you are. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate everybody would take it out at the time, not only on a short notice, with this emergency call, but when we are in the state of emergency in the county with the storm reaction and you've taken out of your time to help come and do what we need to do to protect the county with all elements we can. And at this time, I'm going to call this meeting official to order and I would like for everybody to stand. I'm going to do an invocation and then we'll do the pledge. Dear Lord, as we gather today, we're so thankful. We're thankful for all the many blessings, but we really want this pause for a minute and thank you for taking care of us and our citizens as we've come to this storm. We do not know the wise and the reasons that we have to face these dilemmas but what we do know Lord is you've got it, you cover us and you've taken care of us and we need to pause and thank you to blessings. We have an opportunity today that we've gathered here to talk about some other possibilities that may create us having a safer and better area for our citizens in the future. Please let us review this information and make the decisions that would be right for carrying out die wheel, because die wheel is what's important, not my wheel. Thank you, Lord. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Again, thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Commissioner Dyle? I just wanted to make sure that everybody heard your voice to know that you're on the phone. Commissioner Branch? I'm phone. Commissioner Branch. I'm here, thank you. Okay, so for everyone here, you all can see we've got a full board. Unfortunately, they are out serving our needs being at a conference. And so, but they've stepped out of their conference to attend what we feel like is an important meeting here. Well to let you know why we're calling this meeting is truly the water issues that we've had to press maybe Sunday about 18 plus inches and that's probably feet, I said inches, but that's probably about the fifth highest on record, at least somewhere in that ballpark. And I absolutely would not there yet, but it's common. So what I wanted to do is get this group together and talk about what we may or may not can try to do to help in the future. And I got some information from Representative Dixon yesterday. So if it pleases the board, I'll call on Mr. Dixon to give us opening of the information of what he shared with me yesterday. Mr. Dixon? Thank you Mr. Chairman. Well here we are. not too far from New York. The last 32 days, 33 days, I've pulled out 34 inches of rain. And of course, we didn't get any in the beginning when it started. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Board, for doing this. You know what, Hurricane Debbie's all back the subject to rivers and flooding and all kinds of issues like that. So it's re-ignited our concerns. I have obviously been involved in these kinds of things all my life being a resident of Duke and County. I'm one of my wintertime job was cleaning ditch out. And I left the gig, ran it over. She said, it started at the bottom of the ditch and come back. A lot of things have changed since then. Very recently, I've become aware of some work by a line-integrated solutions. And they're here today, and I think they've handed out a brochure. But anyway, in conversations with the Germans and other people, I may contact yesterday and arrange the meeting in Wallace to look at the river and talk about some things with the gentleman from the last integrated. And what I'll do is give us a summary of my association with this and then Yolk can take you from there. Basically, and I reach out to the County Manager, Mr. Villa, and he contacted Billy, and so the County Manager, myself, the couple of guys from Alliance, Billy, Jeff Turner and Dale Murphy were there. Our original plans were to meet in Chinky Pianne, where they checked the height and stuff like that. But because of my tribal situation, their tribal situation, Jeff made arrangements for us to have a shelter at River Landon in Wallace for us to discuss this stuff there. The concept that I came away with was the possibility of accessing conditions on the Northeast Cakes for your River, starting from the Duping County tender line and working back at a stream at least to Chinkypean. The concept that I understand and they can explain it better is to begin to identify and remove any immediate stuff that might be blocking bridges, you know, to make it up on bridges and stuff like that and removing it. The big takeaway for me is this and other people can clarify if I've got a right or correct understanding. In an emergency situation and there's a couple of declarations of emergency now, there's a peculiarity in that if entities are going to access parts of money, the time to do it is when the river is rising, not when the river is falling. That's my simple way of putting it. In other words, if something is going to be started, it needs to start when the emergency is happening. And that can lead to other possibilities down the road. So the beginning point and the beginning time is important to access federal costs of money. Currently, there's some available at 25% max. So Feds and other people pay 75% in county base, 25%. By that statement, it's obvious that emergency funding is extremely time sensitive. And that's the reason that I felt it was worth a few minutes of our time to ask the chairman if he'd be willing to call the emergency meeting so that we could get the information there. So after the Wallace meeting I contacted Chairman Edwards and suggested the possibility of calling this meeting to hear directly from a line. So we're here. The last thing I'll say, if you're all determined that it is feasible to begin to access emergency funding, you've got money that we had allocated in a past budget and part of that money could be used for your 25% match. And any questions about that, I'll be glad to answer later on. But that gives us the background of what's going on. And I think I described yesterday accurately. So that's correct. That's what I suggested and so here we are and I thank you guys for being here. