City Council Special Called Emergency Meeting Transcript – 08/29/2017 Title: ATXN 24/7 Recording Channel: 6 - ATXN Recorded On: 8/29/2017 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 8/29/2017 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [9:08:32 AM] >> Mayor Adler: So we have a quorum. We're going to go ahead and start. We're going to first do the special called meeting. We had indications that there was some media that wanted to be here this morning so we moved into this space so as to better accommodate that. When we're done with that we could either stay here or we could go back to the boards and commissions room. That would require staff to set up again in that space. >> [Inaudible]. >> Mayor Adler: Manager says they plan on staying here unless there's a call otherwise. So let's start with the special called meeting. I call that into order. It is 9:09 A.M. Today is Tuesday, August 29th, 2017. This is the Austin city council emergency meeting. What is on the agenda this morning is a discussion related to the effects of hurricane Harvey. There is no action item for us to be taking. This is the opportunity for the council to be able to get its -- to hear from staff Tuesday what's going on, so the community can hear that, and then for council to have the opportunity to ask questions so that the community could get that as well. There are three things that I would say before we call staff up to talk to us. The first one is that our thoughts and prayers are directed to our east, to Houston, areas in between, as well as the coast to the east of Houston where this storm looks like it's going to resurface. This has been a devastating storm. It's a storm at this point that just won't die. And it's -- there are a lot [9:10:34 AM] of people that are suffering, people have died. We've pretty much dodged the bullet here to a large extent in the Austin area, but we're going to do everything that we can to help others. And to that end I want everyone to know that if Texans come to Austin needing shelter that we will find a place for them. And the second thing that I want to say is that when company comes, the family has chores to do, and we certainly do in this area in getting ready for the guests that we're going to have. Everybody has a role to play in this recovery effort. There are lots of different places that I know you can go to to find lists of opportunities to be able to help and to donate. Two, I'm just going to point out the red is taking point on a lot of our shelters here in Austin. At this point they have a lot of volunteers, they have some supplies. What they're looking for is contributions. And the easiest way to give to the red cross is to text 90999 and type in the word red cross, and that would be a ten-dollar donation. Takes just a second and it is greatly appreciated by them. I've spoken with the mayor, communicated with mayor turner in Houston over the course of the last several days. I asked him what we could do, and the first thing that he asked for was also assistance with contributions. And his request is that people go to ghcf.org. That's the greater Houston community foundation, initials for that, ghcf -- [9:12:41 AM] ghcf.org, to make a contribution. That is mayor turner's request. I would also say that among the many places you can go to find lists of ways to volunteer, to help with pets, to give blood, to donate diapers, all are needs that we have a list right now on mayoradler.com. Mayoradler.com has a list that we are updating as we get additional requests to direct people. The third thing I want to say is that we are not checking immigration status at shelters. And that goes for everyone. Our priority is your safety. And we want to make you feel at home regardless of where you have come from. That is the character of this community and is the kind of hospitality that we're going to show. So that said, manager, I'll turn it over to you. >> Thank you, mayor. I'm pleased to be here this morning. We have a report for the council on what we've been doing over the last weekend as the hurricane hit the coast. We do also have an update on what we're doing in terms of planning for the additional sheltering. We have an army, a small army of staff that's been working. We have a form mall process -- formal process. It's also a paramilitary organization that really is the top-down. And it is working. We have been through this before. We have a number of seasoned people on our team that were here during hurricane Katrina and Ike. Some have favorite nicknames that involve hurricane. I won't tell you which ones. But they are very seasoned and they've been through this before. We have written plans that we are following. [9:14:41 AM] And it is an all hands on deck plan. We will -- as we move into the sheltering mode we will have two or three shifts, but there will be staff assigned to provide those manpower needs, personnel resources to make sure things happen. We will have a form mall intake process that is expected so that those folks that come here can get FEMA assistance. It is not to check their immigration status by any means, but it is to be able to get them connected to financial resources and to get the kinds of identification card replacements that they need to be able to fix, drivers licenses and things like that. The staff have been working very hard over the weekend. We will continue to focus on this as a community emergency and a Texas emergency. If you as councilmembers hear of things we need to be doing, we would like to ask you to focus those requests back to our eoc command center so that they can distribute the requests for resources back out in that organization so that we can have one focal point that's getting all the requests and making sure that we have the follow-up to get that done. We also would like to ask you if you know of community people