Zoning & Planning - Special Meeting

Good morning everyone. Will the committee on executive management come to order? Present today are myself, vice chair Nishimoto, council members Kia, and council member Okimoto. Good morning and welcome. Thank you for being here. Although remote oral testimony is being permitted, this is a regular in-person meeting and not a remote meeting by interactive conference technology under HRS section 92-3.7. Therefore, the meeting will continue now withstanding loss of audiovisisual communication with remote testifiers or loss of the public broadcast of the meeting. Members of the public will be allowed to provide oral testimony on all items on the agenda in person in the council chamber and remotely when each agenda item is taken up as both English and Hawaiian are official languages of the state of Hawaii. Pursuant to article 15 section 4 of the Hawaii state constitution and section 1-13 of the Hawaii revised statutes. Members of the public may testify in either language for oral testimonies offered in Olelo, Hawaii. Additional time, as may be necessary, will be allowed for either testifier to provide an English translation of their testimony. Before testifying, each person shall state their name. Each speaker may not have anyone else read their statement and is limited to a one-minute presentation on each item. Once in-person testimony has concluded, I will proceed to those who have registered to testify remotely by video conference. When your name is called, please monitor your screen and activate your audio feed when prompted. I will then give persons who have not registered an opportunity to offer testimony. Please utilize the raise hand feature in the Zoom to be called on. For those joining us by telephone only, please press star 9 to indicate your desire to speak. I will identify you by the last three digits of your phone number. When your number is called, please press star six to unmute yourself when prompted. Some friendly reminders and tips. video conference from a quiet

location if possible. If you're also watching the proceeding on OL, please mute your television at the time you are called to testify. When the timer on the screen reaches zero, please conclude your remarks promptly. Written testimonies, including the testifiers address, email address, and phone number, will be available to the public as described on the posted agenda. As a courtesy, please turn off all cell phones. Turning to our agenda members, we are on item number one, an update from the administration on the current recovery efforts related to the islandwide impacts of the Konolo storms. Just as a reminder, folks, and why I'm I'm bringing this back up, you may recall that the Kona storm one, there were 95,954 customers without electricity. On Kona Storm 2, there are 1,00 excuse me, 115,300 customers without electricity. Total of 236 people were rescued. 10 people were hospitalized, 72 people and two dogs. I didn't know that. Two dogs were rescued um via airlift. evacuation order was ordered for 5,500 residents in Walua and Hale Eva and four to 5,000 people were at possible risk from a dam failure. And as we know um and and one of the things why we want to talk about item number two especially is at 8:25 p.m. Ko Konahua stream gauge surged 2 feet in two hours. there's a key warning sign um and we talked about this I believe yesterday in um in Matt Wyers's committee about what we could do for the streams and this is

just a followup on that. So we do have from the administration I believe Roger Babcock from the direct director department of environmental services, Andrew Kawano, director of department of budget and fiscal services and Dr. Randall Collins, director of the department of emergency management. I also see the deputy managing director. Aloha and welcome. Please proceed. Good morning, Chair Waters. Good morning, council members. Uh Krishna Jarham, deputy managing director. Chair Waters, I want to thank you for making this uh presentation possible. We do agree that it's important for the city to update uh the city council and the public on on a regular clip on our recovery efforts. Um per our discussions with your staff the the sequence will be we'll having Dr. Babcock speak about debris management first then we'll have Director Kana speak about the financial impact to the city and we'll end with Director Collins talking about the recovery process stretching into the future. Um before I turn things over to Director Babcock there's going to be a slide in in Director Collins effort where or in Dr. Collins's slide deck where it speaks about how uh local government is the lead on recovery and that we carry the weight of that responsibility and I just want to assure the city council that we take that responsibility very seriously every department remains engaged and while we don't know everything yet about the recovery process we intend to do this to the best of ability so thank you and I'll turn it over to Dr. uh Babcock at this time.