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Dixon. At this point if either Brian or Matthew would come forth and give us a little update on where we're at and what you perceive I think most of us have been following your reports every day and you know then we've got some computer models that we had pulled up and looked at and I know nobody knows what's happening but predictions sometimes are pretty closed and so you know to the audience and the board if you'll give us an update of where we're at and what you're expecting us to see I'd appreciate it. Yes sir currently we are in the minor flood stage at around 14 feet we are expected to receive an additional four to five feet of water obviously in forecasting has the situation changes, the forecast changes. So we are expecting to crest now at 18.7 feet on Sunday. And we are expecting some concerns in our lower lying areas such as Shinkrapin in Northeast and Wallace areas of the Northeast Cape Fear River. We do expect some impacts in secondary roads and potentially some of our primary highways in that area, like Highway 41 and Highway 50. Currently we have received around 13 inches of rainfall here in our area. Obviously our county is expansive in geographical area, so that number will change hurricanes and tropical systems. Give us different rainfalls based on where those banding storms fall when they come into our county. So it does fluctuate, but our area has received around 13 inches. And we do expect that river level to continue to rise. Through that, we are working in the emergency operations center to make sure we're prepared for any scenario that may present itself. Currently, we've responded to around 100 events with storm-related emergencies that had to be mitigated. Currently we have not recorded any injuries or deaths this fall. Okay, thank you. And my understanding and I would like clarification. We have probably five or six non-passable roads now or more already at the level we are. Yes, or as as of about 10 o'clock this morning we had approximately had about a dozen or or so roads that were completely flooded and that number continues to rise as we go through today. Our 911 center is receiving calls of that water level rising. As in many storms that we have seen here before me personally, we see that Chinkapen river level rise in Chris and then approximately 24 hours later we see the Rockfish area rise in Chris. So when we have areas flooding in Chinkapin approximately 24 hours later we will see those levels start to receive and then the Wallace area starts to rise and crest. But we have that now at the level we are and they are mostly primary roads but if we get as high as 16 to 18 inches, we could expect 41 and 50 to be a problem and possibly even a place on 40. Is that information correct? In the past, with water levels rising rapidly, we do see some issues with the endundation on highway 41,50 and interstate 40. And ladies and gentlemen, that is the information that I received that created me feeling that we needed to call this meeting. Okay? Yes, Representative Dixon, give us some possible solutions that, and we've got that team here to explain to us what they could do for us, but at the same token, the information we just covered with Matthew is the reason I ask you to take time out of your busy schedule to come forth today so that we can make sure that we are doing everything we can do to protect our county citizens and the travel throughout. Because when you start stopping 41 and 50 and possibly 40, there's a big impact on state. Anything else you want to do? We think the citizens and administration and our commissioners were supporting us in our efforts to try and keep the public safe and Any method that we can use at our disposal to keep our water flowing downstream we are fully in support Thank you, and I want to take this minute to thank y'all for what you're doing Y'all have put in a lot of countless hours, and I do appreciate the effort. I think our county is under great watch with what y'all are doing and the information that you're pushing forward to let our people know as much knowledge as they can about what to expect, and I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Any other commissioners got any questions or comments they want to make it this time. Okay, again, thank you guys. So that leads us to me, that leads us in if you or as commissioners would like, I would like to ask the Alliance Group to step up and give us some information on what they feel like they could possibly enforce. Is that pleasure to commissioners? Good. Yes. Okay. All right. So I'll turn the floor over to the Alliance. Good morning everybody. I'm Josh Gil with Alliance, a 20-year emergency manager, 109 deployments both in the US and overseas on multiple disasters, anywhere from hurricanes, tornadoes, biological floods, tornadoes have been really bad this year. We offer a very unique service. We can help protect your infrastructure, to bridge your culverts, your low water pralces, with some specialized equipment. Trays are going to go into what we currently do and what we're doing in other counties. But what we've done is close to a million feet throughout in the past couple of years of waterway debris clearance. What we'd like to do is discuss the emergency protective measures to funding that's