who would like to help with this event or agencies that we could lean on, please provide that information to us. You are our fingers out into the community. If you hear of needs that we're not addressing or if you hear of people who have resources that they would like to donate or contribute, even volunteers, please call our eoc, and we'll be providing those numbers to you because you're an integral part of this response and we need your context as well. But I just appreciate so much all that the staff has [9:16:43 AM] done and the council over the last weekend, the last few days. It's very important. And we're here to make sure that our visitors when they do arrive have as pleasant an experience as we can provide to them. With that, ray Arrellano, if we could call you up and you could introduce the staff that's going to make the presentations. >> Mayor Adler: While ray is coming up, councilmember kitchen, did you have something? >> Kitchen: Yes, two quick things. First off, I want to thank ray and our entire staff of first responders and our city for paying such close attention to the onion creek area. I think they went above and beyond, you know, in terms of helping the residents in both upper and lower onion creek really, really understand what was going on and feel more comfortable. Those were areas that have experienced catastrophic flooding in the past. And as we might all understand, they were very nervous. We were very fortunate as a community, but I appreciate you sending out folks into those communities to make sure that people understood what was going on and everyone was very responsive to me as I was texting at different times of the night trying to answer my constituents' questions. So thank you very much. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Ray? >> Thank you, mayor and councilmembers. Ray Arrellano, assistant city manager. It was my pleasure to serve over the past five days or so, and to continue to serve in the capacity that will help not only our community that we did see little impact, thankfully in our community, but also to help the Texans at large, that community, help survive the impacts much hurricane Harvey. So this morning I have two individuals that will come up and provide you some bit of status in terms of what we've done to this point and what we're doing in terms of [9:18:43 AM] serving evacuees from the coast, but also then that will be Juan Ortiz, director of homeland security and management. And then the ctm department to then talk a little bit about the requests that we have from the state in terms of housing and official evacuees from the coast. And our plans for doing that. So with that let me ask Juan Ortiz to come to the podium. >> Mayor and councilmembers, thank you for the opportunity to give you this update as to what the current conditions are in response to hurricane Harvey. I will let you know that we actually started monitoring hurricane Harvey well when it was still in the caribbean before it even made landfall into the yucatan peninsula, and we had been working and communicating with all our regional partners to make sure that we were getting ready as best as we could in anticipation of this storm. And I want to specifically thank the Austin independent school district, Travis county, hays county, Williamson county, and all of the other community partners like the American red cross, Moad, a volunteer organization that is active in a disaster, and the Austin network and all the other partners that we have tapped into to help us to prepare and get ready and to make sure that we're ready to meet the needs of the Texans who evacuated and that were in the path of the storm. Currently at this point in time we have 563 guests that are in a total of four shelters. One is a medical shelter, which is at the university of Texas at Austin, and again a great partnership with the university of Texas at Austin that is able to provide us that facility. [9:20:44 AM] Also at burger center, the Delco center, and lbj high school. Currently we also have on standby shelter capacity at Reagan and Lanier and those locations will be open as the previous shelters get full and we'll open those facilities as we need them as we move forward. At the same time as the storm makes landfall it downgraded into a tropical storm and a depression and has caused tremendous flooding. Our guests that we have received support from come from all over the metroplex, down south from corpus Christi and some as far east into the Beaumont area and points in between. We're working with them to identify what's the best way to provide them information so they can make a decision when it's best to go home. We're also -- but we're also receiving some of the victims that were not able to evacuate and now we're moving them more into a post-landfall type of a response. Up to this point we're meeting all the needs that the request that Texas has made from us, but we've also identified working with FEMA we have seen that they have identified over 30,000 -- a need for over 30,000 shelter capacity across the state of Texas as a result of the flooding occurring in the Victoria, galveston and Houston area. The state of Texas has made a request from the -- to the city of Austin for additional shelter space. That request was for 7,000. We are working with the state of Texas to identify the locations where we can meet that need as best as we possibly can, and Paul hoppinggarden here will provide you a report of what our capabilities are in [9:22:45 AM] order to meet that need. Before I close my comments here I also want to remind folks that if you are here in the Austin area and you need information, please go to austintexas.gov/help. Austintexas.gov/help. Not only our guests, but our residents will be able to find the up to date information as to how best they can get information as to when