Cake 24:06 See, yes there are real quick I don't think we have a mall there but there are some government fuelling locations the county has a couple of them and I know the city has some locations, we don't have that noted at the moment but certainly we will update that info. At the time of activation we'll go over that reactivate for storm where you're feeling locations are for vehicles. Ned Cake 24:31 Alright, so this is the part where I take over. Ned Cake 24:34 My name is Ned Cake, I am Ida lead Patel as Leon County GIS, I've worked with a team of great folks who, who helped put this technology effort together to help you understand kind of where we came from. Not so long ago. This form two on the left here. Ned Cake 24:53 And when I say not so long ago I'm talking about hurricane Michael and Michael Hurricane Hermine. Ned Cake 24:59 There, we actually had crews Red Cross crews that were out with that form. Walking the neighborhoods and scribing scribbling down information on paper forms that they would then at the end of the day turn in, and somebody overnight would enter the mall into an Excel spreadsheet. Now the thing you notice quickly about that is that there's so much room for error. And so much room for things to get lost or mixed up or double entered, having to deal with those records from these paper sheets was just a nightmare. Unknown 25:32 So what we've done at tallassee Leon County GIS is we take took a good look at technology trends and we're able to start using some cloud technology and smartphone devices to enhance our iba efforts, which means that moving forward. You really won't be using paper at all, you'll be using a smartphone with a GPS, and your GPS will really be used just to show your location on the map as you drive by the way we have this set up is that the little green dots here. Ned Cake 26:09 There's one for every address in Leon County. Ned Cake 26:12 And I'll get into the detail of that a little bit later and you're really just be updating those points instead of collecting a new point, it's just an update process. Ned Cake 26:21 So, the IDA teams as Kevin mentioned are a driver whose sole attention is on driving and road safety. The driver may assist with other assessment duties when the vehicle is stopped. Ned Cake 26:34 The assessor, and this comes with a little bit of a warning. Ned Cake 26:40 The assessor is going to be looking up and down a lot, and motion sickness is indeed a possibility. Ned Cake 26:46 The assessor is going to split their attention between the windshield, the on screen map data entry and navigation and that's a lot of working around so if you're prone to motion sickness. Ned Cake 26:57 You may want to be the driver or you may want to take something in advance of going out in the field. So this, this year we have brand new iba collection devices. We have 25 phones that we'll be handing out. They're brand new Galaxy Samsung Galaxy S 21 plus, which is a very large screen device it's more of a fabulous than a phone, and it's great for doing data entry in the field, and taking photos in the field. Ned Cake 27:25 The cell phones are going to be attacked and connected to at&t is FirstNet, which is a brand new cellular network that is intended for first responders, and public safety agencies and which emergency management it is, so you'll have access to, you'll have priority access to the at&t, 5g network, and probably better coverage of our testing shows better coverage and then any regular cell phone, especially in the more rural areas of Leon County. So very nice device that you'll be handed the technology that will use, you know, we're a GIS shop and and our primary technology here is Esri ArcGIS. And we'll be using a mobile application called field maps and field maps is tied to data in the cloud, but it will also have base maps loaded locally on the device. Ned Cake 28:27 And these will be already that's already beyond the application and activated and ready to go. As soon as you pick up a device. Ned Cake 28:37 So the map. If you take a look at the map in the background here. This map will be hard loaded on the device, which means that you don't have to be connected to the network to see and use the map on the map, you will see street labels. Ned Cake 28:53 Address point labels. Ned Cake 28:57 Landmark labels to help you find your way around, and you will also see your vehicle as a point a little arrow on the map with a blue trail following it, so that you know you're where you are at all times in past, you know you might drive by an address like, let's say, Madeira Madeira circle 852 And during the storm that mailbox got knocked down and swept down the street, you have no idea of knowing no way of knowing which what the address number is for this well now you don't really need to because when you click on this point here. Ned Cake 29:33 It already knows the address, you'll know which house you're looking at because you'll see where your position is on the street and you just click on the Ask the address and update the information about that point. Ned Cake 29:46 So, the damage assessment layer that we're using is extracted, just before the storm from Tallahassee and Leon County's official address point layer. This layer is maintained by City Growth Management