Recommendation to request City Manager to provide an update on the City's emergency and environmental preparedness for the anticipated upcoming EI Nino weather conditions.
Communication from Councilmember Supernova Vice Mayor Lowenthal, Councilwoman Price Council Member Richardson. Recommendation to request the city manager to provide an update on the city's emergency and environmental preparedness for the anticipated upcoming El Nino weather conditions. Councilmember Soprano. Okay. Thank you, Madam Vice Mayor. Um. We had a president today, and I start off by saying this is how government is supposed to work. It's kind of a civics lesson. It starts with residents contacting their councilman with concerns over El Nino or predictions of an El Nino season coming forward. And these concerns were legit. Many fourth District residents remember the flooding of 1995, and nearly all of them remember the flooding of January 19th, 2010 along the Atherton, Carter and Termino corridor. And they really. Didn't put it together that. We did $25 million worth of infrastructure improvements since that time. But, you know, the average resident doesn't remember the context. So what we did is we held a community meeting and I invited Reggie Harrison to come out and speak to our community group. And that went so well that I decided to agenda is that for a committee meeting, I happened to chair the Environmental Committee, and since El Nino is an environmental issue, we brought it forward to the Environmental Committee and Mr. Harrison enhanced his presentation and ended it there. That brings us to where we are here tonight. And this is a presentation of our El Nino preparedness for the entire city council. So with that, I'd like to introduce Mr. Reggie Harrison, our Director of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Communications. Thank you, Councilmember. Thank you, Mayor and Council members, for this opportunity to provide an update on the city's response and recovery plans for preparations for the El Nino winter storms. The city of Long Beach has staff and all of US departments take seriously the predictions of El Nino induced heavy rains, high tides and rip currents. This winter, we urge all residents to also take these predictions seriously. Typically, Long Beach receives about 12 to 15 inches of rain annually. Predictions for this winter are that we will receive 20 to 30 inches almost double the amount of rainfall that we receive in an average year. Flooding is predicted as storms are expected to occur in succession, causing the grounds to saturate. However, even as we receive this amount of rain, it is not expected to impact the four year drought that we are experiencing. This. So the El Nino refers to a warming of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of South America. The warm waters release heat, changing the wind and jet stream, which often brings more and wetter storms. And so we don't typically see this kind of wetter weather pattern in southern California and hence the El Nino and hence the expectations are predictions of extreme weather conditions this winter. From a citywide perspective, all three departments are actively engaged in Winter Stones preparations. Earlier this year, we formed a winter storm response team tasked with reviewing storm response and recovery procedures. Training staff on emergency protocols and developing new tools for communicating with the public and the media. Departments have updated contracts for emergency equipment and material procurement. All departments are in the final stages of inspecting critical systems and infrastructure and making repairs where needed. We are documenting current building conditions to provide a comparison basis for insurance or FEMA claims for reimbursement. Preparation from a regional perspective include collaborating with Avalon, Signal Hill and Los Angeles County on response and recovery plans. We are coordinating and sharing our response and recovery plans with our community partner organizations, including the American Red Cross, local hospitals , school districts, lobbies, transit and utility companies. In fact, we meet tomorrow with this group over our emergency operations center to share our updated plans and to hear their plans so that we can analyze any gaps and ensure that there is a seamless response. We've also upgraded the monitoring capabilities of the Emergency Operations Center to ensure we are in the best position possible to respond to support first responders and the public. Today, we are extremely happy to launch the city's new emergency notification system alert. Long Beach Alert Long Beach as a free emergency notification system designed to keep those who live or work in Long Beach informed of important information before, during and after a major disaster or emergency alert, Long Beach provides an opportunity for red for residents to register their cell phone, email address, text message information to ensure that they receive emergency alerts. We currently have the ability to provide alerts via landline through 911 carriers. However, we recognize that most people do not work at home and others no longer have a landline. So this so this produces additional opportunities for our residents, for our businesses, for our hospitals, for our