they can return back home or any available resources that we are making available here in the Austin area as well as how our community can help. And if they have any desires to provide additional assistance and how they can best help us to meet the needs of these guests. Also, in addition to -- you can call Austin here and they can call 311 or directly by calling 512-974-2000. FEMA has established a telephone line where folks that have been impacted by the disaster can start calling to register for disaster assistance. You can do so by calling 1- 800-621-fema. 1-800-6214357. Also you can go to disasterrecovery.com. Disuseterrecovery.com is -- dissterdiscovery.com. If you feel that you have been impacted by the disaster and are here, you can go to that website to register as well. At this point I want to pass the stage to Paul hoppinggardener. >> Good morning, mayor, council and city manager. My name is Paul [9:24:46 AM] hoppinggardener. I'm the deputy director of ctm. To give you some background as to why somebody from the computer operation is standing up here, I started out in law enforcement, spent about 13 years there. I have been involved in all of the major efforts at Katrina all the way through Ike. I was at the disaster assistance center in 2014 and 2015 for onion creek. Today I wanted to give you some information. So we've taken all of the information from Katrina and all of the other of a-action reports and have put it together in a special operations plan for mega shelter. I chaired the mega shelter committee for the last five years. The purpose of the -- this activity was the people who are involved in the services, non-governmental organizations, our partners such as Travis county, the American red cross and others in putting a plan together so that we could provide services. The picture I'd like to draw for you today when you think about a mega shelter is that it's a very large operation and it's been described as a city within a city. So what happens in the beginning is, for example, today when we leave here in a few minutes, we're going over to the first location at the convention center to take the already existing plans, begin to map out the area assigned and put together for where people will be housed, where we will run operations. But as that plan begins, we will ramp up and start say signing people to key and incident positions in the command structure. As we begin to do that we will be preparing within the next 24 to 48 hours, optimally 48 hours, to begin to move people out of existing shelter operations into the mega shelter operation. So the first thing that happens in the mega shelter is when you arrive is [9:26:47 AM] registration. And if you've ever been to one of those types of events it looks like it's chaos, but it's not. It's actually organized, it's just extremely busy. And a lot of people who are coming in, our experience in the past is frequently people come off of buses, they may have been transported for a very long period of time. They probably in many cases don't have what they need for basic needs. They may have had some water, some food. So what we will set up is an issue registration point and after that initial registration point what you will see is somebody is making sure that they've got food, water, basic needs. They'll be evaluated for medical. And the initial goal is to get them through that as quickly as possible so they can get settled in and make sure that they have food and opportunity to take care of basic needs. And then the process moves forward where we will have managed care and we will have people interviews, Austin, Travis county, they will have partners and they will interview people to determine what all their needs are. In that process of assessing the needs, if there are medical or prescription or mental health, contacting other relatives or neighbors, all of that information will be put together. As we begin to determine where people are from, then the services portion of that is designed to make sure that they get that information and know what to do. So in the beginning of an incident, what you will see is the first day or two you're taking care of basic needs. Then you're beginning the assessment. And then you will see agencies like FEMA and others that will be, you know, setting up operations on-site. So they're not there day one, and it depends on what their schedule is before they arrive. So we will continue to follow that plan. We've have 12-hour shifts [9:28:48 AM] and we'll have all of the people organized. And make sure that you as we're following the plan we send them to the services that they need. So as we set up the managed services and the ramp-up period, I think what's important to recognize is that we're starting off at the convention center. We're planning and looking at additional locations that could accommodate approximately a total of 4,000 people and facilities that the city and county have, and we've reached out to the community working through the American red cross and the Austin disaster relief network, to look and see if the community could handle approximately 1,000 people. So we're working through that. The red cross is used to helping people with churches and other organizations. We will be coordinating all of the services that are necessary in the facility. For example, the feeding people, if they don't have clothes we'll work out operations to get them to locations where they can receive clothing. What we do not need at the individual sites are, you know, people coming up and bringing things there. We have a very structured process and that structured process, donations will be accepted, you know, but not at the site. So they'll need to work through the other organizations that are available. We'll make sure 311 has a list of all of those and that they're posted on the website. And we coordinate