and county dfcm If any of those folks are on a call, kudos to them for the hard work that they do to maintain this layer, it is tied into the building permit process so the first thing a new building gets like this one right here, before it even the building shows up on the map, it gets an address assigned and placed on the actual map. And those points are extracted, and we take the form that I show you showed you earlier, and we add FEMA damage assessment values to it. Ned Cake 30:36 And we mark them all as no damage that's why you see a little green dot here with a pin on it means no damage, and what you're going to do, and we're going to show you first, this a little bit in a little bit more detail later with a heads up demo, someone on the phone using it. Ned Cake 30:52 What you're going to do though is you're going to drive down the street, and this is really, really important. You're going to bypass all the houses that have no damage. If I drive down this block, and I see. Bringing points to the left and right and I look at those houses and there's no damage. I'm going to pass them right by because they're already tagged there's no damage I don't need to do anything. Then I'm going to get to this outhouse over here that I see has some damage, and I'm going to update it. Ned Cake 31:18 And there are several things that we're going to do along the way, update all the values that are required and then we're going to document the damage and we're going to talk about documenting that by documenting I mean taking photo. Ned Cake 31:32 Photos of the actual damage, and we're going to talk about how to do that shortly. Ned Cake 31:37 Let's see, as you update the points they will actually change their symbol on the map. As noted here so you can see that and these are Michael hurricane Michael results. And you can see this neighborhood had some minor damage and some major damage, no destroyed houses, but a good, a good bit of damage throughout the neighborhood. Ned Cake 32:02 So, when you, when you come in to EMC and we, we set you up to do some work. We're gonna assign you to a zip code, and your device will be limited. The points on your bicycle device will be limited to that zip code. If we have enough teams we may split a zip code or we may assign a specific neighborhood in a zip code, like, Okay, we want this team to just go out and do Indian headache or so we want a team to just go out and do South work, but they'll have to be working within that zip code boundary and this keeps our teams from crossing over with each other and doing work where up somebody is already going after Hurricane Michael we started reviewing some of the photos that have been taken, and some documents, or for documenting the damage and what we determined was that we weren't getting the best results, because we didn't hadn't really given a lot of instruction on it so we start with Kevin and we came up with. Here's what we're looking for and Kevin, feel free to pipe in if you need to Ned Cake 33:08 this main picture in the photo on the right. It's just barely acceptable because you can see both ends of the roof but for picture number one. First off, all pictures should be taken in landscape mode. So you're gonna have to hold the phone sideways, I know that's not how usually take your selfies but you're gonna have to hold it in landscape mode that means long at the top short on the sides. Ned Cake 33:32 And the first picture we want to see is something that shows the damage and the entire roofline of the house. This helps us to determine the scope of the damage to the house and possibly whether or not it's over a living area in photo number two here. We've zoomed in a little bit to show a little bit more of the damaged area and photo number three, we've got another angle of the damage area and so we're looking for a minimum of three photos and somewhat like what I just described, but the most important one is this guy up on the top here where we show the full roofline with the damage included. Ned Cake 34:11 Another one that we're going to be looking for is Urban Search and Rescue markings if you see a house that has markings on the front of it like this. We want you to document that also. And, and the photos are actually uploaded to the cloud as attachments to this individual point so anybody in our maps who clicks on that point can see all the photos of that actual location. This is just a guide of what those urban markings look like if you're interested, feel free to look, Take a look at it later. Ned Cake 34:48 So, this process has evolved over time. And one of the first things that we learned when we started doing this pilot base technology, post, Irma, was that after a tropical storm or hurricane, oftentimes cell towers don't work, you know they're most of them have generators, but sometimes those generators fail, and there were lots of locations or towers just get knocked down. There were lots of areas where we had no coverage, and we were not prepared to work offline. And our folks really struggled in those instances. Since that time, field maps or collector. The new one is called Field field maps are now able to fully edit data disconnected by that I mean you could put them in airplane plane mode, with no connection at all and still drive