Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, October 11, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 2
2.
consider and take appropriate action regarding appropriate follow-up to address damage caused by recent wildfires and injuries suffered by county residents, including remaining fire issues, clean up in Travis County, collaboration with fema and other relief agencies, and related issues.
we indicate that this item may be taken into executive session under consultation with attorney.
it will be taken into executive session for there are several legal questions, some of which mr. Manila put in his email late last week.
>> right, thank you, judge and Commissioners.
steve manila from t.n.r.
a couple of things that I would like to accomplish.
first go through the list that I distributed last week, make sure that you are okay with it.
if there are any items that you would like added to it, I will do that.
also included in that list is a tentative schedule and different entities that need to be involved in helping to accomplish some of these tasks.
stacy is here to brief you on where we are with building permits, rebuilding permits and pete will be here to help us -- actually what I would like to do, at some point, is officially hand this off to pete, with your blessing, for him to carry forward and -- and then john white and melinda
>> [indiscernible] are also here to inform you about what their program areas are going to be providing as far as hazard mitigation grant possibilities and the removal of hazardous test from the fire area.
if nothing else, do you have any issues with the list that I sent you?
is that okay or do you want something added to it or changed?
if you like, I can walk down through it for the listening public.
>> you are asking whether anything should be added or removed?
my concerns are predominantly with the initiatives requiring more specific information and legal review.
>> okay.
>> the answer is no.
>> thank you.
>> stacy, if you don't mind, would you let them know your correspondence with fema, where we stand with the permitting.
>> sure, stacy
>> [indiscernible] t.n.r.
fema has notified us both in writing and with follow-up phone call, under our floodplain obligations we are required to permit the rebuilding.
they would be checking these permits that we are issuing when they come for their annual community assistance visit.
I wanted to make that point out there, there are a lot of folks that -- that aren't necessarily wanting to get permits to rebuild, but it is a necessity.
the other thing that we've set up, where we could consider setting up --
>> when you say required to repermit, you are saying that the residents are required to get a fresh permit?
because that could be misconstrued.
just wanted to make sure that the --
>> we are required to permit the rebuilding.
>> okay.
one clarification on that, though.
we are required to repermit the rebuilding under any circumstance.
>> that is correct.
>> okay.
>> that would be under our floodplain rules as basic development permit.
most of the properties are within lcra's jurisdiction for septic.
at least those out in the pedernales river area.
any permitting done on the septic systems would need to be done through lcra.
rather than going out and doing the mobile permitting, it might be better for residents, since everybody is on different time schedules for rebuilding and whatnot, for us to establish a phone number that they could call in, request a permit, the next day we could deliver them out.
>> so do we have a phone number that we can get right now?
>> I can't give a phone number right now, but we can establish one and come back next week and announce it.
>> okay.
where does the percentage of construction come into play or does it?
>> we're very lucky, I checked all of the structures with pete's maps and it doesn't look like we're going to have any structures that were substantially damaged within a floodplain.
we do have 13 properties that have floodplain on them, but lights like the habitable structures are outside of the floodplain.
>> for those looking, we're talking about what area of Travis County?
>> this would be southwest, pedernales river area.
>> okay.
>> sorry to be so dense on this.
you said the repermitting on septic will be lcra entirely?
>> there's one property that's within Travis County's jurisdiction.
>> okay.
how do we communicate this to residents?
at the church that it is been communicating --
>> pete baldwin, Travis County emergency coordinator, tomorrow morning there is the second of the long-term recovery committee that has been established.
pastor tommy wellborn named the temporary chair of that committee from out in the spicewood area.
I have been named at the single point of contact for Travis County.
the bottom line, if there are needs, they will funnel back to me and I will get them to the appropriate departments.
when we need push information, we will go back through that single source of information.
not only can we post it on our website and other areas like that, but we can also push that information through the long-term recovery committee.
>> are we able to leave a -- say, fliers at the church, will they let us do that?
>> yes, sir.
>> I'm sitting there thinking if you lost your home, you may well have lost your --
>> computer, yes, sir.
there is an extensive word of mouth communications out in that area.
but I think that a lot of times we can get it on paper, that prevents any kind of misunderstanding.
so we will be able to provide that information to them.