school districts to be able to receive alerts from us during emergencies. Alerts will be sent to registrants to inform them of what has happened, what first responders are doing, and what action should be taken to protect themselves and put and protect property. And I cannot emphasize enough the importance of residents signing up or opting in for this service. Otherwise it will not be available and residents will not have received this benefit. The next few slides. Council members is a summary, including this slide is a summary of an incredible amount of work that all departments have put into place over this over the numerous months leading up to this point. This is a high level summary. Earlier this year, you got a more in-depth report from the city manager on all of the activities. So I just want to stress that this is just this is just the top of a huge iceberg in terms of the amount of work that is going in by all city departments here before use a slide representing just a highlights from the public works department to inspect 50 and clean 5300 catch basins and and test 28 pump stations throughout the city. They have arranged for sand and sandbags to be made available at various fire stations across the city. And they manage the seawall plugs, as you have noticed, during the numerous high tides that we have been expecting, that we have been experiencing recently. And they are, of course, inspecting and repairing city facilities as necessary. Same can be said for power, for parks, recreation and Marines. They maintain the berms along the peninsula. These berms are built to specific specification engineering specifications to ensure protection of the peninsula area. They will deploy the debris, broom booms. They're inspecting and removing dead trees and structures. And they have also put into place information protocols to alert level boards, the Marine and commercial operators there in the marinas . Fire. Marine safety staff are training and preparing for swift water rescues. They're also training urban search and rescue teams and preparing our search teams for activation. The police department are generally the first to know of an incident as it occurs that in our streets their helicopters are made available to provide valuable information and visuals of dangerous situations . They also work with search and rescue teams to provide support and response activities or resources. My Health and Human Services Department plays a critical role role, rather, in providing outreach to the homeless populations. And this year, we open our homeless winter shelter earlier in anticipation of this rainy season. And they play a critical role in operating that facility, as well as providing and issuing water quality advisories as rain falls impacting our beaches and waterfront. So in closing, we residents have urged to prepare now for the rains. We recommend that residents follow weather forecasts and local media and social media that they clean out rain gutters and drains their residents, remove items from their property that could prevent water runoff. That they repair leaks in roofs and windows. We urge residents not to drive or walk through flowing waters and to call 9114 downed power lines. And that's just a few of the many tips that residents can find on our on our websites and through printed materials that we have provided for residents. And you have a copy of the PowerPoint there, along with some informational materials, both on El Nino preparations and recommendations, as well as information on the alert Long Beach system. And so in conclusion, staff is working collectively with our community partners to be ready for the heavy rains that we're expecting this winter. Thank you for this opportunity. And I, along with other staff members here, are prepared to answer any questions you might have. Make any public comment on this item. Seeing none. Let me turn this over to Vice Mayor Lowenthal. No. Go ahead. Surely you saw it. I'm speaking right now as senior consultant of Swarm Group and Associates particularly. My interest is with the homeless population, many of whom. May not be able to get to that shelter if it's open in North Long Beach. Similarly, they may not be able to get from behind the buildings where they are sleeping. The restaurants, the banks. I mentioned earlier that I observed one entity that was servicing the nonprofit, picking up donuts at one of their vendors while passing by a homeless person and leaving them sitting in the same place where they found them while picking up donuts, taking donuts to their facility. Now, with respect to what you just said, and I don't know your name, so I'm address this to counsel. Who are representative of each homeless person in your district. You are their councilperson. You are their mayor. You are their city attorney. You are their city manager. Must more must be done in order to service the people who are homeless, who cannot get to the facilities that are open now. That opened up in November and will close in March. But they're going to be homeless eight months later because the permanent housing to facilitate the growing number of homeless people have not been facilitated has not been added. It may seem redundant. But if I am the only one consistently coming, arguing and complaining