Thank you so much. Good morning and welcome Dr. Babcock. Good morning. So there are some slides that uh like to also welcome council member dos Santos town. Good morning Okay, thank you for that assistance. Okay, so you you folks have a print out of these slides as well. So, good morning chair and committee members. Roger Babcock, Department of Environmental Services. So, my part is to give an update on the debris clearance and uh where we're at uh with that now with our temporary debris uh sorting and reduction facility. So, there are the slides and I will point out there's a couple of um there's a couple uh very small changes in numbers that I'll point out when we get to those slides. And we also um just this morning got a report on uh some soil sampling results uh that just that just came in today, but I'll I'll highlight that out highlight that when we get to there. Okay. So, an overall uh summary is kind of shown summary information is shown in this first slide. Um the company that we use that we have under contract for debris emergency debris management is called DRC emergency services. They're from the mainland. Uh they're part of their contract covers debris clearing and

hauling. There's also a contract with Tetratech Incorporated uh which does debris monitoring services. So we have two contracts. Those have been in place. Uh they're multi-year contracts. they're sort of on call uh available to us and then we uh as and with them we developed a a whole plan associated with emergency debris clearance islandwide. uh that that program or plan is uh set up for a category 4 for hurricane, a direct hit on the island with um all the associated uh damage and debris that would be associated with that. And u but it can be scaled to whatever uh size event uh including the event that we that we had back in March last month. the so there is a photo there which is from March 28th um 2026. We were several days into the debris clearance and um so that gives an idea about how much debris there was. Uh kind of pretty much the maximum amount debris began accumulating on Sunday, March 22nd following the storm which was really that was Kona low 2 which was really overnight on March 21st into the 22nd. the we um on that day decided to activate the contract and have them uh come to Aahu. Uh so we made that call on March 22nd. We opened the site at Central Wahoo Regional Park, Paty Mink Park on March 23rd. That's the Monday. Uh we made that decision and we opened that oursel. Uh DRC and Tetratech were not here yet. So that was on Monday, March 23rd. By 2 PM we had that site open uh in conjunction with working with

uh parks department of parks and recreation to uh make that site possible. So the next slide shows um it's really a a TDSR site, temporary debris storage and reduction site that that was shown in the previous picture. Um it's actually eight acres. That whole section of the part is actually eight acres, but we didn't use all of it. Um the baseline sampling was done on March 25th by company called Envirro Services. We've posted that report, their report uh on our on our website. That photo shows where they sampled. Um they couldn't sample where the debris was because the debris was there, but they did sample all around the park. Um they um sampled what are known as uh three created three decision units. Um that just means areas that are their sub areas that they can decide whether they are contaminated or not. Those dots represent the grids and there are 126 grid locations as part of the sampling, the baseline sampling. They um did that sampling on March 25th. Results came back on April 10th. We got a report. That's the report that's posted online. They found uh and there's a long list of things that need to be sampled uh according to um federal and state rules about these things. And the conclusion was there was no background contamination in the park in in in these areas. And so that means that there also presumably would be no contamination where the debris were in that open area. What that means then is that it has to be restored to the baseline condition which means no contamination. So when sampling after the work is over and the

site is cleared and the sampling happens in the actual debris area all the results need to come back as non det as no contamination before it can be released and uh uh back to the city. Okay, next slide shows after the site was nearly cleared. Um, this is this photo is from April 7th. There's still a tiny little bit of debris there near um near the excavator and kind of the upper right part. Um the clearance was completed on April 9th, so all the debris was gone at that time. Approximately 2,700 tons of debris was processed at the site. Uh some of it went to landfill, some was metal recycling, some went to compost recycling, and uh yeah, so I'll show those numbers in a little bit. So that was uh when the site was nearly cleared. Uh this shows uh after more recently on the 27th this week um what it looked like after it was completely cleared and some little bit of excavation was done to sort of scrape the surface soil off 3 to 5 inches of surface soil total of about a thousand cubic yards. That soil was then sampled to as shown on the next slide. So, this sort of walks through what we did. So, that um excavated soil was sampled on April 23rd. So, that that date isn't on there, but it was April 23rd. Um the uh results it says would be available this week. Uh they came in this morning

um and they found uh no contamination in that uh excavated soil. Now, it's a different sort of analysis. This soil was sampled uh just for its ability to dispo to be disposed of at the landfill. So um when materials disposed of at the landfill, it has to be characterized. Uh that's a requirement of our operator waste management. And so there are certain parameters that need to be evaluated in order to allow the disposal there for for daily cover. So that's the sampling that was done. It was found to be acceptable. So that material now is going to be disposed of at the landfill though that roughly thousand cubic yards. The exposed soil, so what's underneath the area that's been scraped that now needs to be sampled and that is uh will happen either later this week or or next week. Um that is per a plan that was submitted to department of health and accepted. there will be 50 there is a grid and I don't have a photo of that but in that area this overall area here they have 50 sample locations in a grid that will be sampled and that's also by enviral services um and then that will be sent out for that longer list the same list of contaminants were evaluated in the baseline sampling and um then pending the results we we'll move on to the to the next steps, but ultimately um the contractor has to furnish a an official closure letter that they will obtain from the department of health. So all of these things are an approved process by department of health. So once the results come back, those also go to department of health. They'll evaluate it and decide whether it's can be considered closed or whether additional