around, updating the at the damage assessment. Ned Cake 35:42 And what you would need to do is when you come into coverage again. Ned Cake 35:46 You turn on when you come into coverage again you just basically hit a synchronized button and all of your information is loaded up to the cloud. Ned Cake 35:58 And as soon as you've done that, everybody back at the EEOC can't see your information they could see your details, which is going to become really important to us so imagine going from the early days of hurricane harming, and it may take three days for us to actually see results on a map and for FEMA and the states they go out and begin looking at the results. In this instance, your, your results will be immediately available to everyone as soon as you synchronize that data. Another. Ned Cake 36:01 Another new feature that we have and having been deployed recently for a tornado, I can, can't express how important this is to know where you've been, you may be assigned to a neighborhood that you don't know if you've never been done any Indianhead acres, it's got all the curved streets in it. That circle back on each other. Knowing where you've been already can be really important in the field, it'll keep you from doubling back, can't, can't imagine the number of times, driving around after a recent tornado that, hey, we've already been on the street, how do we get back here, having this tracker feature turned on, and it'll show for up to 72 hours everywhere that you have been with that device. It will also show your relationship where you've been to us back in the office, so we know where you've been and where you might have missed and we can call you up and say hey can you go back over here and check this area. Ned Cake 37:11 So tracker is going to be really important and it will already be activated on your device. When we hand it to you, so just leave it activated, and, and it will be showing your location as you drive, so can't underscore enough the importance of you synchronizing your content when you have coverage, because everybody's watching the county administrators and city administrators will lean over to us in the EU and see and say, Hey, is that up to date so we're sure here we're showing a dashboard. This dashboard set up during Michael was showing live results from our damage assessment as the teams were out collecting the data. And every, every time I was able to say yes. That's the latest data, so long as our people are synchronizing their content. It's always the latest data. Ned Cake 38:13 And these are the kind of tools that we'll be building for administration to work on, and one week, like, like Kevin mentioned when we found this over, FEMA, that some of the best data that they've had we got to ride around them with them during their PDA process. And the state's applications and FEMA applications couldn't work offline and couldn't synchronize and they continuously had to call the office to report their findings. So it was really nice to have that effect, or to be able to be that advanced as local government. Ned Cake 38:46 So next up we're going to have Franklin Bailey, share he signed in as you signed in from a phone, and he is going to actually bring a phone up online. Before I move on, Kevin, do you have any comments, Kevin Peters 38:39 I don't have any comments, but do we want to stop for just a second before we do the technology demo to see if any, any questions from where we've been for a minute. I know that's a lot of information we just burn through but I also know a lot of you have been through some of the previous sessions or participated on teams before but I just wanted to maybe pause for a second, I'm gonna try and hold it up to my camera here. We do have some, some little flipbook guides that we will deploy with the teams as you go out, that kind of give example pictures and some additional description information. So this type of information we're going over this presentation, you'll have a little flip book that you'll get assigned on, on, on the day of deployments to take with you in the car to to help you as kind of a little cheat sheet if you need it. Before you have to use the technology that Franklin is about to show us here. So we'll turn it back now to Franklin. Franklin Bailey 39:52 Alright, good afternoon everyone. I will keep this short and sweet. Our goal in doing this has been to make it as easy and foolproof, as possible. So I'll just kind of run through what the phone looks like when you get it, go through updating point and then like Kevin mentioned earlier before we have an actual activation, we will have a in person session where we run through this again and you'll have the code in your hand so you get to see it too. So this is just kind of a brief introduction or refresher for something. So once you're in the phone. You can see here this field maps app and go ahead and click on that. This is what it's gonna look like when you log in, right here, this tracking will be turned on. So you shouldn't have to worry about that if you see it's turned off, just go ahead and turn it on, like Ned was saying, this is really useful for making sure that we've covered all the areas that we need to cover and making sure that we aren't also doing more work and covering areas already done