through the logistics in order to make sure that all of that is handled versus coming into the center and making it confusing. So once we get the services set up, if you think about it, it kind of gets small and then it grows very large and then you start the demobilization process. The demobilization process is helping them find, you know, other locations and residences. FEMA in some cases will provide money for housing and other things. That's happened in each of the events that we've participated in. So what I want to make sure [9:30:49 AM] that we emphasize is that we do have a plan. We've followed that plan before. We have experienced people who have been involved in that and we'll continue to follow that plan. Do you have any questions? >> Mayor Adler: Ms. Kitchen? >> Kitchen: So I think you mentioned this, but I'm certain that you're working with our medical -- women, with community care, with central health. And they will be down at the convention center I assume, right? Medical facilities. >> That's correct. Actually, the whole team has been working for years on this plan and then it gets really a community-wide effort and we look not only the medical services, but all the other social services and security and all different aspects. >> Kitchen: I have two questions related to the medical care and I'm sure it's related to your plan, but I want to bring it up in case you haven't talked about it and go back and think about it. I was involved during category because I was part of our melt community at that time. So one of the things we did is set up a hotline for this city. We used our 311 -- we didn't use 311, we used united -- yeah, 311. 211, that's right. You're probably familiar with that too, councilmember Houston. It was a hotline so anybody in the community could call because we if found that we had a lot of people coming into the community that didn't go into the shelter or who may have found other places to stay. So anyway, I just bring that up in case that's something that you all have thought about. We found it to be very useful. >> Yes. We do have a hotline and we actually are utilizing 311 in that capacity. And so if someone were to call right now and say they're staying with a friend or a family member [9:32:52 AM] and -- or staying at a hotel and can no longer stay, cannot afford the hotel, they can call 311 and then they would be directed to the shelter where we are receiving people, which will be at Delco, the other shelters are at capacity. So we would direct them to the next available shelter that is open. So currently they would be directed to the Delco facility. And once that facility fills up, then we will open up the other facilities and then we would change that information, start directing them to the next open facility. >> Kitchen: Okay. We could talk about this further, but I would suggest that you might consider branding it as a -- not just 311, but brand it as a hotline for the hurricane. >> Making a note of that. >> Kitchen: The other thing is and we could talk about this offline is the health information exchange. Which there's a statewide system of health information exchange that may be helpful for people who need their medicines, for example, if they don't know what their medicines are and things like that. I'm sure the medical community is familiar with that. Thank you T. >> Pool: Mayor? Thanks for all that y'all are doing to get everything organized and to deliver services really expeditiously. It's really necessary and I'm glad the city is stepping up as best we can. I wanted to drill down just a little bit more specifically on prescriptions that people may or may not have with them. I understand in Houston that doing deliveries as best they can as well to make sure that the evacuees have the medicines that they need in case they weren't able to take them with them or they run out. Is that part of the health care coverage that we're working on as far as services and resources? >> Yes, it is. There's already a plan in place and it's going on currently at the existing facilities and it will continue at the others. [9:34:52 AM] >> Pool: That's great. Thank you so much. Maybe we can also amplify that information. >> We're working very closely. We have ems, Austin public health as well as the capital area trauma regional advisory committee, all those different agencies and dshs, the department of state health services, working together with assessment teams going to the shelters and making sure that they make the assessments and provide the services that we need at that time. >> Pool: That's great. Thank you. >> Houston: Again, thank you for all that you've done over these last several days and will continue to do as we live through this disaster. I want to also call out the fact that we have many city employees that are out there in the Delco center and at the other site locations working and volunteering. So I want to make sure that people understand it's not just the logistical part, but we are city employees are out hands on making sure that people are safe, that's the public safety folks, but also doing shelter management in some cases. So I just want people to know we're all in. Thank you. >> That's exactly correct. We're actually utilizing representatives from the different city departments and offices from all 40 departments and offices throughout the city of Austin. And even the library we're utilizing personnel to help in response to this event. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Ms. Alter? >> Alter: Thank you, gentlemen and thank you to Austin energy and Austin transportation and all of our first responders who were really there for our community this weekend and I know there will be for the rest of our Texas community moving forward. I had a couple of questions. One I've been hearing from a lot of folks that want to perhaps host people in their [9:36:52 AM] homes or in a rental that they have. What is the best way for them to connect up with opportunities to host people if they don't know somebody to host already? >> Someone wants to open their doors, right now we're going to be coordinating that through our local churches, but for information they can call 311 and we can direct them to our agencies that we're trying to coordinate in that effort. And if we get to that point where we need that type of assistance, we will open is up at a time. So we will most likely be coordinated through the American red cross or the Austin dallasster relief network, but calling 311 would be the first step. >> Alter: And for the convention center, can you say a little bit more about when that will be open as a shelter, and I was a little bit confused as to whether the other ones, once that was open, would be closing or they would all be open. I know there were some other aisd schools that were on standby. Can you help me understand how those were all interacting together as it plays out over time to accommodate the many people. >> Probably the best way I can describe it is the capital area hurricane shelter plan was looking at shelter capacity with all the different school districts for up to about a five-day window. And as we're opening these facilities, we're opening not only just in the Austin school district, but other neighboring school districts as well. As we transition over to the mega shelter plan, we will be working with the guests and seeing whether they're able to return back home and if they're not going to be able to return back home then as soon as -- when the facilitate is open then we will provide you transportation if you need to and begin to consolidate so we can start freeing up our facilities, our school [9:38:54 AM] facilities so they can return back to educating our youth. As far as the timeline, Paul, if you want to talk about that. >> So timeline as we will plan to be ready Thursday morning. And at that point we would want to consolidate people from the other shelters in order to provide better services at one location. >> Alter: Thank you. That was helpful clarification. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Mayor pro tem? And then Mr. Flannigan. >> Tovo: I just want to echo my colleagues thanks and also to just say I have every confidence having watched the city's response to Katrina and also to the flooding in onion creek. I have every confidence that our management and our staff will handle this as smoothly as possible. Thank you all for your expertise and your work. And of course, thanks to the staff who are volunteering and are working in the shelters. Can you remind us what the website is? I think there was a reference to some information that is on a city website providing direction to people who want to donate or volunteer. >> Correct. For the latest information on response to hurricane Harvey, you can go to austintexas.gov/help. Austintexas.gov/help. And we're updating that website with frequently asked questions and the latest information that we have and as information changes, we're asking people to go back to that website as often as they need to. It gives -- as we find out more information especially about the coast and what communities are opening we'll be updating that website. >> Tovo: Thank you very much. As I indicated to our assistant city manager, this is a all hands on deck situation, as you mentioned, you have staff from across the city assisting. And so as you can I hope you will provide us with [9:40:55 AM] information about how we or our staff can also assist in volunteering at the shelters. Thank you. >> Mayor Adler: Mr. Flannigan. >> Flannigan: To what extent do you coordinate with other jurisdictions that also might have facilities or resources that might want to participate? Or is it strictly city of Austin effort? >> No. This is actually a regional plan. And really it's a ten-county region plan. The plan is primarily supported by the counties of Williamson, Travis and hays county with support from the Austin independent school district and surrounding school districts as well. And the American red cross. As you also saw, the storm made landfall and it also threatened and caused some of our eastern counties to be impacted. So for this purpose really we were not only in support of folks from the coast, but we were also getting ready to support our neighbors to the east in any way that we could. They had to open shelters within their community to handle the evacuees that were in their counties. So they were not necessarily available to provide us any additional assistance, but we are coordinating with all of the communities in the central Texas area, and that's something that's been going on for years. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. >> Casar: Thank y'all for the presentation. I was born and raised in Houston and I think if my memory serves right, there's someone else on the dais that was so I've spent a lot of times in the last few days working not only on city stuff, but also texting friends and family and I know that's also the experience of a lot of austinites making sure that people are safe and okay. [9:42:56 AM] And unfortunate fact is that there are a lot of people who are not and we mourn those that have died and that have suffered and continue to suffer from this disaster. I just wanted, while we have the floor open now, to state what I think the dais believes what happened I know I believe that providing refuge for folks that are fleeing deadly conditions and who are desperate, I believe that providing that kind of refuge is at the core of what that refuge should be about and what the city should be about. And so I'm so deeply appreciative of every person that got in a boat in Houston, every staff member who took volunteer