joining me today, I have Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, we have division chief laura lee avery from our emergency operations, we have mr Charles Williams from fema. We will be joined shortly by dr Maria Vasquez, the Superintendent of Orange County Public Schools. We have Miss Janice Moran from the american red Cross and we also have Sharon arroyo from Duke Energy. We're going to cover *** lot of those different issues facing our community as we start today. I do want to um alert you to the fact that I just signed an extension of the executive order declaring *** state of emergency here within Orange County. Uh, this of course allows us the flexibility to be more nimble uh, in our abilities to provide services, resources and support for our residents are Orange County public works utilities and our family services team have been really working around the clock tirelessly to make certain that we are providing for those basic needs for our families within our communities, especially those who have been uh, impacted the most where they have had to leave their homes, their need of food and other life sustaining supplies. I'm pleased to report the fire rescue teams have not reported any storm related rescues in the past two days and I viewed that as *** bit of good news. Also, I'm relieved at this point to report that there were no deaths reported at this point in Orange County that are associated with the storm, but we are still experiencing *** significant flooding which is causing more people to possibly evacuate their homes and we will still have streets and intersections closed due to the excessive standing of water throughout our community. Some some of our top priorities that we're focused on within the next few days includes keeping our residents safe, providing resources and assistance for anyone in need. And thirdly doing everything possible to get services up and running. I'm pleased to report that all of our traffic signals are now functioning throughout the county. There are still five roads in Orange County that are closed due to flooding. They are Rouse Road north of buck Road, Reams Road Lake Eleanor Drive Lake on the hill at the E contrail and buck Road west of Rouse Road. I want to also remind everyone that we are *** fema designated county which enables our residents to register to get help with disaster assistance from the damage caused by *** tropical storm. Ian you're gonna hear in just *** few moments from mr Charles Williams from fema, but at this point what they are reporting is that fema has 18,431 Orange County Register residents who have registered for the fema. Disaster assistance uh For assistance, you can simply go to fema dot gov. For more information. Uh There's currently one shelter operating in Orange County with just under 100 evacuees. This shelter is located at the South E con Recreation center and is pet friendly and handicapped accessible. We do anticipate more people to evacuate to the shelter as the water uh continues to crest within our community, which creates more flooding cresting is what occurs when the rainfall receives into the rivers, causing the river waters and the lake beds to overflow. We thank the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army for their assistance and operating the current shelters that remain open. The Red Cross and the Salvation Army are instrumental in assisting our family services employees and getting food and water to flood stricken areas. 240 hot meals were delivered this morning in the oil vista area and we are efforting more ways to assist those coping with the flooding. Now let me just think our Orange County Commissioners, they have been working with our teams of support staff going out into the community commissioner sibling more and Uribe have been working tirelessly with our staff to provide food and water. Uh, in areas of such as Bonnie brook trailer park, taft the gulf stream, mobile home park and in northwest Orange County and the Rock Springs mobile home community and at the Hope Community Center uh in West Orlando. Now let me just talk *** little bit about the debris removal. We realized that the storm has created more debris than normal within our community. In response to Hurricane Ian, Orange County Public Works has initiated the county's monitoring and debris removal contracts. This is where we, we bring in extra teams of contractors to help remove the debris from uh alongside our roadways. The contractors are hired by Orange County to haul away large amounts of debris. That means *** large amount of debris that is too big for normal yard waste collection. Deep tail plans will be provided soon, including direction when to place items at the curb. Uh, this information will be available on our website at o cfl dot net slash in. Uh, please remember that vegetative debris, which is any green plant must be separated from other storm related debris. Leaves and twigs should be separated from normal yard waste and bag for trash pickup. Residents who live in gated communities should consult with their H. O. ***. For direction on where to set the debris and how it will be picked up. I want to talk *** little bit now about the impact on our parks and recreation facilities. Um to Orange County Recreation centers are closed until further notice they are the South Econ rec center which is being used as *** shelter and the Silver Star Recreation Center which is having utility issues as far as our camping parks. Moss Park is closed until further notice and the park is underwater and inaccessible at this time. The following parts of trails are closed until further notice west Beach Park blanchard Park and the little Econ trail. Uh dr phillips park and uh I'll talk now about our boat