before. Franklin Bailey 40:44 I'm going to go ahead and click on say, I'm on the three to 301 team, I'm gonna go ahead and open that map up should vote in here so you can see, we have the base map in there, you can see the outline that pink line, that's your zip code boundary. And then, as we zoom in closer, you'll start to see these dots pop up like Ned said one of the important features that we've added this year is the number on the address point, so it should make it easier you can see what he was talking about what the blue arrow was well, that shows your location, see we're in the courthouse. But when you start moving that should update with your GPS. Franklin Bailey 41:31 Alright so, say we're driving along, downtown and we notice this building right here 123 South County is damaged, we wouldn't need to make a report on what we're going to do. We're just going to click on that building can see that kind of brings up the information about it. Here is all the different types of fields that we're collecting on to start that process you're going to go down to this little pencil here in the bottom left, click that pencil. Now, we're editing. So, the incident name will be populated the address will be populated you don't have to worry about any of that. Here what we just want to do is we're going to populate the assessor, whichever account you are and you'll know on your phone it'll tell you which user you are assessment date should auto populate to whatever date it is. Here's where we have that extent of damage based on the criteria that was talked about earlier, that's where you're going to make that judgment, you're going to put it for this one let's just say, major damage primary cause of damage. What, what caused the damage was it when was it rain was a flooding. That's all right there too. We'll say there was tree damage fell in that building description of damage going to briefly kind of describe what's going on. Franklin Bailey 42:56 Tree, fell on, roof habitable, yes. Structure Type. Franklin Bailey 43:09 We'll just pretend that this was a single family residential. Franklin Bailey 43:14 Alright, as we talked about earlier, one of the important things is making sure that we have photos of it. To do that right there you're just going to hit that take photo button, it's going to open up the camera. Franklin Bailey 43:26 And you can see my keyboard right now, we still have the screen protectors on these cameras, that's why it's a little bit blurry but for this example. Just take picture. You can either retry it or hit OK. Hit OK. That picture is attached to that record, you can go ahead, take another one, do the same thing. Also, when you finished with this information, you want to go ahead to the top right, hit that little checkmark next to collect. Franklin Bailey 43:54 That's going to go ahead and submit that. Now you can see the point change on the map, it's been updated as soon as that's updated in the EEOC, we're seeing that at the same exact time that you update it. So that, that's pretty much it we we've taken away a lot of the having to go collect points and put them on the map and move them around and try to make it as foolproof as possible where it's literally just you updating the points that are in the right place, so you won't have to worry about accuracy or GPS location or anything like that. Franklin Bailey 44:26 Then one of the other things you want to kind of go over was also the offline part. And so I can't really turn on airplane mode and show you because I lose the connection to the phone. But in, just as kind of example for this three to 32303 map I've gone ahead and downloaded an offline area. And so this would be something that I mean, these phones should be really good on First Net there would have to be a major storm to knock us off because we have priority we have unlimited access they're, they're really, really solid in terms of our connectivity after a storm, but say worst case scenario, if we have Wi Fi at the EEOC, we will go ahead and download offline areas for your area before you even go out there and you can see here, I briefly downloaded a small area just to show you how. If I turned on airplane mode right now, I could go in here and start making edits that would be fine, instead of, you would just hit that check at the bottom, and it wouldn't sync, it would just be this little sync button up at the top right there for me to local edit, you would just hit that to sync when you are back on an internet connection or you had cell service or Wi Fi. But again, that is a worst case scenario. Franklin Bailey 45:44 Other than that, that's I mean you can just see there's the different maps for different areas. It is pretty simple. I know, Carolyn Novak in our office is going to be talking a little bit about some of the web resources that will be, she'll be talking about and I'll just briefly show you. She'll talk through this but we do have a link to those resources right there, as well as the phone app there that will have populated with Scotts number or populated with the EEOC number so that you can reach out and find the appropriate resources for whatever issue, you're in enter. Franklin Bailey 46:23 As far as Field Maps goes. Ned there anything I left out. Nothing at all. Looks