time. Some of you who have taken my calls late at night over the last few days, it's so important and I can't thank you enough. I want to highlight briefly, one thing that I think the manager and you all spoke to briefly, which is that amongst the many difficult tasks that our city and team has to work on, one of them, just in a long list of difficult tasks is being efficient with the top-down operation and not only feeling like the city and the red cross and the disaster relief network have to do it on their own because I've heard from so many folks in the community that are ready to help and ready to step up. And I think you've heard from councilmembers that we want to figure out a best way to direct those resources and folks to the way that helps the most and helps right. Just yesterday I was interacting with some folks who know hotel managers in my district and I think connected with the city staff to get beds for people that maybe the shelters won't work for. Maybe the folks that are most vulnerable who the shelter wouldn't work for. So I know other leanedders and councilmember alter is mentioning folks who own houses or people who own [9:45:00 AM] vacant retail sisters. I want to open up that you can lean on us and we also know many people in the community that we can lean on to bring that support and help if that's useful and necessary. So just know that we are here as a resource and that it's not all on you. Last night I was at a shelter, one of the shelters where I was called to because there were a large number of Spanish speakers that had arrived at the shelter and were very scared and there was only one Spanish speaking volunteer at that shelter. And I think that it's -- from the mayor's own can comments opening up this morning, I think it's very clear that a lot of people that are really scared right now, not just because of the hurricane, but also how it mounts on top of the environment for lots of community members right now. And so if there are thousands of people coming from Houston, which is the most diverse city in the country, it won't just be -- we won't just have a need for Spanish speaking volunteers, but people that speak a wide variety and breadths of thanks that the immigrant community is likely to be displaced because many of them have fewer networks and will need to feel safe coming to a shelter, which you mentioned can seem chaotic and there's a a lot of government personnel and there is that rift of trust with governments right now. And I bring up that example from last night not in the least as a criticism at all, but rather to magnify that this is a really big task, such a huge task. And y'all are doing a great job and I know putting everything you can into it, but I want you to know the door is open to tell us what you need and that I think a lot of the councilmembers and community members that we can call upon can help bring some of that to bear. So it's not -- I'm not saying this because I'm saying we need more private beds in hotels or retail centers, but it's about multilingual interpreters at the doors, but I bring it up as two places that I think [9:47:00 AM] we have networks and are able to help. And whatever else goes beyond that list of two things, which I'm sure is a long list, just count on us to do whatever it is that we can to do it. But I do very much have great trust in our staff and the way you're handling this and know you will. Then the very last point I would make is that I think the sense on the dais that I also want to personally communicate is that this is a top priority and if I hear over the next few weeks that this or that special project that you're working on is delayed and staff haven't had time to work on it because they're working on this, that is okay. That is fine. That is right. This is a priority for all of us and weless appreciate all of the hearts and energy and long nights people have been putting in, but just know that this is at the highest level of priority for us. >> Just like you, I'm getting calls from the different citizens or the private companies that have resources available for the public. If they have resources that they would like to -- or they would like to help, again, the first step would be to calls 311 or go to the austintexas.gov/help website where we can best way to find out how to route that information into the emergency operations center. And then as well if you all get calls or our departments as well get calls for request for assistance or anything like that or resources that somebody is trying to make available, it's important that we get them to the emergency operations center so that we can track them and make sure that we maximize their use and figure out the best way to use them. In fact, we'll be providing you information on how to do [9:49:01 AM] that. >> Casar: That's a helpful way of capturing what is coming in, what people are offering and what they think we need or might have. But also I'm interested in what needs you actually have so that we can go out and ask because I think if we ask and say this is what we need and this is what's important, then people will provide it. But right now I think we are receiving calls from people just offering whatever it is that they have, not knowing whether we need that specific thing in this specific way. Right now we're not. So just keep doing what it is you're doing, but know christmasing this that we're putting out that we are calling these specific folks for this specific need and I think people will step up. >> Yes. >> Mayor Adler: Councilmember Houston? >> Houston: I want to say again that I'm so appreciative that we have so many people here to organize us and that chain of command is so important, especially from my submarine officer who is our assistant city manager to you also, thank you all so much for all that you do because it's hard as a