available through the federal government right now. So you've got an EM declaration that includes category B emergency protective measures. So what you want to do is look at how can we use these funds to protect roads, bridges, property, farmland, stuff like that. I think the biggest part is making sure that you're clearing the debris that's readily available and readily accessible on bridges and Covers and stuff of that sort Him and I did a quick little tour of the community in the county yesterday It saw a lot of debris that's out there a lot of bits up against your bridges and a lot that's on the banks That is accessible that will go back towards these bridges and these little water crossings as the water recedes. This is going to come up, float your debris, and then bring it back towards the bridges. All that is accessible and is eligible for reimbursement through your staff at that clinic. And that also opens up potential funding down the road as well and can assist with not only your NRCS, which you got your solar water conservation gentleman here, as well as some of the strap program as well. And what we noticed was some debris that was along the river banks from the strap projects that we're going that's still there. This may be a potential hazard, maybe a hazard now on some of your infrastructure. We've got to specialize equipment, we've got crews that are ready to come in and start doing your assessments along with the commissioners and the county staff and start removing this debris and get it out of the way. That's a really strategic 30,000 foot overview of what we do and how we can take care of it for you. Again, we're completely ready to mobilize and come assist and start pulling this debris off before the river gets too high and starts up pushing it up against your bridges. You've also got another storm that's out in the Atlantic, right? So we're all watching that very closely. The last thing we would want to do is have a potential issue with debris that's there. I'm clogging up the waterways and then you have another storm come through. So nobody knows the path of the new one. We're all sitting on wait and go with that, but you know, it is definitely something to consider. That being said, I'll entertain any questions towards me and then let Treg go over what the company does and what we've done. Okay, commissioners got a question. I'll do that. I do have seven. I'm going to let you know what good next. Absolutely. I'm Trey Windrink on the President of the Alliance Integrated Solutions. Over the last six years we have been working like madhatters trying to make a difference in the waterways, creeks, drainage districts across North Carolina. Currently, we're deployed in Robinson County right now on an emergency contract. And what we're doing inside of Robinson County, we're in such a low-lying area. We've got a lumber river that's going to crest somewhere around 21-22 feet over the next few days. So what's happening is the lumber river rising rising it's pushing water back up in our drainage districts and as it kind of eds and flows it the water rises, drags to breathe down and where you have bridges and culverts especially. You have these great log jams that pile up and culverts, blocks culverts and low water crossings. We go, right now we have 14s that are on standby with excavators and they're running out. We get a call from the drainage district guys. We run out, we grab the debris, we load it, we haul it, and we just pose of it in a place that just don't flow back into the stream. They're also running vat trucks and some of the smaller coverts with this water moving the way it does it's moving sediment and even trash off the side of the road and they get inside these culverts and clog it up so we go out with the back truck Burst the burst the obstruction through and allow the water to flow right now we're running two back trucks in In Robinson County. Over in in Rowland County we have some farmers that have some crop fields that are in some very low line areas. So we've got dewatering operations going over there. We've had four pumps running for two days now trying to protect homes, trying to protect some county buildings. We have a wide range of things that we're capable of doing from amphibious equipment to barges, to trucking, debris trucking, and the high pressure trucks to go in and remove debris, unclog areas, the key is if we can get the water to the river and get it out of here, you lessen the risk of flooding, and the eventuality of flooding in the immediate. I was looking at the reports on the way over here. At 20 feet, your low line areas are really gonna be in threat of seeing pretty high water. Anybody living along that North East Cape Fair River is gonna be threatened. So what we can do is grab those logs, grab those readily accessible debris piles, get them up, get them out of the way, process them, get them on site, and make sure that you don't have logs coming down, hitting people's homes, and then pilot them up against the bridges. And what it does is when there's logs pile up, it'll create an outflow that goes out and around. So the water can't flow underneath the bridge, you're flooding everybody to the left, everybody to the right of the flow, and it backs it up. So with that, I just wanted to give you a review of where we're currently deployed in row-an and robbers in counties, go over what we're currently doing for policy counting county commissioners there. And if anybody has any questions, I'll be free to answer those. All right, commissioners, questions? I do. We had Billy Craig me, I'm probably gonna use you as a resource right now. We snagged Muddy Creek parts of the river two years ago for one year ago. Muddy and Lamston. Yeah, about two years. Okay, about