before council and your numbers are growing, then that may infer that enough is not being done yet. And still. And while we would like to say that the villages up Cabrillo have helped the veterans this year. So you've helped a smaller segment of those who are homeless. The thousands of homeless in this city who are not veterans are not being service yet still. So somebody God has to provide some opportunity for those who need it here. He has to provide a voice for them. Hence I said yes to that assignment and not knowing when I left my position with the federal government that I would be doing this assignment next. But I am here. I will be submitting a proposal not I'm not looking for a job in the city. I'm just submitting a proposal to you. And I will make sure that each of you have a copy, along with the city manager of what what needs to be done to augment the services. It's not that you're not doing anything, but we're now discussing tonight raising a protocol for for the airport. We've discussed the multi million dollar structure of development over on busy. All I'm saying is we need to augment those services for the homeless. Thank you very much. Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to appreciate Councilmember Supernova's attention to this important issue, especially as it impacts coastal communities in Long Beach. I know that it came out of his environmental committee, but he is aware of its impacts to all nine districts. And I want to appreciate staff's presentation as well and attention to it. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Mongo. I want to take a moment to thank the firefighters. Several weeks ago, I chose not knowing that we would be able to afford to give out sandbags to personally with my neighbors and friends bag 500 sandbags purchased from some of them from Home Depot at $0.34 each with sand and the back laboring, no technology available. There's no stands to hold sandbags. You literally are bent over for hours on end, shoveling sand into a tiny opening. And I just want to appreciate the hundreds of bags you're about to bag for the residents of Long Beach. I want to thank the neighbors who lined up around the block to come to my house. Personally, from neighbor to neighbor and all the community getting together and bagging those first 500 sandbags. So many of us have sliding glass doors and other flood risks. I just want to remind everyone of the opportunity to get flood insurance. It takes 30 days to get it enacted. So if you're thinking about it, the major gust of the storm is late January and early February. So you'd need to do that right now. But just a big thank you to the neighbors who pitched in. Hours and hours. It took us three weekends to bag that many sandbags. And to the firefighters who are about to bag those sand through those bags of sand for you, please say thank you. It's hard work. Councilman Andrews? Yes, thank you. Also, I'd like to thank Councilman Supernova for bringing this item forward because, you know, I want to thank the city director, you know, disaster and preparedness, emergency communication. Mr. HARRIS Well, you know, being on top of this situation and continuing the effort to prepare in my city for El Nino, it's coming. When? I don't know. Councilwoman Gonzales. I just want to say thank you to Councilmember Supernova for bringing this forward. It's certainly very important, especially as our one of our speakers had mentioned, about the homeless. I know especially along the river, I now see them, the encampments now moving almost as if they're getting prepared themselves to pay for this. But maybe I missed this. But, Reggie, do is is there some sort of notice that they'll be given as well? I mean, I see a lot of individuals camped out along the freeway, but it's not on the top side as there usually are. It's along the freeway. But I, I don't know what the differences, but are they being noticed and how is that working out? Yeah, I'm going to start this and I see Kelly is here. She can jump in, but on a regular basis, we have an outreach team that goes out into those areas where we have homeless encampments, the non homeless encampments, as well as going out to to look for other areas where we suspect homeless might be in on a regular basis. They provide them with information in terms of what's happening with the winter season, the weather, as well as the opportunity to take advantage of the winter shelter. Okay, great. Thank you very much and great report. Councilman Turanga. Take you there. And I also want to help excuse me to take control of Superman for bringing this to the council. Attention being a coastal city, we are faced with a lot of other different types of challenges that other cities don't face. Basically, we have looking at sea level rise and we're looking at the need for our coastal communities to protect themselves. But I also want to point out that we do have CERT teams out there, community, community emergency response teams that are out there, there. They're I'm sure that the fire department's on top of it, getting these teams together, getting them trained, getting them. And this is area equipment to be able to respond to any emergency that may arise in any of the neighborhoods where these or these teams are in place. So looking forward