ramps. Orange County is still under *** no wake advisory for all lakes and rivers until further notice public boat ramps under the control of the county remain flows. We are asking our residents to please refrain from any recreational activity in the waters and refrain from any contact in or around water bodies. At this point, we expect this advisory to be in effect at least through the weekend. Now I'll talk *** little bit about animal services. The Orange County Animal Services team has been working around the plot during and after the storm. We had nine of our staff members who rode out the storm at the shelter with the animals. So, God bless them, fortunately all of the staff and all of the pets are safe and no water breached the shelter. Unfortunately, we know some families have been separated from their pets during the storm. The animal animal services website has *** lost and found *** pet forum where people can report if they found or lost. *** pet. You can find this forum at W W W O C net pets dot com. Oh, see net pets dot com. We continue to experience some power outages within our community. You're going to have uh an opportunity to hear from Miss Sharon Arroyo with Duke Energy for an update in just *** few moments. All Oh, you see customers who lost power due to the hurricane in uh oh you see, is reporting that they have been able to restore all power within their jurisdiction. The remaining uh individuals without power are those being affected by floodwaters are damaged, customer on electrical equipment and it will perhaps be some time before we see all power restored. And at this time I'm going to ask our mayor buddy Dyer to come up and give you an update from the city of Orlando. Mayor dyer, thank you. Mayor Demings. I want to start by thanking every person in our community that came together to help Orlando and Orange County respond to the storm. This includes our first responders. Our government employees are not for profit partners and our residents are out there helping their neighbors. The storm brought severe flooding to about *** dozen of our residential neighborhoods like we've never witnessed in our lifetime and it's created unprecedented impacts. Yesterday we had experienced *** break in *** 36 inch force main, one of our main wastewater pipes that flows uh take sewage out to the Iron Bridge wastewater treatment plant. Um There was an overflow of sewage resulting from that in Lake ruina and some of the lakes that are connected to that. Our public works team has been working tirelessly to fix that break and it should be completely finished by this evening. Until then we have crews on standby to respond to any backups. Um This is *** part of *** larger problem that's created by rainwater and groundwater intrusion that has been overwhelming our wastewater system because of that. We're asking our city residents through the rest of today to help us limit the usage of water. So that means flushing toilets, doing laundry, washing dishes, showers, baths, pressure washing in irrigation system. As *** city, we've been doing our part. We've turned off all of our irrigation systems. We're working with residents who experienced flooding into their homes and businesses to help them open for customers are inspectors are out in force. They're working proactively and impacted neighborhoods going door to door as the water recedes there, conducting necessary inspections to restore power safely. Those would be the residents and customers that Mayor Demings mentioned that are still without power on the O. U. C. System. The system is up but the their individual customers that experienced flooding that it was not safe to restore power. We're gonna wave. We are waving power restoration inspection and permitting fees for those who are impacted and we're working directly with, oh you see to restore power as quickly as possible if your home or building has been impacted. Um you can schedule an appointment by visiting Orlando dot gov slash ian assistance to request that appointment. City crews have started residential debris collection. They'll soon be joined by contractors to aid in that process. It's gonna take *** little time. So we ask for your patients but you can assist us by bagging and bundling debris, making sure that the debris is on the curb, not in the street on the curb, not on the street and separating yard waste from building materials. This storm has had devastating impacts on our community. And I want to remind everybody out there that you are not alone. Our community is here for you. We are resilient and we will support each other than the rest of this recovery. Thank you. Um, Superintendent baskets, thank you. Mr dyer. Good afternoon. I'm dr Maria Vasquez, the superintendent for Orange County Public Schools. And I'd like to provide hurricane update and share information for to our families and our employees returning to *** safe learning environment quickly. Has been our main focus, our priority, all of the schools impacted by the storm have been evaluated by our maintenance and custodial teams except for Riverdale elementary school, all of our K through 12 schools will reopen tomorrow. Um, Tuesday october 4th, they have been deemed safe to reopen. Uh, Riverdale Elementary students will not begin until thursday october six. We have relocated them temporarily to East River High School and we really appreciate the work of Principal Becky Watson and her team and helping us accommodate, uh, the families and the employees from Riverdale to their temporary location. I had the opportunity today to visit Riverdale and um, it's much improved from the pictures we saw earlier. Uh, the damage is quite extensive and will take some time to repair, but the work that I see that was done um, has