soil would need to be excavated and evaluated. um the soil underneath. So you have to keep excavating until there's no more until there's no contamination. So that's essentially the process. So I think that's described here. So within that um area that's been scraped, there will be six decision units. Um whether or not additional excavation is needed will depend upon that that next sampling. Assuming that it is clear, at some point it will all be um judged as clean and acceptable. Then clean fill we brought in from outside to regrade uh and build it back up to its uh pre- level, pre elevation. Then uh any irrigation system repairs will be made. irrigation lines and sprinklers, anything that's been uh that has been damaged or removed. Following that, then uh hydro seeding will happen. That's putting planting new grass. They have to allow four to six weeks for that to root well and mow it. Once that's then signed off on and approved, then we'll remove the temporary fencing and turn it back over to Department of Parks and Recreation. So some overall data. So this is a place where um we'll do a little bit of uh number numbers correction here. So the total debris is uh 2690 tons or 5.38 million pounds of mixed waste went to this site. 288 truckloads of material. Okay. So the um there were 73 tons of

metal went to Schnitzer for recycling not 400. So the 400 was an earlier estimate. Uh the actual number is 73 tons and that is the number of loads 27 loads is correct. The next numbers are are is correct. 270 tons of green waste went to Hawaiian Earth uh recycling. That's our composting facility in Wahwa. 42 loads of material. And then the number that went to the landfill is slightly revised because the metals number is smaller. So it's 2,347 tons went to the landfill. In addition, there was 49 propane tanks that were recycled um that were collected and then recycled. So, if there's any questions, let me know. There is um we're not completely done. Uh there's the remediation and closure of the site, but there's also additional debris out in in the Northshore area. There is still known debris that we uh that we know about um on private property on farms. We are working with the uh agri business development corporation uh Hawaii Farm Bureau and some state agencies and haima together to locate the additional debris. our DRC contractor has been visiting those and is continues to visit those sites and determine um a cost estimate or a scope for that additional removal. Um this would not go to the corp site that's going to be closed. um if if we proceed with this depending upon the a decision that needs to be made based on

cost and and and who's going to be involved and who's going to pay um that would go directly either to uh compost recycling or to landfill or or or whatever, but would not we're not going to reopen the TDSR site. The So that is a that is a work in progress. there's lots of lots of folks working on that. Um, and that is that's that's ongoing. So, be happy to answer any questions that you may you have.

Thank you so much, Dr. Robcock. I'll I'll start off. Um, my understanding is that we couldn't originally take the debris to the landfill because of the rain. The it wasn't accessible. Is that correct? Or can you expound upon that? Why didn't we take that to the landfill initially?

Yeah. So when when we the scope of the problem was u of the situation seemed very very large at at the time on that Monday and the u so there's a lot of debris be beginning to be piled up um in front of otake store in the in the road and at some farms uh out near Longbridge and um we didn't really know how much there was going to be or whether uh um you know what was going to happen. So at that point we did make the call that we were going to activate this contract that we have and that would then allow this a temporary debris a TDSR to be set up so that we could do sorting. Sorting like out in the street or somewhere else on private property would be would be challenging and something that um we're not really we don't really have personnel to do. So I think the main uh question is why we didn't just take it all to the landfill. So um mainly because we could do this sorting and try and not take everything to the landfill including appliances and metal and and lots of things like that. So we don't want to uh bury that if we don't have to. But we also really didn't know how much debris we were going to get. We we could have gotten 100,000 tons or something like that. We really didn't know at that point. But we knew that if we activated this contract, folks would come. They've got all the contracts set up to do the hauling, the sorting, and the and the disposal. So that is that is kind of how we made that decision.

Okay, that makes sense. What does DTSR stand for? Stands for temporary debris storage and reduction.

Temporary debris storage and reduction. Okay. One of the things you started off by saying was that going forward we have designated sites for temporary sorting. Um could you just generally tell us where these sites are? And I'd imagine you have these sites in each neighborhood or each community in the event that there's a hurricane or another storm. Like how does the public know where these sites are? Yeah. So there's two ways we have um our plan is posted on on the website um and it's called a demop um debris monitoring and I can't remember the exact what that stands for but it outlines uh it shows it shows the island broken up into four different um areas and then there are main TDSR sites and then there are additional TDSR sites. Um the I for sorry I didn't bring that with me but I believe there are about six main sites and then there are a lot of additional sites. Um many uh many parks that are not tiny are on that list. um including Central A Wahoo Regional Park is one of the is one of the sites. It's not one of the main sites. It's one of the other other sites. The main sites uh some of them are on federal land. Uh several of them are on federal land and um at least one is on is in private private land. Um but sorry, I didn't prepare I didn't bring that uh I didn't bring that information.