it. I went look that in. I don't know, I'm not sure if you did it, but you did it for no reason. So you remember the good job. I've actually got pictures of it on my phone. And it's actually, it was actually the mouth of Muddy Creek, feeding into Northeast Cape River at Chinker Pins. But whoever snagged it, I guess you did it with a long recharge converter, pin the stuff as good as I could, on the bank of the river. What is it possible to go in there and like have to bank most or something? Because I mean what happens is you're pulling large pieces of debris out of the river. Your pendulum is good as you can on the bank. When you get in the flood event, it's coming back to the river. So all you've done is just temporarily fix the issue. Correct. So what you're referring to is a Strat Program. And inside the Strat Program funds that were given by the legislature and then divvied out across the state, there are a few different methods. You can strap the breed, you can remove it from the 100-year floodplain, or you can mulch it on the side. And depending on the methodology of the methodology of the contractor that you choose, you know, and whatever the county sets for is saying, you know, we want to pin or we want it, we want to remove from a hundred year floodplain is kind of what you get. The strap the strap program in itself and and I think Bill can attest that this has been pretty restrictive on what we can take as far as debris that's embedded in the riverbed. And then what we can do with the debris once it's up on the bank, this is something that we've been finding for the last two years in the strap program. I think the time you get up on the bank is you're asking for trouble. I mean when the wood dries and the swell, the logs start to shrink over time. Their straps get loose and then when the water comes up, it can just split right back into the river. But you're actually physically used some kind of twine to tie. Yeah we don't strap anything. What we have started doing now is we've got an M5B excavator and we put the debris on the barge, get it to a road or a roadway or somewhere we can get our debris truck to and we're just hauling it. Yeah actually remove the order removing it. I think the job I had looked at had actually been pinned with some kind of degradable twine on the bank. Right. Which is it was absolutely beautiful at the time. The bed was clean. And to no fault with the contractor, that's an approved method and set forth by a no-failess solemn order. And what you find is only strap projects removing the debris from the waterways extremely expensive. You've got trucking costs. You've got to take the debris with you. And when the funds come out across the state, you've got 100 counties buying for a small pot of money. And you have to make the best decision for the taxpayer on choosing a contractor what the best scenario may be for the county with those funds because you want to utilize those funds and get as much done as you can to help reduce the risk of flooding. But on the flip side of that coin is if we're placing debris up on the bank in a place that it can get back in in a storm event like this, it's going to get back in. And where the real risk comes in is when it gets back in and it goes down and it hits those bridges. You know, we've got down at Elizabeth Town on the Cape Field River, those bridges have been under construction since hurricane Florence came through and we can instruct from Tegra here at the dam and that's the last thing that we want to see happen. It is structural integrity of these bridges and and and what and these road crossings whether it be a covert you know you get a lot of debris that pops up on a covert you can walk a road out pretty quickly that water is going to take a week, path of least resistance, and move. So what we've done and what we're doing and what we can use the staffer that for is to go for, grab what debris is accessible, get as much as we can get during the event and shortly thereafter at the event while the water is rising, get it out of the way and then like Josh referenced before, after the event when you went out the assembly assessments and identified these issues, after the event it opens the county up for NRCS funding possibly with the correct declaration or the NRCS funding that then you can go in and really on federal funds go in and get the debris out and process it and be rid of it. We did a semi-up situation in the Metabranch draining district after herching Florence and Lumberton. We waited on NRCS funding, we went in, we completely mitigated the risk of of vegetative debris in the stream, but we also took it to a ballpark and mulched everything. You got the mulch out, so you're not dealing with these piles of the debris that we know are going to go back in at the later time. I was told yesterday that there's some, it was actually quite funny that some pieces of wood are coming out two or three times. They've identified stumps and logs, they got them named and this and that. So they get them out, let's get them out for good. Because down the road, if you've got the opportunity to get it out and remove it, let's remove it, let's get rid of it. And then if the NRCS emergency watershed act program comes through, you can go a little bit further. You're going to get rid of that to be completely. And then when you've got the strap program at the end, you're utilizing those funds to get even further in. It's a smart use of money. You've got three pots of money, potentially, two that we know of with the Stafford Act and then the strap program. NRCS funds, again you've got your subject matter expert here. I anticipated coming down but it's 60 days after the event. Typically they'll send out an email and you show your