been uh, done very quickly. Uh, many of the items that were not on the floor, uh, will be salvageable. And uh, we're looking forward to Riverdale returning in the near future. We will host an open house at East River High school Wednesday from 5 to 7 for our Riverdale families. We will have extracurricular activities resuming in all of our schools. Tomorrow afternoon extended day will also resume at all of our elementary and middle schools. Any missed um, athletic and extracurricular activities um, will be rescheduled where possible in our schools are working diligently to get those rescheduled. Uh, we know that our students and their families, uh, and some of our employees may need assistance to recover from the storm. So we'd like to um remind you that there are lots of resources out there. Our foundation has also set up *** Hurricane Ian Relief fund. Um, if there is anyone out there that would like to aid in the relief efforts, please go to O. C. P S dot net and click on the icon Hurricane Ian Relief Fund. Um, as far as makeup days, I know there's lots of families and employees that are enquiring about makeup days. We have not made *** decision about that. We are first and foremost waiting on direction from the state to see if they are going to waive any of the days. Um, and one we hear from the state, then we'll be able to decide how many, if any makeup days we will need um, to use. There is *** list of possible days on the school calendar that's posted on our website and we do appreciate your patience as we make *** decision on the makeup days. I cannot tell you how grateful I am. Uh as *** superintendent and my staff uh to our maintenance and custodial teams to the local utility companies, the county municipalities and all of the staff who has, who have been working tirelessly day and night to help us reopen our schools tomorrow. Thank you. And now I would like to turn it over to Charles Williams from female yup. Good afternoon. I've been asked value mayor too explain to you the process that you as survivors of the storm should go through. The first process you should do is call your insurance company after you contact the insurance company. My recommendation is that you go to disaster assist assistance dot gov or go to any either google store or apple to download the fema app that will allow you to apply for fema aid online with no wait. The third method is you can always dial the 1 800 number is 1 806 213362. That is *** common disaster number that all victims of disasters can call in. So will be *** wait time. So I'm just want to pre warn you there will be *** wait time from anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours to be dial in. So I request that if possible to go to disaster assistance dot gov And you have no wait time, you can apply for help and we will be readily available to help you. If you have any questions, please see your local county emergency manager and they can assist you and our ability to help the community recover back to normal. And I think I'm supposed to turn it over to Duke Energy and I forgot her name already. I apologize. Sharon Arroyo. Thank you. And good afternoon. So our Duke Energy crews have restored power to nearly one million customers since the storm left florida. We currently have approximately 12,000 customers that still remain without power. 3000 of those are in Orange County. We expect to have those restored by midnight tonight. There are however, approximately 200 customers in Orange County that will will be restored by tomorrow and that is due to flooding issues. We want to say great, we are very grateful to our customers for their patients during this time of restoration. Thank you. Okay. Um one of the things that touched on *** little bit, all of our Commissioners are out working in the community. But I know that Commissioner Gomez cordero was out today and has been out as well working in her community. So I did want to mention that what we're gonna do at this point is open it up for any questions for spanish speaking media. If you have any questions I'm gonna ask Mr Ilia Torres to come forward. Uh And she can do the interpretation for myself or others. Uh But we also have Doctor Karsh, the health officer for the Orange County Department of Health that is present. If there are any questions around any of these health related alerts, he will be the person who would do that. And then we also have Miss Diana Diana Almodovar from our public works. She's fluent in spanish so we can call on her as well. And so with that we'll open it up for any questions and we have our emergency managers here in the room so any any really tough questions we'll go to them with those but all right so we'll open it up for any questions, Charles Williams, You did *** good job. Yes ma'am. What the what the feedback has been so far that have experienced from the feedback we received from the folks that the survivors that have survived the hurricane that I've personally received as they have *** very friendly feedback on disaster system dot gov as laid out easily. They had no problem using it. Uh Only negative feedback was *** wait time and 1 800 number. Uh That's the reason I want to let people know there will be *** weight and unfortunately it's nothing we can do about that. Uh So that's the reason I say plan 30 minutes to two hours to be on. Wait. Uh I know that's *** shock to you but you gotta realize this line service every, all the citizens that ever infected about disaster from the initial input and casework and follow up. So you have people from California, Puerto, rica, Alaska hawaii call in in. So if you have to call in with their number, Charles opinion calling it after two a.m. In the morning, that's the low peak time. It's just like