No, just generally we're curious. you know, this site is that was used um the corp site. Is that a demop designated site? It is. Yeah, it's on the it's on the list.

Okay. Okay. Um, no, I know right after the storm, I think the the very next day Sunday, I believe, the community took it upon themselves and and were taking the debris out of the the flooded area and putting it on that traffic circle and then the city took it from the traffic circle to the corpse site and others. And I know that the city did come through with with other garbage trucks, the ones that we see that drive through our neighborhoods. Was that then taken to the corpse site, those those garbage trucks, or was that taken normally how it usually is to the H par?

Yeah. So at that time, we were taking everything to the the TDSR site at Corp. Yeah. And most of the hauling was done by by private private companies and uh and the loading and uh quickly and and those were like rolloff type trucks, big big container trucks. And so uh the city uh we refuse uh realized that the task was not really suitable to our rear loader trucks, which we had several out there. We were out there together. We saw those trucks that morning. Um, we had deployed those quickly but quickly found out that that was an effective way to to haul that debris. You needed to use excavators and large containers and just load those things up. You remember the pile was massive and uh the whereas in the rear loaders it's kind of a hand operation and they were they did do some but um there weren't they weren't very effective. So, we quickly sort of uh stopped doing that and got um let the let the larger trucks work. Um I would say that uh DFM pretty quickly started getting involved as well because they have dump trucks. So that's a big open truck and so they were also lining up and taking the private contractors we launch who were doing the lo the loading and um so they they kept taking loads almost continuously throughout that throughout that week.

No, you're right. I remember seeing the back loader trucks thinking to myself that's totally inadequate. That's not going to work. And then the poor workers just grabbing things off of the large pile and putting it into the loader back loader where Yeah. I'm glad we shifted almost immediately. Thank you, doctor. Let me open up to the committee. Um, anybody else would like to ask Dr. Babcock questions? Council Okimoto. Thank you, chair. Good morning, Dr. Bakpa. Really quick question. Um, you had the images of the site as it was being cleared. How much how far down did we have to dig? I know. Thank you for the visuals. I think it was on page

Yeah. So they they dug down about three to five inches. Inches. Yeah. And that's And you said you kept digging because So after the 3 to five inches, they found the soil had to you still had to dig more to to see if the soil was um the right I guess quality. Right. So if we look at that picture. Yeah. This one. Um this one here. So this is the where they've cleared. They've scraped the whole thing three to five inches and then they needed to sample that material that they had scraped to determine whether to to go to prior to taking it to the landfill.

Now, that same site, what they're going to do is there's 50 50 discrete locations in that where they're going to take samples before digging anymore. So, this is now the working surface that's shown. So, they'll be taking 50 samples, 50 locations, um, from right near the surface. They dig down a little bit when they take that sample. Um, I'd have to look at the report to see how far down they dig, but I think they're looking at the top three to six inches probably. It'll say in the report. Um, is that adequate? Who decided it was just I I would think we'll be digging further, but 3 to five inches, that's that's sufficient.

Yeah. So they're trying to figure out whether the surface soil right at the top is contaminated. If it is, so then they would send those samples off to the lab. And there's a whole suite of things that have to be analyzed. There's metals and volatiles and and all kinds of chemicals, including petroleum hydrocarbons. And if any of those come back positive, um, then that means they've got to go back to those locations and dig more. And then they'll probably dig up six inches from that location and they'll put that off to the side. Okay. I'm just trying to get a timeline

for disposal. And then in that area where they excavated, now they got to take more sample and determine whether it's contaminated at that level. And they will keep going through that process until they come to clean soil in three to six inch increments. That's what we're looking at every day. Correct. Yeah.