interest in the potential projects there. A little commission has got questions? I have a question, Mr. Chair. This is Wayne. Okay, Wayne. Here we go. Thank the gentleman for the information that's been shared thus far. I guess Brian, yourself and I don't know if Tim's available, but may have to be the ones that ask the question then. I'm about to pose. It's not like you got the dots in line in terms of fun, then, and the different acts in the program. And I think you have a working relationship with the state of North Carolina, as well as all of you already know, it worked down in Robinson County. So my question is, in regarding to what we're attempting to do, there's gonna be in stages, but the purpose of this college is just making it more unaware of what's available. But this is not something that will be done at this point in totality. You guys will still be involved in the process of removing debris at a later date, but then mulch and then coming back and removing that. So it doesn't create a problem down the line. And we're just in a situation where we have to act as is all of the emergency being in place now. Correct? Absolutely. That's my understanding of where we're at. And you know, he just backed up the same thing. And you know, number one, number one, question to me in calling this meeting today is for us to understand our potential problems that we have and our potential opportunities to mitigate them. And that's what I call this meeting for. So other questions you'll may have. All right, Billy. I don't want to put you on the spot because I have had no conversation at all with you. So I'm putting that on the record. You know, you have not been briefed at all to understand, you know, are basically any of this. But I feel you have a great understanding of our issues in the county with our rivers and streams. And in my opinion, and this is just a extra opinion, and know you can you can help clear the air for me. But in my opinion our problem starts at the low end and it keeps back in it. I mean to me the worst area of problems are the greatest area of opportunity is at basically the Pender County line where I believe the feeder creek there is it rock fish that comes in you know through and by the golf course down there off of 41 highway. And so, you know, to me, that would be a cleanup area that we would need to basically start with, what emergency is, I mean, I would like to see Pender clean down, because, you know, we need the water to get away from dupline. But we're not in control of what happens other than duplicated. But to me, if we exercise this, that would be where we would need to start. We would need to get that area cleaned up so that water can get gone before the upper water that Matthew was referring to earlier that backs up gets there. If the water that is coming in and around that area and to begin it can move on out of here, then this water that from the flash floods that comes in that gets there later that backs up, that ends up doing all the damage we've had around Chinkapin before. There's a greater chance that that won't happen. That is my understanding and I would like for you to either clarify that elaborate on that or tell me that I'm looking in the wrong direction. I'll tell you definitely, you know, you're going to start, you've got to have outlet. Any water's got to have outlet. It's no different. Rain tile, it's no different. Field tile, I don't know if I'm fine. So if it don't have outlet, I'm going to load in. It's going to back up. Get the ale planter equation. Okay, so I'm thinking right. Yes or no? You've got to have an outlet to get the right. Okay, all right. So, so you'll heard what I said and that he didn't deny it. Okay, that's where that's where we need to try to begin to start is create us an outlet on the bottom end and then work away if this if we can pull this off till we either have the county open or run out of money if we decide that this is where we're going. Other commissioners won't comments before I ask staff. I've got a question I'll I mean, I mean, I mean, this is for the most part of my district. So I spent a lot of time around the river. I spent a lot of time with the citizens that are possibly fixing to have to basic their homes and I was told a couple days ago it is of their opinion that the river really needs dredging from the point where it goes and comes with the tide somewhere around Berghau in these dredging from that point right on up in the Dupland County. What is the likelihood of that happening? How do you make that? I'm like Dredging from... Yes. Same for our follow-up. You got to have an outlet. Like we've said, you've got to have an outlet. I think once you start pulling some of the debris that's even around the bridges in readily accessible, you're gonna look at loss of some sediment and sand. It'll start pushing itself back out. Further programs that are available, and we've seen this in Louisiana, we did close to 225 miles in another company I was with. We watched the hydrology change as we removed some of the snakes, okay? Dredging of, it's all possible. We just got to look at which pot of funds would allow for the dredging or the sediment removal. Again, we're looking at one particular pot of funds now, this emergency protective measure to remove the debris to protect infrastructure lives, homes, property stuff of that sort. I think is the projects come about in the other pots of funds we could work very closely with our team of subject matter experts as well as a billion year guys and say hey here's a potential project. It needs to be dredged and work with the counties that are surrounding. Hey it needs to be dredged. If you've got a county south of us that has saying and so you know five foot high, it just needs