citizen to see the pain and suffering that's going on and sometimes we don't know what the right thing to do is. So you keep telling us this is how it goes, this is what we follow. This is the plan that works. So I saw it work in Katrina as well. It's like a small city with pharmacists and chaplains and mental health workers, everything all there in the convention center. So I'm very comfortable with that. I also want to let the -- my community know that I did tour another one of the sites in district one this morning and they're prepared and ready to go. And including for people who don't understand the magnitude of what we're going to be dealing with is that provisions for people who have different shower areas or for religious reasons on can't do that. So they've thought about everything that we're thinking about now and they've already done it. And the red cross is push at [9:51:02 AM] what they do. So again, thank you to -- is superb at everything that they do. So thank you, everybody. >> One other point of clarification. So as we start the first location we'll go to is the convention center, which has about 2500. If we reach the 2500 capacity we have other facilities and we will then begin to move people to those other locations. To the question about staffing. This will be multiagency and multicounty. We already have commitments from the other entities to help provide people within the structure. So it's not Justin, it's all over the region. >> And also I want to get the word out to our citizens here in the city of Austin. It's also -- this reminds us all of what we need to do to prepare. We need to make sure that we have a family disaster plan, an emergency supply kit. And the very first step you need to do, you need to go to onecentraltexas -- warncentralstate ofstate of texas.org to receive alerts from the central Texas county of governments. That is warncentraltexas.org. >> Mayor Adler: And just to conclude, one, I want to especially call out Travis county. Not only have I been numerous places with county commissioners and the judge, the county judge is the ranking emergency officer here locally and she is working nonstop on these issues. And the commissioners' court is getting a briefing this morning as well. And finally, as the post-script on all this, I remember well Katrina and the convention center. I was there in a very different capacity as a volunteer, and I'll tell you that when I was in that space I had no idea just how [9:53:04 AM] much was involved with the logistics and the coordination associated with the operation. I want you, please, to take back to everyone at the emergency operations center and thank them. There are rows of tables, there are 50 different agencies all sitting with their own phone, their own identification. Everyone in that room is talking to each other either by calling the other person on the phone or most usually just standing up and talking to the person that you need to. It's an amazing operation. And it instills faith and trust in our communities and the government's response to these things. Thank you and please take that message back to everyone. Thank you. >> Yes, sir. >> Renteria: And after touring the Delco center yesterday I was very impressed and I think a big thanks to the red cross. I mean, I was just amazed how they coordinate that shelter and how they were able to -- they're able to keep it clean and neat and what they have for the children there, all the games and activities. It was just very impressive. And I just wanted people to know if you come to one of these shelters you are going to be safe and your kids are going to be looked after. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Those were all the things that takes care of what we had with our emergency called meeting. It is 9:54. That meeting stands adjourned. We're going to take a three-minute resource and run to the restroom. Staff is going to come and set up. We have two presentations to hear from staff, the colony park and the downtown funding issues, and staff, you can decide which ones of those comes first and which comes second. Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: Mayor, could we spend a minute talking about the situation for the day? I would just throw out to my [9:55:05 AM] colleagues if we all grabbed our sticky notes and our note pads and just walked across the hall would there be much more setting up that would need to have to happen there? We just -- we have a lot of discussion ahead of us today and we typically do it in the boards and commissions room and that would be my preference if it's not terribly disruptive. But I leave it -- >> Mayor Adler: I had asked the manager if she expressed a preference to stay here on behalf of the staff. We could certainly override that if we wanted to. That's what the manager requested. >> Tovo: If it would be disruptive, we can stay here. >> I need I.T. To give me a head's up on how long to get set up over there. >> Mayor Adler: Five minutes. Well, there were several people that wanted to stay in this room as well. So I would just as soon defer to whatever staff wanted to do unless there's reason not to. >> Really all we need to do is get another mic and a couple of chairs down here to be ready to go here, otherwise we've got to switch the camera system and get the I.T. Folks set up over there. So it would take probably longer, at least ten minutes. Ten, 15 minutes max. >> Mayor Adler: The mayor pro tem has asked that we move to the other room. Do we want to -- is there anyone else that wants to do that? Do you want to put that to a vote? >> Tovo: We don't need to vote. Again, if it's disruptive and it's easier to stay here, that's fine with me. I'm just throwing it out. >> Mayor Adler: Then we'll go ahead and stay here. We'll reconvene here in about five minutes and begin the meeting. [Short recess].