Yeah. So the idea is that excavation, you know, is expensive. So you want to you want to limit how much soil you would remove. And this would be presumably that would be soil that you found is contaminated, right? So you're going to put it on the side. You're going to wait and see whether it's uh uh what whether actually you're going to dispose then you're going to make sure you're going to dispose of that material presumably at the landfill and then we're going to sample again and any areas that where it's it's okay you're not going to excavate any further just going to wait until the whole site is u clean remediated now but how long does one of these cycles take to do this

yeah so in the first so in the first it because it goes to mainland um the first one we sampled on March 25th 5th and we got the results back on April 10th. So that was 16 days. So we're saying we're saying about two weeks a little more than two weeks uh is for each sort of set sampling round and we're now on the second sampling. Is that what you said? So we got the first one back we're now on the second set of Yeah. So the first one was just a baseline which established that there wasn't any contamination and set okay so now this is where we have to get back to when we start sampling the actual site. So

sorry the the baseline was the surface around because you said is that what you're talking about because initially there was debris on it before you could take the initial sampling. When you say the b the baseline that's the samples that was taken around the area. Correct. That's considered the baseline sample. And then so after the 3 to five inches, what cycle are we on for that? Just one or are we still waiting for the results of that one? So those samples have not been collected yet. Oh, we haven't. Right. Okay. This is not that has not Yeah, that has not been sampled yet. Okay. Um so the they do have a plan that's approved for doing the sampling that has 50 locations on that, but those Sorry, I I don't mean to get confused.

Yeah. So those 50 samples have not been taken yet. And once that is completed, then they'll be sent off to for the picture. Has you dug up? How much How much dirt was dug up over here in this picture? Sorry. Sorry. I say that again. How much ground or soil was dug up in this picture? I I It looks like there's a lot of soil that was dug up. Yeah. So that's the 3 to five inch. Three to five inches. Yeah. And that soil is sitting somewhere waiting to be sampled. That has been sampled. And um so again, that is not I'm sorry I'm not understanding.

No, no, it's okay. So this one there's 3 to 5 inches of surface soil was scraped off and that is not intended to um be reused. So it was going to go to the landfill for sure because there's still a little debris in the house. Underneath that is what you're sampling. What's that? Underneath that is that's what you're going to underneath. That is what's important. Yeah. So that part is for sure going to be discarded. those thousand that thousand cubic yards is all going to go to the landfill. But before it could go to the landfill, it had to be sampled per landfill requirements, which is different than the uh remediation of the site. Okay,

that that's much less strict in terms of what's acceptable at the landfill. You don't have to analyze as many things. Now what hasn't happened yet will be essentially the first round of post of closure sampling which is the 50 sites within that there that that exposed area. Those will be sent off once they they 14 to 16 days later approximately we'll get the results back so it will remain like it is except for some little holes where they went and grabbed some sample and then find out whether it's good to go now and nothing else needs to be done or whether additional excavation needs to be done in certain areas.

Thank you. And so um with the contractor does it matter how long this takes? Is it the same amount that we're paying for the service or if it takes longer than we anticipate, would we have to then expend more resources?

Yeah, thank you. No, that's all included in the um in the base cost of the contract to once it was activated. So, they're responsible for restoring the site. Um if there had been 10 sites or 20 sites, it's the same thing. They all have to be restored to pre uh preuse condition including all the way up till it's back to grass and leveled the same way it was before and it has irrigation system and it's all ready to be uh accepted. So there is no additional cost no matter how long that takes. And what was the amount of the contract?

The contract has uh a couple different parts. It has some uh essentially um an overall management cost for the entire sca however long the the uh debris clearance and and sto recycling and disposal takes uh in the contract it says up to 26 weeks. Um and then there's also the remediation which is also a fixed cost uh irrespective of how long it takes. And then there are unit costs for every load that's collected, the sorting operation, the monitoring of all that, the calculations for FEMA reimbursement uh potential as well as hauling costs for disposal and cost charges for the disposal operations. Uh so tip fees and stuff like that. So all that stuff has unit costs in the in the contract. Um right now based on everything that we know um our our but it is sort of evolving because it's not done yet but basically we're looking at about $4.5 million as the total uh projected cost for this for everything inclusive

and the department had budgeted for this in this fiscal year. So, uh, environmental services has, um, only a small amount budgeted for this, um, you know, in in each year for for this possibility. There is a uh I think Andy will uh Andy Quano, director Quano will talk about the u more about the about the budget, but there is a um there's another uh category a budget that's not in ENV for uh disaster uh mitigation and stuff. Sorry, last question. How much does ENV budget for this for this fiscal year?

You know, I'm not remembering that number, but I think it's a fairly small number. I Yeah, we'll we'll have to look that up. I thank you so much if you could get that. It's it's uh I believe it's it's less than $100,000 or something like that. Okay. Thank you, director. Thank you, chair. Thank you, members. Any follow-up questions for Dr. Babcock? Seeing none, thank you so much. Appreciate you. Yep. Thank you.