everything else. And you look on the internet, you have your peak time. The peak time for that line is normally between eight AM and five PM. So you call it in *** normal business day, you will have that long wait. Yes ma'am. Okay. The documentations that required is on the application. The major one there is an insurance determination. So if you have homeowner's insurance, you need to get determination from your insurance company of what they're covering and that you have coverage. The other one is your social security number and your proof of ownership of vehicles if you claim you lost *** vehicle and your proof of ownership of your home or *** real agreement. But the, the application itself on disaster assist dot gov lists all this documentation you need, even before you start the process and say, hey mr checklist. You need these documents or even start, you're welcome ma'am. I have taken five years to improve the infrastructure in vista. Uh, it's *** complicated uh set of events there in oil, *** vista with its *** 60 year old community. And so it didn't get the way it is now overnight. It's been some time, but you know, we're very, very committed. It's *** costly, fixed uh, just because of how the community is built. And so the question is always, who's gonna pay for those improvements that's needed? And so we have *** plan of action to go in and rectify. So that's the simple answer. It takes time. We have over time been communicating with the oil of vista community. So we didn't start, you know, just before the storm. We didn't start after the storm. Those community meetings have been underway. And uh, the residents who've been there for some time, they fully aware what we're trying to do is accelerate that process at this point. And I go back to something I said the other day, there's no storm system that could have handled uh, the enormity of what happened with me in here. And so once in 100 plus year phenomena. Uh, the flooding that happened in oil, *** vista is not necessarily unique to all of this, to, we see it across the county, we see it across the entire state of florida. And so it's, it's not unique in that regard. What is perhaps more unique is that it was fairly recent since the last time that it flooded. But I will tell you that the flooding this time is worse than the last time and the magnitude of it is something that has caused concern for all of us here in Orange County uh from *** governmental perspective. And so just from the the health safety and well being of those residents, we made it *** priority. And so while we're still yet responding to uh the effects of this hurricane, is it in order to expedite that it requires *** lot of deliberate planning to get the resources moving in there? And so the engineers and all of those who are the experts in that regard, still have to meet and figure out how to expedite that. So it's just you know, that's the answer that I'm gonna have to give you at this time. It's uh okay. Alright. Areas and they're worried about transportation. So all of our bus drivers uh drove the routes um the other day and our managers drove again today and all of our bus stops are are safe. We are communicating with our parents uh to let them know to walk the area where the Children um would normally take um the route to ensure that there isn't any debris or um any area, anything that would impede them from that. If any families are having any issues, we have given them contact information, many of them are communicating with uh the principals or their teachers at their school. We've also said that if some of them have left there with family outside of Orange County, all of those will be excused absences and we'll work with them to be able to make up the work question for *** mayor, yep. Uh I don't know. I do know that some have it has isn't *** great number. The largest volumes of waste water that has been expelled was actually at the wastewater treatment plants. You probably saw some video of the um aeration tank overflowing. So but there has been um some overflows and uh lake Rowena has certainly been impacted and it's connected to *** couple other lakes. So it would certainly be mindful and careful around there and just *** quick follow up for any community that kind of has that problem. Is there any concern about contamination last like is there any advice that anyone could provide to ensure that the yard is safe? So we are cleaning up where we are having spills. Is what I can tell you on that. What we do have *** Doctor Kash who is here, who is the health officer assigned Orange County by the state, the state Department of Health. And why don't I have him kind of talk about some of the health related aspects. Doctor Karsh. Thanks mr Mayor. Good afternoon. Uh Flood water safety in general. Uh First don't drive in flooded water? Okay, drowning is one of the leading causes of death after *** storm. So if you encounter flood water, don't drive through it, turn around and don't drown. Floodwaters can be contaminated with bacteria viruses. So avoid potentially contaminated floodwater and consider all floodwater potentially contaminated, avoid skin contact with floodwaters, especially if you have open cuts and wounds, don't wade through standing water. If you do wash your body and put on clean clothes. If you have an open cut or wound and it comes into contact with floodwater, wash the area well with soap and water. If the area develops redness, swelling or drainage, seek immediate medical attention. Now if you're the owner of *** well or septic system and your well is covered by flood water, it's possible that your wells become contaminated until the flood water recedes and you're able to test your well. Please avoid drinking cooking, washing dishes and