to come out. And I think that that's where your legislative team, as well as, you know, everybody else needs to come together and start working on that as a future project. Get out, we can get out now and then look at the pots of money that are available coming down the street. No pun intended. So Mr. Miller, you or any other staff have questions. I don't think I have any questions Mr. Chairman. I think your comment before was exactly right. You have to start at the bottom end and work your way up for this debris removal not only for the flow of the water but for the worker safety. You don't want to create a large flow of water at one time. So the equipment can stay in the river and work the way it's designed to work. So I think your comments before were exactly right. You know, based on the literature we've provided today, it looks like there's some opportunities available to us. We need to work towards that for the betterment of our county and our residents. Informationers? Any other questions or comments that you'll have at this time. Billy, I'll ask you, how many total miles is the river in the county? Do you know what I'm talking about? I'm gonna be all full of bills because I'm having fun on the 40, 60 miles, something like that. We're talking about, and from the county line back to, what I understood was the Chinkapin Bridge that 41 is that where we're trying to come back to. And that's going to be about how far? I don't know what they're discussing. Yeah, that's what I'm understanding. How many, I mean, about how far is that? I've written them trying to figure out what percentage of it we're talking about. That right there Over total of the whole county? Yes. If I percentage it out 10 I don't know how that's 20% of all. Okay. I mean, I can get that right. I can pull it on the maps of that averaging. So my next question would be how fast could we, if we, if we made the decision today and I'm, I'm throwing this out and this as Commissioner Edward said before this is for anybody. If we were to decide today we want to activate the process to get started with as soon as possible. What is the next step is one question about how fast can that step start? And I don't know who I'm asking the question to. I know, references and diction told us earlier that we had some money that could work as the the match money that we'd have to put up with, but yet there's got to be a request and a approval for the 85% money that we were talking about. And so my question is, is how fast can any of this take place so that we have some understanding of what we may need to be asking for as a process in a boat. So if I may, we can start work within hours. As far as that goes, we've got equipment that's staged and ready. We contacted a lot of our operators last night and said, hey guys, look, here's what's going on. We've got an emergency situation. The river's coming up. Get ready to go to work. If it's here, if it's in another county, wherever it is. As far as the process goes, let's not let people work hold it up. We'll work closely with your emergency management group on development of your PA grants. And that's the project worksheets that go for the reenversement for FEMA through all of us. I did speak to a specialist in public assistance and we've verified that it's eligible expenses. You're protecting your infrastructure and protecting homes and houses and property as well. As far as reenversement process, we can help the sort of paperwork as soon as possible. What we do is, you know, we've got a contractual mechanism. We look at it not to exceed them out and work closely with your teams. And if this is your area, you start pointing out, hey, this is what these did. It first pulled first, the debris first, but also look at the other bridges and the infrastructure within the county that may be impacted. See how we can start protecting those. But from a work perspective, we're going to park a lot of call gas. They start living stuff up and then everything else just starts falling into place. FEMA generally isn't super slow, but it's not to make a phone call and pay send me you know, X amount of money. There is a process that's associated with it. We're familiar with that process as far as the documentation. And again, we'll work closely with your emergency management. We'll be able to help with them to make sure they've got all the documentation that they need as well. I'll make sure that the process is there. Again, it's the match piece. If you've got some funding that's available, it's the internal figure. I can capture the matching funds. It's on you guys. I don't anticipate that it would be a huge issue, because you know that the situation is rather dire to start pulling stuff out. We're a local company. We can work very closely with you on that as far as the payment terms. Okay, Mr. Dexon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me make this statement to hear the opportunity that I think you've got. This this event is pretty serious, but it's not like Fran and Floyd, which I think is a blessing. Because what's happened now is re-ignited a discussion about this and past history we've gotten excited, we've done a little bit and then we've forgotten about it. We've been thinking about it and forgetting about it since Hurricane Hazel and that was in 1964. What I think this opportunity, I believe, and I would almost ask for us not to pay too much attention to what I said, but I won't do that. I believe these guys know for this money. That's their business, that's their job. They're in it for profit, which is not a bad thing. If they have knowledge and expertise that can help us, that's compatible with Billy and his people to begin a process, understanding that. We really don't know where we're