Next, we have Andrew Kuano, director of budget and fiscal services. Good morning and welcome. Good morning, uh, Council Chair Waters, honorable council members, Andy Kowano, director of budget and fiscal services. Um, we are still very, very early on the cost side. uh you know currently we have an aggregate cost estimate that's that's very rough of about hund00 million uh that does not include BWS board of water supply who will submit a separate uh request for assistance. Uh our numbers are going to go through uh after uh we submit our request for assistance uh in about a week. our uh estimates will go through a scoping process with FEMA uh with regard to um eligibility and u uh ensuring that the costs that are being provided are covered covered by the program. So essentially we have about $und00 million for the for the city. We have about uh 70 million of that in CIP type projects or u permanent work as they call it and about $30 million uh that'll fall under um more of the emergency type work. So categories uh A and B that you know we can talk about later you know work categories A and B under FEMA. Um our approach will be with regard to um scoping you know the the estimates out and fine-tuning them uh would be to not only make the estimates

that we have more accurate but also to um uh determine what's insurable and um we we can deduct what's insurable from the estimate because FEMA won't cover insured costs. Uh, and then once the insured cost and and and by the way, the bullet up there is the third bullet should be corrected. I will send in a corrected sheet. It doesn't make sense. There's a part of it missing, but uh once once we get through uh the um analysis of what's insured and what's covered in insurance, uh we're going to determine what'll be covered by uh public assistance, including FEMA. So some of the some of the damage uh property or assets of the city will could be covered by other programs like um the Federal Highway uh administration uh and grants through that entity uh you know roads, bridges and and so on could be covered by that. To the extent that the FHWA covers uh damage caused by the storm, FEMA won't cover the cover uh that cost because they won't duplicate coverage. So we'll go through that process. Um you know our goal is to maximize recovery through various sources of assistance to minimize the impact to the city. You know that's that's the overarching goal that we have. Uh and as we get through the um recovery process and keep in mind that there's still work going on as Dr. Babcock mentioned, you know, his team is still doing work. Uh, and I believe DFM is still still doing some uh stream bid clearing type work. Uh, that that work incurs cost. We're going to have to evaluate whether or not the cost can be covered by FEMA as well. But the work

continues once it ends and once we get into the scoping phase uh with FEMA, you know, my department, our department BFS, so Carrie and I will be much more involved with emergency management uh in terms of working on um getting the information required with supporting documentation to support FEMA reimbursement. and you know the FE FEMA reimbursement will come months down the road. U we're thinking that perhaps uh the emergency type work categories A and B which will probably be invoiced by service providers that um you know uh helped us respond. Uh for instance uh as uh Dr. Babcock mentioned there's probably going to be an invoice of about $4.5 million for debris removal in for his area that'll be invoiced uh you know that that kind of justification or documentation will be done quicker. So, I'm thinking that for emergency type work, debris removal, uh emergency uh protective measures, category B, uh those will probably be um uh firmed up much sooner than projects. Projects will go on for months and years as as uh you know, we know from what Kawaii experienced and Maui is experienced currently. So, the work continues. If we go to the next slide, we just show a breakdown of uh where we think the work will fall under with regard to uh storm damage. Uh we broke down our cost estimates to the various

categories of work A B CDE E F and G. Uh generally categories CD E F and G are more of the permanent type work. So, you know, work done by contractors uh in general and uh the that part which is um about $70 million, I'm sorry, $80 million of the total will take a while to complete because the scoping process uh the estimation process will be uh much more complex and we'll go through uh a number of cycles with the FEMA representative to determine what the true cost is and what's eligible for reimbursement in those areas. Um so with that um I'll take questions. Uh again not much has changed from you know the larger maximum number you know in terms of a rough order of magnitude but uh from our standpoint uh we're still we're still work in progress.

Thank thank you director council member Kia. Thank you. Thank you director. Um, so can you uh tell me um is this going to be um part of the um current budget or supplemental budget because you don't have the funds? You don't have these funds, right?

Depending on what we're going to need. Yes, that's correct. Um I'm hoping that by um as I mentioned uh during prior testimony, I'm hoping that you know all of the departments can dig through uh their savings and use as much of that as possible based on you know functional work that they do. Um so I'm hoping that we can defer the use of the fiscal stability fund as long as possible and make it the last resort. Uh if we dig into that fund, I'm hoping that we do it next year. Oh, got it.