good. Excellent. With that I will go ahead and stop sharing and let Carolyn go over some of the web resources we have for you. Carolyn Novak 46:25 Alright, can you see my screen, Yes. Carolyn Novak 46:39 Okay so we have, we support the EOC. So we have this portal that is mostly Web EOC but we do have Damage Assessment. And this training will be on the side, it'll be right there where that button is. Carolyn Novak 46:56 And, so for the most part, this defaults to Leon County, but we do support other counties in Region 2. So the overview is pretty much a lot of what we've gone over today. Carolyn Novak 47:15 Phone check is mostly internal, so when we give you the phone, you know how we're tracking it. If some of the questions that people have had in the past, So, if you have an issue you can troubleshoot out in the field before you contact us, and if you do have any questions, you know, let us know so we could add to here to help other people. Carolyn Novak 47:41 And we have the Quickstart Guide so everything that Franklin just went over. Don't worry if you forget it. Carolyn Novak 47:49 You're will be given a PDF , I mean a brochure. Carolyn Novak 47:55 The brochure, but things get lost, and so if you lose your brochure it's okay absolutely everything on how to do it is on this site, and the video that pretty much goes over exactly what he was doing. So just something quick to to look at and looks great on the phone. Carolyn Novak 48:19 So it'll be easy for you out in the field. and we've done the same thing. Carolyn Novak 48:25 Kevin is giving out the Damage Assessment book that flipbook but we also have it in HTML form so you can use that. You know it's everything that you, you possibly need is online and like what Franklin said is that there is a shortcut button on the home screen of the phones. So if you forget anything if you need anything. I mean even if you don't remember, you could just search for Guide, there's that there's Damage Assessment, so everything that you need will be at your fingertips and that's about it. Ned Cake 49:00 Kevin that pretty much wraps up what we had to share. Do you have any follow up things that you'd like to talk about. Kevin Peters 49:09 Yeah, I just two things that I maybe should have mentioned earlier, I guess I forgot, but actually then Franklin's presentation to remind me of one of them. We do have a because I saw the drop down, it didn't mention businesses, and I'll say that, you know, our focus with these individual teams. When we send them out is residential impacts, you know, going through the neighborhoods and looking for damaged and destroyed homes were not primarily focused on businesses, but if when you're out, you come across a business that has been affected. Certainly, go ahead and document it. You know we can do that we can share that data with the office of economic vitality, but you know that's not our focus with this, this project again we're very focused on the residential initial damage assessment, and that's what our focus is but like I said, certainly share that information if you could be gathered by, you know you're out in neighborhood and it's, you know whatever type of little business, it might be. There's something damaged certainly go ahead and document it, it's not going to hurt, but again that's not our focus we don't need you running up and down Apalachee Parkway or North Monroe Street documenting the business. Businesses there, that that's not the focus of this mission, it is, is definitely the residential impacts, you know response, you know, certainly, we have some very severe flooding. I know we kind of touched on a little bit. Kevin Peters 50:35 A lot of that assessment would likely happen after water recedes so we're gonna be looking for water lines on structures. You know in that scenario. That being said, I mean I guess there is the possibility that we had a couple of people that could go out. If there were areas where the water was not likely to go down fast. We could send some, some folks out to do some assessment of how high the water is in that scenario if we did it. We would the individuals that went out with the devices will be teamed up with either the Tallahassee Fire Department or the Leon County Sheriff's Office, they would, they would be in a boat with with those folks as the boat operators again they're, they're trained to operate in the water environments like that. So we wouldn't we wouldn't expect any of the teams to have to know how to drive boats and operate boats. Kevin Peters 51:27 You know we would never expect that during a flood event but there may be situations where that may be prudent to get some teams, or somebody from a team, again, it would be mainly an individual with a device, a two person team but somebody that could go out and meet up with, again, there's public safety professionals and they would provide the boat operators and the boats, and that's how that that would be coordinated but we don't see that being widespread application to each and every one of you, so I wouldn't stress too much about that but there could be that opportunity. Kevin Peters 52:02 And then one other thing I know we talked about a zip code assignments. Kevin Peters 52:07 It's it's possible that we wouldn't hold back a couple of teams or assign