I did want to mention very quickly, though, as of yesterday morning, throughout Travis County, this includes the three fires that will be cleared and eligible and everything, but as far as housing assistance, and this is money that has been released, not money in the pipe, but money been released, as far as housing assistance, Travis County has been awarded 329,599.75.
that is for housing assistance.
that's rebuilding, repairing, whatever.
so -- and on the other category, other needs assessments, that is anything like -- like medical, dental, other needs that fall outside of the housing and we -- they have been a total of $50,000 -- $150,160.48 awarded.
and throughout all of that, above and beyond that, there have been five maximum grants that have been issued that's when the -- basically instead of having to take them through all of the process, they said we're just awarding you $30,200, there's been five of those awards in Travis County.
so there is -- there is efforts being made to get federal assistance to them.
so whatever assistance we can provide to them at the local level will be even more helpful.
>> I would just like to -- to elaborate just briefly, or you can, pete, on this long-term recovery committee.
the -- the county as a whole may not be familiar with how -- how an entity like this is created in the wake of a disaster.
but it's -- there's a -- there's a complex matrix of organizations, jurisdictions, volunteers, that -- that come together and are well organized to deal with everything from -- from reconstruction to the facilitating the permit knowledge and the resources to the -- permitting and the resources, communications, to grants to just every element of the recovery.
>> I would be glad to comment on that very quickly.
in the major disaster, your first effort is your response effort.
once the response is gone, you begin your recovery effort.
well, immediate needs are often taken care of by organizations like american red cross or churches that open up very quickly or even neighbors helping neighbors.
but when we start moving into that mid-term and long-term recovery, there are a number of agencies out there called volunteer organizations active in disaster, boad.
those range -- I won't even again to name them or tell you what the range of services they provide.
but they can provide direct services.
and so can local.
there have been several local churches that have adopted families.
so what the long-term recovery committee does, it's a group of people from the area and they basically form some subcommittees so look at issues such as debris removal and reconstruction mental health needs, housing needs, whatever, things like that.
then we will tap into this boad and other local sources to see if we can't meet those needs through those agencies, those that are left unmet by the federal assistance or any of their insurance assistance.
so -- so long-term recovery is just exactly what it says.
this will not be over with by the first of the year.
we will be dealing with this recovery issue probably at least another year to 18 months.
maybe even longer.
so -- so that's why it's so important to have a committee formed that can continue to look at those.
so you don't just run up to one point in time, stop, and somebody might fall through the cracks.
>> [one moment please for change in captioners]
>> ...
grant program.
and we began with that program to look at what can be done, learning from the lessons of this last wildfire to mitigate future fires.
what can we do to prevent losses of life and property primarily.
fema funds a percentage of this program.
after every presidential disaster, there's some money set aside for the hazard mitigation grant program, and we look at it, we apply.
sometimes the funding can go on for ten years after a disaster.
we've seen that with flood programs. So we won't confine ourselves to any particular dollar amount at this point, we'll look at what the actual mitigation needs are, organize those needs, list, find out who's taking responsibility for different roles in the community for mitigation.
and then divide the work into long-term and short-term.
but in the short term we would like to pull together a mitigation for this project by January.
there's the first deadline for a grant application is January.
and in that grant we would do a combination of projects that include defensible space, which would focus on the residential side of the fence, and fuels reduction on the public property sites.
so that would be primarily looking at our preserves and parks in Travis County.
and I'm working with a task group or task force that's led by chief leonardos, who is here with us, to learn from the -- the experiences now that people are past the immediate response, collect our thoughts and see what could be done to prevent losses in the future.
>> can you tell me the amount of the funding for -- you have this mitigation plan, is even if you are looking at short short-term and long-term problem solving as far as taking care of the immediate problem long term and short term it would be good to know how much money we have because if there is a shortfall of funds, then I think as far as taking care of the problem, and as you said this thing could go for a period of time, may go up to ten years, but in the meantime we take care of the short-term mediation aspect of the program.
so if we do that, my question is how much money do you think that we -- Travis County will be able to receive in this event?
>> I wish I knew, Commissioner.
>> okay.
okay.
>> but it's too early yet for us to understand that question.
>> I understand.
>> we will keep coming back to you as we understand.
>> right now I guess the division -- the division of the needs that we're looking at, of course and then divide the workload among the needs that we are really laying out on the table, and I guess the assessment of those needs will be done in some time frame that we will be able to look at what those needs are.
and -- I'm sorry.
go ahead.
>> all right.
we do have some experience from past disasters that I think might help you understand how it works.
from July there was a disaster declaration that had a $3 million allocation statewide.
and then the labor day disaster comes, and I don't think we have a number yet for hazard mitigation.
>> the disaster is still open.
that's why we don't have a number.