We're not we're not budgeting for next year uh and the use of the fund because uh it's unknown. However, we do feel that the governor will continue to um extend uh the emergency proclamation because the state like the city and and the rest of the counties uh know that they need time working with FEMA to firm up numbers. So he I we believe he's going to continue to extend it and with that um you know we can we can um we can use the fiscal stability fund as needed with reporting to council members.

Got it. So with regard to our timing for budgetary purposes because our last hearing is going to be on Friday. Uh so uh it's a different timeline because you're going to look at what you could use um in the stability fund now and then any uh additional funding you'll let us know. Yes. So it's more a longer term process. We'll keep you we'll keep you informed. Uh and and keep in mind that we have the provision for um disaster preparedness and response. Uh for FY26 there was uh $7.5 million. I believe we have $4 million for next year in in the 27 budget. So, we're going to exhaust all of that as well.

Okay. And then you are uh no matter how you get the funds, um you are um a percentage of those funds will be reimbursed by the federal government. Correct. Yes. So, the percentage uh that the president uh decided on was 75% Got it.

of eligible costs. And um uh I just want to put in a pitch again for the authorizing legislation that's being considered in the US Congress with regard to changing the dynamics of how federal funding comes. They're trying to simplify the process called the FEMA act and they are trying to change the the manner of how funding comes down uh to convert it from a reimburseable to just outright get the funds down to the city and state governments. It's a bipartisan bill. Uh I would greatly appreciate the mayor's support of that measure. Thank you, council member. Council members, council member dos Santos, now please proceed.

Thank you, chair. Uh first of all, I wanted to appreciate director Babcock as well as yourself coming up here. Director Babcock in his presentation mentioned um the cost estimate for de debris removal to be on the order of four million something between 4.1 and 4.5 on this slide it's estimated about 6.6 where's the remaining 2.1 million or so um I don't have all the details in my head but um for debris removal and Dr. Babcock can tap me on the soldier shoulder to correct me. There are actually two vendors. There's DRC doing the uh heavy d heavy duty uh removal, you know, debris removal work and there there's a um consulting monitoring entity. I believe it's Tetratech. Uh so I think a chunk of that $2 million that you mentioned, uh Council Member Dos Santos, Tom Tam, it will be invoiced by Tetrate Tech. And there could be others as well. Those are the two big ones I'm aware of.

Pardon me. Um, we lost quorum. I have to appoint council member dos Santos Tam. Um, you can correct. Sorry about that. Please proceed.

Yeah. So, I I'll just add and apologies to to uh director Kuano. Uh, my number is is more up to date. So, our earlier our earlier projections were the 6.6. Um we now have uh a refined number which it does include both the contractors as the as the about four and a half. So that's good news. Um I also wanted we were able to look up the the budget. Um and there's 500 we have 500,000 in the current oh sorry it's 250,000 uh in the current FY26 for debris removal and management. um as sort of we have that in there as a placeholder each year, some kind of number like that. So for the current year, it's 250K. Thanks.

Thank you. Well, that leads me actually right into my next question. I appreciate the fact that these numbers have been refined and we have sort of a better sense of how much it actually cost. Um director, with regard to this chart and the other numbers, how often are we refining these numbers? I think I we're we were refining those numbers um a few times a week. Uh it hasn't been as frequent currently. Uh but the good news is um I'm actually happy that uh we um are working with a lower number for debris removal. So on the next update uh we're going to go in to the emergency management platform and uh make that adjustment.

So it's it's actually good news. That that is good news. Um, of this $und00 million, how much is operating versus CIP categorized expense currently? And I and again, it's very rough. Uh, about $30 million in operating type expenses and about $70 million in CIP. And again, very rough. Okay. Yeah. Um, and then of the CIP amounts, do we anticipate spending all of that CIP, the $70 million or what portion of that $70 million in cash versus issuing bonds?

Um, I'm not even there yet. Uh, we haven't determined that yet. Uh, the projects haven't been scoped out for FEMA purposes. The projects also haven't been scoped out and estimated, you know, with um the uh contractors we typically use for uh CIP project purposes. So, it's so early on I I can't break it down, but I can tell you that uh the um the expenditures for the projects as a whole will be over uh anywhere from a few years to several years. It's going to be a while to um you know properly scope out, properly estimate, properly uh contract and then complete those projects. So, it's going to be an ongoing thing that we'll be reporting on quarterly to not only uh council the city council, but also to FEMA for those projects that are FEMA eligible.