a couple of teams to, I don't know if we have a good description but it's kind of hotshot duty. Kevin Peters 52:18 When we have a disaster and we've got shelter operations. We do operate like a medical assistance shelter for people with special needs. Kevin Peters 52:27 Oftentimes before we can release those individuals from the shelter, you know, their homes need to be checked out and make sure that they're, you know, functional, particularly people who are, you know, very electric dependent who may have come to the shelter. So as we get calls from the shelter staff there that oversees that that medical needs shelter. We may have one or two teams that we have that serve in this hot shot role because we'll know where they're from, they pre registered to be there and they would tell us what their addresses. We would deploy those hot shot teams to go, you know, wherever they may, may need to go in the county to do a drive by and check out the home to see if it if it survived the storm and they may need to know if the power is on, that we can kind of do through the EEOC will work with the, the electric department representatives, whether it's city electric or Talquin electric, they can ping meters, but we can't really tell how the structure is so we may have a couple of teams that are just kind of in a hot shot role. You know Scott Brockmeyer may contact you and tell you that your assignment is to run, you know, this street at this address and see if the houses still there. So you would go and run some of these addresses down, which is again where some of that tracking is helpful that Ned talked about knowing, you know where other people have been, you know, we may check in the map and see if anybody's assessed that house yet. And if not, you know Scott Brockmire could assign a team to run over and check something we wouldn't pull you out of the zone we probably have a couple teams just available to us to run down some of those kind of hot shot missions for people that are in a special needs shelter or things of that nature. But I think those are the only two things that I really had maybe there's three things that I had that I think we maybe didn't quite covered at the at the get go. Ned Cake 54:15 Another note I wanted to make is that, you know, my experience has been that there's usually a good bit of damage, just not visible from the street, you're going to. Ned Cake 54:25 There'll be houses that look perfectly fine from the front but in the back, they're just wrecked. Ned Cake 54:31 You know, if those folks, wave you down and invite you in to document the damage, by all means, document the damage, but you still may not be able to see it and I don't know if we can worry too much about those locations. We do have the ability for the public to submit their own damage reports through one of our applications. And we typically will verify the damage and add it to the IDA report after the fact, Kevin Peters 54:58 I guess, this might be a good time again to ask if anybody had had any questions or comments, again, it appears that everybody is muted so you would need to unmute yourself if you have a question. Kevin Peters 55:09 I assume if there's anybody that called in, I think you have to hit star six. If you Strictly dialed in, but if you're using the computer. Use the unmute option on the mic Jean Amison 55:24 Kevin Hi, yes. Um, I do have a question. What is the legal obligation or risk. If we go to a structure, not being a building inspector having no first responder code training. Anything we go to a structure, and we say a house is habitable, not fully knowing what's going on. Few days later, something happens and that occupant is hurt. What, if any, is there a legal obligation for us as assessors Jean Amison 56:08 Either individually or collectively the city or county, I mean that seems to me a little bit my word we're saying a house is habitable, when we're not fully aware of everything going on like this and unless they invite you when it sounds because that was another one of my questions. Do we actually go inside the home? It doesn't sound like we do, we're just looking at it from the street, so unless we fully know what's going on. Jean Amison 56:36 It seems a look, I, I'm sure legal has looked at it, Leon County's got a great legal team, or they've looked at it. Um, but I'm just curious if you could address that. Kevin Peters 56:47 Yeah so, So, and anybody else on the team here, feel free to jump in, but this is not a habit of habit ability assessment we're not we're not making determinations whether house is livable or not. We're merely merely conducting an initial initial impact assessment based on the theme as levels of damage, we're just saying that structures damaged and to what level there is damage. We're not trying to make an assessment as to whether it's livable or not, not, not anything that a building inspector would come in and put a condemned or whatever other type of nomenclature they use. Jean Amison 57:25 The reason I asked is your phone app has you put down whether it's habitable or not. Jean Amison 57:32 On the phone app, you indicate when they was going through the, Kevin Peters 57:38 Yeah, I guess I know that, Ned or Franklin. I didn't, I didn't notice that. But that was maybe an offline thing