going. But if we could say we're's what we want you to do. We want you to start here and do this not to exceed x. And that there is what your magic is going to be. I know that's very untchnical and a lot of people need words to be able to what I see it. If we can take advantage of their expertise and their knowledge of how that access to and start, let's say phase one and really and other people are going to have to say what that is. If you've got that, then you've got to start it. That's good. Where, from what I've heard, from Commissioner Edwards and Billy and the light screw, there is identification right now of some debris that if we could jump in and grab it and get it disposed of before it gets back into river, it would probably be easier to take a cheaper take care of it now than it's going to be if we keep waiting. The issue at hand, and you know, these guys hopefully do know how to get the federal money. The issue at hand is we don't have that money. give staff permission to enter into some type of contract with alliance. And they could activate in hours as he said. The issue is to me is that money has not been slated for dupland so we can't guarantee that pay. The only money that we truly have is the money that Mr. Dixon spoke of. So, you know, from the alliance group, if I may, as you, as Mr. Dixon said, you have good access of the process. Are you all, I mean mean I know you are willing to activate and start removing that product you've already said that. Are you all willing and capable of fast forwarding the helping with fast forwarding the application to get that federal money. That's my question to the lights group. Two questions. One of them is for the owner of the company. As far as starting right there. There are multiple groups out there that provide that assistance and we call it PA public assistance in the grain writing because you're going to have additional costs just outside of the debris, that you have incurred now as anywhere that you protect and measure, that you are eligible for reimbursement outside of this debris operation. If you've had tire trucks, police cars, lock-in-off roads, all that stuff, if you've lost aggregate on your road, whatever you've done to protect your community or to protect your county, that's all the reimbursable expense under the staff act. Under this one particular category, emergency protected measures, okay? That's all, and there's a lot of stuff that's in it. There are different organizations that I can give during emergency management director a couple of different recommendations on some of these groups that do that. We'll do our best to be able to provide any documentation and assistance and development of that project worksheet for the funding. That's an easy part. As far as the rest of it, the starting of the contracting and stuff next one. But yes, we'll help however we possible came with the fast forwarding of those particular project where she's associated with it. Now it's gonna be some documentation that you guys have to provide as well. But we'll work closely with both the council as well as your public safety on this assuming any emergency management department. I got another question. Okay. How, how tied do your hands and get in these situations by the Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA? I mean, we're sitting here, we're trying to do flood mitigation, get out, and clean out, but also know they like to have their hands on turn it to. So I think of it like this. You got the bureaucratic process, which we all love, right? If I've got a log that's up against the bridge and that log's vibrating, what kind of damage is it going to cause that bridge? Do I need to go through the whole bureaucracy of calling out the Corps of Engineers EPA to pull that log up off of that bridge? No, it's an emergency protected measure. You're protecting your community and you're protecting the infrastructure that is yours. All right, let's say down in the road, we want to claim the river out. Explain that. So that's all part of the process. And it depends on the particular pot of funds. Billi knows the EWP, that's the emergency watershed program that provides funds to have the complete debris removal from these waterways, right? And so here's paramits and everything that you have to get. Again, we've done that. The debris removal, it's not as difficult as you think. Because we're in an ex-situation out the administration where they don't want to hold up any potential funding. It's an election year, right? So I think it would be a little bit easier than before. Again, you've got your subject matter expert here on NRCS funding and the core engineers is fully aware of any kind of great monies that come through and the potential project because you've got to have a very clear and defined scope of work that's associated with it. I've never seen a huge hangout as far as I could. All right I'm going to move to staff and legal okay. You've heard everything that we've heard as commissioners. I don't think there's any question that all of us see that there is some need. My question to staff and legal is what everything you've heard, what would you say you would need from the Board of Commissioners to be able to move in a direction that you feel would be the best direction the county could be moving in. So Mr. Chairman, there is my available for from recent appropriation made by the state to Dublin County salt and water. Can I bring stuff to show you? I do want to point out that it runs from NC 11 and Mural 11 to the county line to the Pender County line, but I'd like to show you the most or these maps, this map here, there's six sections of maps, and out of the six sections of maps, each one is identified, but it basically runs from 111 to the