to, again, working with the fire department, the police department, to ensure that our communities remain safe. And also what well, thank you. To. You've got a frog of a to to congratulate the staff. I'm bringing up this alert Long Beach application. It's I hope it's going to be a great tool not only for this event, but for future events as well. We go on to Council on Supernova. Thank you, Eric. You know, I just want to address one of the public comments here tonight. I'm particularly proud and thankful of all the homeless resources in our fourth district. We've made tremendous strides, I think, of the public meetings we've had with health department personnel. Susan Price spoke at our community meetings. Theresa Chandler. Shannon Parker. We formed a fourth District Task Force on Homelessness. We've made and I should mention, our police partners to Claudia. Officer Claudia Lopez. Now, Detective Lopez, what a tremendous job she did with us. So I'd just like to say thank you to all the entities that have helped us, and we just made incredible progress on homeless issues. Also, Elsa Ramos from the Multi-Service Center spoke at our press event this morning, and I think she mentioned L.A. County does sweeps of the river areas, too, so they assist us there. So we have a lot of features here to assist the homeless during the El Nino season. And the other thing I just want to put out there to the public, look at the debris, look at the trash, that type of thing that we might ignore on a normal basis. And again, at this morning's event, Mayor Garcia reminded us of a of a storm event where there was a clog. And, Mayor, if you'd like to carry on that story, I didn't recall it till you said it. Is that because we're not you know, some folks will leave a mattress in their alley or trash and debris that they shouldn't be leaving. What happened is the mattress flew in in the water, went right into the storm drain, clogged the drain and flooded the entire neighborhood. And so those are the kind of things we have to avoid during the storm, is please make sure that we clear debris and alleys and that folks, well, they shouldn't be leaving mattresses in the alley anyways. But we got to be more vigilant about those kinds of issues. Councilman Richardson. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councilmember. Super now for leading the effort on behalf of the Council on educating the community on this effort. And thank you to Mr. Harrison and City, all the departments who have contributed to this this preparedness strategy. My only question is, what are we doing? Have we figured? I know that we're under construction on the North Neighborhood Library. I don't know what else. We're in the construction on another the forest wetlands and those things. How have we factored in El Nino into those construction timelines? That's something that we definitely look at. I don't think we know for sure exactly how many days it's going to be rain, but we definitely look at the during the weather months and try to calculate that. But if if you'd like a more specific answer for a specific project, we can certainly look into that. Thank you. Thank you. With that, I'm going to wrap this up. I just want to re remind everyone. Councilman Supernanny, I had did an event earlier with with Mr. Harrison and the emergency preparedness team. And just to remind people to sign up for alert Long Beach you can access alert Long Beach from Long Beach dot gov, which is the homepage of the website. I signed up for it today. It just takes a couple of minutes. It's very easy and that will alert you in case of an emergency right to your cell phone or email. We already have a capacity to call landlines directly, but we don't have a capacity to text you if you want to receive an emergency tax in case of a power outage, a flood, all these issues that could happen. And so I would encourage everyone to please go on to lobby sa gov. Sign up for alert Long Beach and you will. It only will be used for emergency scenarios. So you know, you ain't going to be receiving a, you know, there's a fare this weekend or anything like that. It's, it's strictly emergency issues because that would be really annoying. They're not that either. So so please sign up. And again, thanks to Councilman Super now for leading efforts on this. With that, there's a motion and a second. Please cast your votes. We already did public comment. Councilman Austin. Motion carries. Okay. So like I mentioned before, we're going to take a quick just recess so people can go take a restroom break. And then when we come back from the recess, we'll go into our rest of the agenda. There's a lot of. Next. I. Okay. We're going to get started. So if I can have the council back here. Martin. Martin. And you know. So you guys. Good. Okay. Can I get the council back here? If I can. Everyone else, quiet down. We're going to get started. Okay. Okay. We can gather all copies. Councilwoman Gonzalez. Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Councilwoman Price Council member Superman. Councilwoman. Mango. Councilman Andrews. Councilmember Muranga. Councilman Austin. Councilmember Richardson. Mayor Garcia. Thank you. If we can just plead with read the item, which I believe is a. What's that. I don't know the number, but it's the.