to look at but yeah we're generally not in the business saying something's habitable or not we're here to assess what the magnitude of damage. Storm related damage was and, and that's that somebody else who will come behind and use some of this data as guide possibly our building inspectors. We certainly would collaborate with them to understand where where this impact was and they can go in and begin making those type of technical and there's a level of, I don't recall the forum but they have a more in depth form that they would use to determine habitability. Ned Cake 58:23 It's also worthwhile to note that post Michael. By the time that the initial damage assessment teams arrived at many of the houses they had a party been condemned they had red tags on the front door saying that they were condemned by either City Growth Management building inspection staff or DSM staff so that it's also a good way for those staffs to know where they need to go and look to inspect houses. Abena Ojetayo 58:51 Kevin, this Abena is I've been, I was wondering, in light of that question, I know my team, my entire team is here and we have code enforcement. We have folks that are doing housing projects and, you know, are pretty familiar with some of this stuff that makes this question come up. But if you could maybe speak to where any of you speak to how we fit in with these other agencies that come in and then you started to allude to it because I know our growth management does a different extensive assessment, we want to get a first pass, what's the lay of the land, just how things are looking right now but we know that there'll be others that come, maybe even before after us and so if you could maybe conceptualize what this team does within the rest of the assessment so we can have an understanding where maybe some peace of mind to that you know you guys are not going to be the ones to make a final determination, this is the end all be all. Kevin Peters 59:50 Yeah, no, no this assessment is certainly not intended to be the end all be all it's I think it's some documents and it may be even in the FEMA guidance on this that this is really in the in the realm of windshield survey that this is a kind of a hasty quick and dirty. Impact Assessment, you know, where do you have damage, major damage to homes in your community where were the worst areas. And obviously there's a gradiated scale here from from destroyed to merely affected so FEMA recognizes that on kind of this windshield impact survey is to get the hands around where the worst places are and where the not so bad places are certainly with it's the type of data you know the worst the major the destroyds we want to make sure that you know people in your office and over a DSM that actually do is have an ability assessments, if they haven't gone to some of these areas. We certainly want to make them aware of it from this that they probably have stuff they need to look at. Kevin Peters 1:00:51 And also we want to make sure that we're looking at our human services you know the Salvation Army or the Red Cross or groups like that that can can help these people that are that are affected, you know, they, they need to know kind of where the hardest hit areas are so they can provide services, whether it's, you know cleanup kits after a flood or or water and snacks and meals to an area where there's there's no power and people are probably have damaged homes. It's, it's, again, like I said it falls in the realm of sort of a windshield, kind of a hasty survey, it's not. It's not by any means supposed to be the most complete assessment, and that's not really the intent, it's the, it's the try and get it quick, and then get it, FEMA this again this really feeds in that process to get a federal disaster declaration is really angle this this isn't, isn't really intended to provide any technical report on the overall impact but it can be a starting point for many of the other operations, whether it's like I said, your, your building inspectors or even that the housing units, you know, that provide emergency repair and that type of stuff, let them understand what the potential future workload is going to be of people who, who may be in need of emergency housing, or even the the permits office to understand kind of the magnitude of number of homes impacted that help them get kind of a ballpark of the number of permits that they may be facing for people that have to do certain types of repairs that they're gonna need to pull permits for it's, it's kind of a starting point but by no means intended to be the technical or final word on what has happened. Ned Cake 1:02:35 Kevin, our call after Hurricane Michael that there was a FEMA team that came in after everybody else and went and knocked on every one of the doors. What was that team called. Kevin Peters 1:02:48 Yeah, so, so that's a DSAT- Disaster Survivor Assessment, Assistance Team. So what what their role was. So I guess they're like the kind of the backside of all of this, they're after the presidential disaster declaration thereafter the FEMA declaration says that FEMA can offer individual assistance to the community. Kevin Peters 1:03:17 Their job is to go through the community and go door to door and be a customer service unit almost they have