making ice with this water After the flood water recedes. Uh have your well water tested for bacterial contamination. If you need assistance with this, please contact the Florida Department of Health and Orange County Office of Environmental Health at 407858 1497. Now boil water notices can occur after *** storm, please check with your local utility to find out if you're under *** boil water notice. If you are required to boil your water, bring your water to *** rolling boil for at least one minute and then allow it to cool. You should all also boil tap water even if it has *** filter And again the Florida Department of Health is always able to assist if you need assistance. Contact our environmental health office at 407858 1497. Thank you. Yes. So if your septic system is underwater it's likely that it won't function properly if your yard is flooded, minimize your water used to avoid having sewage back up into your home. If the ground is saturated with water, septic systems can't properly function. Uh So after the floodwaters subside, wait *** few days before returning to normal household water used to ensure that the system has had an opportunity to properly drain. If you notice that the system isn't functioning after this, contact *** licensed septic, take contractor to evaluate it. Is the city's water infrastructure gonna need an overhaul. Considering the water. Well I might ask Mr Torres, are you available? Yeah. So what's the specific question? The the water system has not been impacted at all. It's the wastewater system. And right now we have um at our three different wastewater treatment plants we are operating at over 100 and 50% of the rated capacity. So under normal circumstances it's *** great system at 14 inches of water and saturated um Saturation levels that we had experienced even before the storm, we get intrusion into the waste water system. So it's great, 99% of the time. But what about the water? No, it's any impact that I suspect that there are some homes that had some sanitary sewer backups at their toilets or their showers. So obviously they're gonna need to clean that up, um there may be some homes that have uh some wastewater that has come into their yards. So I would avoid that until um you know, let it go for *** few days. Is there any recourse that residents getting that assistance available funding? Just kind of I don't know that we have any funding related to that. I don't know if that's *** fema related thing, but I don't I don't think so so, I think the resident is probably on its own. Let me just get the red cross in to kind of talk about what is available in the way of some assistance that they're providing. Uh Thank you First, I would like to say thank you so much to the city of Orlando, Orange County, all of our communities for welcoming over 1400 Red Cross workers to the area to be working this disaster across the state. And trust me, there will be hundreds if not thousands more over the course of this response, which is going to take, I think we all know across the state and here months to come. Um but I think here we're recovering pretty quickly. Um Thanks to our great partners and utilities, what I would like to say um is that we are here for you and we are here with you okay to to all of our communities, please reach out to 1 800 Red cross or go to red cross dot org. If you have any questions about services, if you um if even if you were, your home was not impacted by the hurricane, this was *** very traumatic experience for so many and even if their home was not impacted, they can still call the Red cross. We have licensed mental health clinicians that can you know, possibly help through the process um as well as many other resources. So I do ask that you visit the site or call 1 800 Red Cross. I have been asked um many inquiries about how people can help with the Red cross with this disaster. Again, you can go to red cross dot org or call 1 800 Red cross. You can help out financially with the financial donation. Not everybody can do that, but they still want to help, you can volunteer your time and still some people don't have the time to do that but they still want to help. So share our social media our post to get the word and message out so that we can continue to help more and more people. Mhm. Thank you. Alright, if there are no other questions. Thank you. All one written. Okay. Alright, Torres come on from um safety p reports show Orange County utilities wastewater list stations struggle to keep up with the heavy rainfall with some spillage. What more can you tell us about the system's performance and how it can be improved? Alright first, I want to say that we were very fortunate, we did not have any water main breaks or any sewer, you know, major force mains or anything like that, any pipe break. Again, very fortunate for all of our customers and visitors on that front with regards to the pump stations as it was discussed earlier, we have had *** major storm event um close to *** 500 year storm event. That's *** 5000.2% chance of probability of an event happening Uh in *** given year. Imagine that amount of rainfall um and with our, with over 830 pump stations, we were able to maintain both of those running as you can imagine, the amount of water and power laws was substantial. We were able to send all utility crews in between bands and respond quickly with generators to those sites. And again out of 830 plus pump stations, we had some minor overflows in some 20 to 30 locations in that in between time from the time that we lost power and we get the generators there. Um to this at this time there's only 15 pump stations on generators and all of them are operational including the all of this the one we gained power um just recently, thank you