>> and our experience with floods in the past showed that we could apply for -- we applied for 100 homes in the flood plain buyout.
we only got one approved that first time, but then funding kept coming, arriving after that and we had a series of six grants over several years' time that were related to addressing that disaster.
>> okay.
>> Commissioner, we need to make sure everybody understands that when a presidential disaster is declared in the state of Texas, any eligible entity is -- can apply for that money.
in other words, because of our wildfires in central Texas, amarillo may apply for hazard mitigation grant, so we will be going up against any one statewide that is applying for that pot of money.
and that's why we say while this one is still open and ongoing, it is competitive and it's primarily limited to those people who have hazard mitigation action plans.
>> and that was my point.
the competition aspect of it, in other words, we don't have the money and we really don't know how much money we're going to get, and, of course, yet it's a process, it's a long process, and I guess if we compete just as others do.
I just want to make sure that everyone understands exactly what the process is so as we go through this, and, of course, I think you all are hitting on some very key points and I just want to make sure that's laid out accordingly.
thank you.
>> there's another piece of the process I'll mention.
there's a requirement for eligibility for hazard mitigation funds to have an approved hazard mitigation plan in place.
and the plan that you approved in January went to the state, to the division of emergency management and it's gone on to fema.
the reviews are very slow because they are reviewing many thousands of plans from all over the country.
but one thing we'll need to do in the next three months is develop an addendum to that for wildfires.
>> okay.
thank you.
>> yeah, john wait, t.n.r.
I just wanted to do over some of the things that have been going on with us to date.
asthma linda mentioned, we're already talking about some hazard mitigation related activities so our natural resources staff have already been in contact with homeowners associations and such that are our neighbors this the preserve areas because they have concerns of guarding their homes in regards to the balance conies canyon land preserves.
we've been working with these already.
there's no use waiting for the grant process to go through.
there are things we can do right now.
we've had discussions with folks in the steiner ranch neighborhood in particular and we expect to have a number of those discussions going on as we go through time here.
another thing is that with respect to debris, in general it's the responsibility of -- you know, in the wake of any disaster, the primary responsibility for cleanup rests with the landowner.
whether that be fire, flood, tornado, hurricane, whatever, the primary responsibility rests with them, and they typically can address this through their homeowners insurance, business insurance, that sort of thing, their own resource.
so what we have seen already is very swift cleanup.
very well done both through personal, you know, homeowners insurance and contractors secured for that purpose.
we've also seen an outstanding effort by volunteer organizations for helping folks that don't have those kinds of resources.
done a great job.
there are, however, going to be certain individuals who do not have resources, and that's a problem that we're going to have to continue to work on.
there may be additional assistance from the volunteer organizations, maybe additional assistance from fema and state agencies, that sort of thing.
we are, however, also working on a potential policy for the court to consider with respect to potential county involvement in that sort of thing.
and that would -- that's, you know, still to be developed.
I've got a rough draft that I've been sharing with some folks, but it needs obviously a lot of vetting before we proceed with that very far.
in general with respect to debris, tceq provides guidance on how to separate the materials because we don't want all that stuff going into a landfill, and then there's some other considerations with respect to potential hazardous ways, those sorts of things.
vegetation cleanup, lcra and our staff have been providing help to the residents on how to stabilize their sites.
a lot of times the site stabilization information presumes that there's actually going to be some moisture to plant grasses and things like that to help stabilize the sites.
that's going to be obviously a difficult thing for us in this current drought environment.
but there are a number of things that you can do sort of mechanicry in terms of dropping trees and things like that to help stabilize and prevent erosion on the site, and lcra has been providing that information, we've also been providing it.
with respect to household hazardous waste, in most of the areas that have been burned, a lot of these areas have already been cleaned up so it's not a continuing issue.
there are, however, some structures, some areas where there continues -- there has been no cleanup and there continues to be a household hazardous waste issue.
we've been exploring a potential way to deal with that.
first and foremost that would include assessment of the ongoing need, determining whether the remaining house household hazardous waste is going to be cleaned up by the owners or whether they need some assistance with that.
>> how is that determined whether they need assistance?
how do you determine that?
>> it comes down to whether they've got help through their insurance or through volunteer organizations.
basically come in there and clean this up.
>> okay, okay, okay, thank you.