mobile devices and they go door to door, and they can help those individuals apply for FEMA assistance right there their front door. Historically we would set up a disaster recovery center at the main library, and if people, you know, they couldn't apply over the phone or at home on their internet, they'd have to go down to the main library, and visit with The FEMA staff there and fill out paperwork there and talk to each of the, the special area groups there that were set up in that disaster recovery center so these teams that come in, they're not really related to looking for damage. Now, if they find something they'll certainly tell us but hopefully we have found it all by then but their job is to help folks begin that process of applying for FEMA assistance, and back to Abena was, was that, is that helpful to your question and some of your concerns. Abena Ojetayo 1:04:16 Yes, absolutely and I think, I hope it gives the team a little peace of mind and you know this disaster response is so complicated in so many players that we want to do the best job but also, don't get too bogged down thinking that you're going to be the one you know stop or problem in the whole keg I think we got an incredibly smart team. Kevin that you pulled together so that's really helpful for for me and for everybody else, I think, to hear. I had another question about where, during what kind of other disaster might this team be helpful so hurricanes are obviously our, our main concern but do you imagine or have you had any conversation about other situations where you might need to activate this group. Kevin Peters 1:05:02 Yeah, you know, certainly, flooding could be a possible activation, and we talked a little bit about how that can be, you know, kind of little nuances there at times where we might have symptoms out and, you know, again, a lot of times it would be after the water has receded from flooded areas, you know sometimes it could include people being teamed up with public safety. Kevin Peters 1:05:25 We've gone out after some of the severe weather we've had, we generally don't activate this many folks, you know, we haven't had that type of widespread, you know, severe weather outbreak, but certainly we can have scenarios where we have, you know, a tornado impact if it if it hits the right part of town, a very densely packed neighborhood area we could certainly need several teams to go in and run through a an area after a tornado. Kevin Peters 1:05:52 You know if we had fires, wildfires. We could certainly activate for that again, it just the scale is this many people needing all 20 some odd teams, it's going to be something like a hurricane that's a community wide impact, as we get smaller in the type of disaster, we can certainly use the help at times but it would we'd scale it down because you wouldn't necessarily have all of these teams, we're more of a smaller kind of focused type event Ned Cake 1:06:28 After the tornado at least last January we sent out three teams survey that, Kevin Peters 1:06:34 yeah, yeah, in some of the end we have severe weather like that you know we don't normally have a full on EOC activation, like we do during a hurricane so we can cut a few emergency management staff out of the office to help out too. Fortunately, we can use more internal resources on a smaller events but you know there's always a possibility that, you know, you have multiple smaller events in multiple places and you may need some extra hands on deck for that one for getting quiet, I think we maybe we can close the end here, Ned, Scott? Anything thrown through or Scott brockmeyer Anything Scott Brockmyer 1:07:14 Yeah, I think you guys covered it well and just to piggyback on what you just said you know this is the initial damage assessment. Important is just collecting the data, especially the pictures just understanding the scope, the severity that that's that helps get the teams in place that can bring aid assistance and expertise that's needed, so it's very important that we're one of the first teams out in the field post disaster so this kind of gives us an understanding perspective as to where helps needed most. But no, I think you guys did a good job, I was just going to comment that the best feature I saw for upgrade since the last hurricane was the tracking feature. I was the set windshield assessor and I was it was it was a struggle flipping between the map and phone. Navigating the driver because you're telling the driver where to go, so I think I have my personal phone now using the Maps and it can be a little bit daunting, but I think having that one feature filled in simplifies it greatly. And you can focus on just looking at structures taking the pictures and uploading the data so thank you all for that that's, that's quite an improvement over, just last year, Ned Cake 1:08:39 I'd like to thank the team here Franklin, Elizabeth, Carolyn, for the hard work they did to, to keep the damage assessment going and to improve it. Every storm cycle. It's a good bit of work and it's something that we've become, I think we've become pretty good at it so. Good job team. Kevin Peters 1:09:00 Thank you for your time. Take care, and hopefully we don't see the summer but we know you'll be ready if we do so. Take care everyone, thank you!