county line. So this money is yet to be appropriated. What I would suggest to the board is the board appropriate this money to solemn water in the amount of $1.5 million in struck county management team, i.e. myself and Kerry Shields and Chess Eleanor to work with the Solar and Water and Emergency Management and authorize us to execute contracts to get this done as soon as possible. Okay. Commissioners, you heard from the county manager. And, you know, I think he is following through with, you know, everything that we've been talking about. And, you know, I think we know that we need to take some action. We know that from how we started this meeting with Representative Dixon, the time to act is probably now. We still have to hold our staff responsible for following the procedures that must be in place to protect us from a legal standpoint with the bidding process, I guess. So you've heard, you've heard everything. We will soon be approaching an hour for this meeting, which that was what I had put forth as a plan. So at this point, I'm going to ask any more comments from the public before we go any further. Any more comments from the lines? Any more comments from staff. Representative Dixon, you have any further comments before I go to the board. All right. Now I go to the board. I know that it communication sometimes is tough with cell phones. So I want to ask each one of you guys that are on the cell phone individually to tell me if you've been able to hear and comprehend the information and if you've got any further comments or any recommendations you want to make and I would like for each one of you to do it one at a time so that we can make sure that we've got good connection. So, one of you please speak. I'll go first. I'll sit here and listen. This is Mr. Dow, by the way. I'll sit here and listen to every comment from all the stakeholders and my question was answered that's really not the answer any questions before and out but I agree with the information that's been provided and I was waiting on what Mr. Miller had to say you know because I know he's been involved in it and he's, you know, basically doing the word for us. But I agree with the Tom said. Okay, Mr. Branch. Thank you, sir. I am in agreement with all that Mr. Miller has presented and stand ready to take action when the board chooses to do so. Okay, the Mr. Garner. Mr. Edwards. All right. So at this point, I'm gonna ask the board to make your recommendation for to put something. I'm assuming you're gonna make me a recommendation in some type of motion. And, you know, but I won't, I won't adhere to pleasure of the board at this point. If someone would like to, to stab at it, we can always adjust it. We got, we got a million and a half, correct? 1.25. 1.25, so, meaning in a quarter. You want to stab me with a million? Great, you got it. That's not it. You got it. You got something. Yes. I moved to appropriate the 1.25 million to solar water as emergency storm debris removal protective measure and additionally I declared a debris and a location of North-North East Cape Fair River as a public emergency. Okay, y'all heard the motion. Do I have a second? Okay, so we've got that motion on the floor with a second. Okay, and they added authorize the chairman to sign. The thing that I would like to do is open it up for discussion with with the board. I would just like to say I mean I think this is something we've got to start with. I understand we've got to start with orders going and come back up stream. But to a lot to staff to, well, like cover staff, but if we can work to try to identify additional funding and that's not stock with this because we've got to get all the way back up in my mind all the way back up to 119.03 to really eventually make a great big difference but we have got to start somewhere and if we started the top we're not getting the water away from us so it's just like cutting tile in we got to start it the as Billy said, the outflow and work to the top. So I think we're doing the right thing. It's just, I do want to be on record saying, I don't want to just try to stop with this. If we can identify funding through everybody's cooperative efforts, just keep right on marching up that river and getting it like it ought to be back when I was a child I remember being. So, Mr. Chair, I mean, Mr. Miller, if you don't mind, read the motion one more time. Approximately 8.1.25 million, the solar and water as an emergency, storm debris, removal protective measure additionally to declare the debris and siltation of the North East Cape Fear River as a public emergency and authorize the chairman to sign and execute contracts on behalf of the board moving forward. So my interpretation of this motion is that that money will be earmarked and we could go to work with that money. One of the things we had talked about earlier is federal money to do the job we had and using that money as like type match. This motion would not mitigate that. If you can get the federal money, this motion would just carry this money into the matching money. Correct? That's correct. That's one would be clear. Legal's good. All right commissioners, any other comments? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Okay, if I got an aye from Mr. Branch and an eye from Mr. Dio So okay, so it passed unanimous okay So I appreciate all of you appreciate all of you's time is there anything else we need to cover it this time Mr. Miller That's almost sure sum. Okay. I'll entertain another motion. Good job. Got a motion to adjourn for Mr. Garter. Second. Second from Mr. Dio, was that you or? Branch. Okay. From Mr. Branch. Any further discussion? Here and none. All in favor say aye? All opposed? Again, I appreciate it this meeting is officially closed. Thank you.