>> if it looks like they've got an ongoing issue, then we can potentially consider some kind of county involvement, and again, this is another one of those issues where we are -- we're still vetting and developing the proposal, but there is an opportunity for us to potentially provide some assistance under very carefully managed circumstances.
for residents who are out there who have household hazardous waste, the county does have an ongoing contract with the city of Austin, city of Austin has a household hazardous waste facility that you can individually transport your materials to them.
they are located on business center drive in city of Austin and their phone number there is 974-4343.
typically their hours of operation Tuesday, Wednesday, 10:00 a.m.
to 6:00 p.m., Saturday from 7:00 a.m.
to noon.
so that's for individuals who want to transport the material to them.
we realize that in this particular instance with the fires, especially on the spicewood area, that may be a long and somewhat difficult trip and somewhat inconvenient.
so that's why we're looking at some other kind of an option.
possibly another option for folks who are not directly affected by the fire we're exploring the notion of having a household hazardous waste day.
the potential direction with respect to cleaning up the areas that have been burned could be much quicker than that if we get the go-ahead both from our legal folks and from the court to take the specific actions that we're at least contemplating.
>> what does it cost the customer to drop off hazardous waste at the city facility?
>> it is free.
the county pays for that.
every year we have a contract and then we get billed at the end of the year from the city based on the amount of materials that were delivered to them.
there are some limits.
they don't want you to bring more than 30 gallons of home generated hazardous waste.
I think in these burned areas most of the stuff that you are going to be looking at, they are going to be containers that may have been burned and destroyed already.
if you've got containers that, you know, paint containers and things like that that didn't burn or weren't destroyed and you may not know what the heck was in that stuff, still we're looking at a 30-gallon limit.
and if we find there are folks that have some kind of issue beyond that, we can potentially, you know, work with them to figure out how to deal with that.
what they cannot accept over there, they are not going to accept medical waste, tires, any waste generated by a business, computers and other appliances, those sorts of things.
>> thanks, john.
once we go through executive session, I guess we still need to do that, but to kind of wrap up again, there's a lot of information that we want to pull together.
examples of that are in the hallway here.
pete's crew has put together a booth for you all to look at, there's flyers, but there's a lot of other information we found and we also want to engage with the fire service providers and kind of pull all this together hopefully on a website or one big brochure, something that gives them all that information or a way to get to them.
I want to hand this off to pete for implementation.
he has the resources in my department to help do all this in as quick amount of time as we can.
and then for next week maybe a standing item we can bring back a little more information, a phone number for the permits or whatever else you want to do.
>> where do we take the debris that we pick up from county right-of-way?
>> I believe that goes to the landfills.
>> depends on the kind of debris.
there are certain kinds of debris that we transport to a -- we've got a contract with -- I can't remember who it's with right now, a number of different kinds of contracts, so that's simple solid waste kinds of debris.
with respect to hazardous waste materials we have a contract with a firm that comes in and picks that stuff up and transports and disposes of it properly.
other kinds of waste we've got a contract for disposal of tires, things like that.
so we've got a number of different contracts.
>> okay.
we do have several legal questions.
Commissioner Huber.
>> I just wanted to say thank you, steve and pete, and chief, and all of the collective leaders within the county that have been pulling this together.
I think we've seen an example today of what a complex process and a broad process this is.
it cuts across many different departments within the county and many different divisions within the department.
it's not a simple effort.
it's complex, and these people have put in a lot of time and effort outside of the usual to work on this project.
and it will be ongoing for a while and I just want to thank all of you very, very much because it's -- it's multi-dimensional and you really are pulling it together good.
thank you.
>> did we submit an application for public funding for debris cleanup?
>> that is the public assistance part of the federal disaster declaration, and no, sir, we have not had that meeting yet because, as we've talked in the past, because three of the fires were declared under fire mitigation assistance grants, we cannot count those expenses and those were our three largest fires.
and to meet the public assistance threshold of 3.3 million, it's going to be very tough.
but I talked with the state yesterday.
we're going to leave that option open because, as we said, this disaster is not closed yet.
so could possibly make it before we close out this disaster.
but to answer your question, no, sir, we have not gone through that process.
>> okay.
mr. Reeferseed.
>> thank you, sir, ronnie reeferseed here.
I wanted to briefly echo honorable ms. Huber, outstanding job done by all the people here and all the people you represent.
it's really been a showcase to the world and I'm proud to be in Travis County.
and then, this is my hood.
but I guess that was the main thing.
I just wanted to thank you all.
>> thank you very much.
anybody else here on this item?
if so, please come forth now.
okay.
thank you very much.
we have legal questions so we will take this item into executive session when we go.
and that will be this afternoon looks like.
>> I have a question for you but it can wait, judge.
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