Thank you. And I think that's really important because there there has historically been a push here at the council to spend cash on CIP projects versus issuing bonds. And I'd like to understand that breakdown um especially in the context of disaster response uh if we had zeroed out our uh cash available CIP spending. We wouldn't have cash available CIP spending in the instance of a disaster like this. So I appreciate that. I have a few more questions, but I'll I'll turn it over to my colleagues. Council member Okimoto.

Thank you, Chair. Director, really quickly, you mentioned that the plan is to exhaust, and you've said this in other hearings, you plans to exhaust the savings currently with the 25% that we're anticipated to, you know, pay for on our own. How much of this year's fiscal year 26 are we looking at that we have that we're going to exhaust that you exhaust the savings for before we tap into the 7.5 million? Um to correct you uh uh respectfully the 7.5 has already been tapped into.

Okay. because there there were uh specific DEM projects uh that have already been uh covered you know with mayors and managing director's approval. Uh I think prior to the storm we had about uh 5.2 or 5.5 million available from that from that provisional. Um so yeah the the the money is being used but the goal is to exhaust that provisional completely completely exhausted. Uh with regard to um our uh savings it's kind of tricky right because um currently our fiscal officers are working with um the uh administrative officers or other finance types in all other departments to come up with projections. So they project out what they're going to expend uh under the uh A, B, and C categories in the operating budget and uh they uh they look at what's appropriated obviously and then take the difference and then figure out okay can the savings be used to cover storm response and recovery. So that process is still ongoing. You know, I I would say that um the departments all have not completely uh finished their projections. They're still working on them. Part of it is payroll. Uh they want to get as current payroll information into the projections as possible. Uh the goal is to use as much of savings as we can. You know, ideally we'd be close to zero.

And the ballpark number for that amount is what? I don't have a ballpark number. impossible right now. Okay. But our goal is close to zero. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And in your this was very helpful um the breakdown of the categories. However, director backpack did say that his his number went down which is good to hear. How often are you getting and I think council member Dantis Tam kind of asked this but how do we know that these other numbers are close to being accurate or not? Are they giving you updates?

I don't have any confidence level on the accuracy of the estimates. there. Um, a lot of the estimates are still call-ins, emails from departments to emergency management. Um, we have not scoped things out yet. Uh, so when I when I when I look at some of the estimates, I see round numbers a lot of times. To me, round numbers are just that, you know, rough orders of magnitude. All those numbers have to be fine-tuned. Um what I'm concerned about if you ask is is that um you know as this process goes on if we have inflation costs will go up you know so that's my concern. Uh but I I have no control over that.

Okay. Thank you director. Thank you chair. Thank you council member Nishimoto. Any questions for the first round? Okay. Thank you so much. Hey, just following up on uh questions already asked. So, it's estimated, and of course, I I get it. It's just a rough estimate, $30 million from operating and $70 million dollar from CIP, and we're doing our best to absorb the $30 million from existing um funds that are allocated in this fiscal year. As far as the $70 million from the CIP capital improvement project budget, are we going to try to absorb that this year as well or this 70 million is ongoing over the next couple years?

My my take is that it's going to be ongoing. It's going to go into 27, 28, 29, 30. It's so it's we're going to be ongoing. Uh it's going to be um you know depending on the project and complexity of the work that has to be done. Okay. And I think you mentioned that on the second page of your slide deck, categories A and B, we're probably going to try to pay that with cash. And then C, D, E, F, and G, um, likely would be CIP. Would that be accurate? More likely than not, the vast majority will be bond funds. Okay. Yeah. No, that's that's really helpful because we're probably going to have to pay it ahead of FEMA reimbursement,

right? And I guess the good news is that the president said that we can be reimbursed up to 75% of costs. So if it's $100 million, we possibly can get reimbured up to 75 million. Correct. If the pro assuming the projects are eligible, some of them may not be eligible. Right. Um just so the people watching either at home or or Facebook. So, debris removal, you say it's estimated about $4 million. Emergency protective measures, $13 million. Could you just explain what is emergency protective measures?

Okay. Uh, chair, I brought my cheat sheet. So, it's um it's it's cost to um protect the public from threat of um you know, injury. uh and um and threats to their lives. So essentially it uh in involves work and activities as follows. I'll just read a few bullets. Uh evacuation and sheltering and this is during uh you know the uh event uh generally uh and after the event to the extent that um evacuation and sheltering has to continue to to keep people safe. Search and rescue missions to locate survivors, household pets, service animals, security, barricades, fencing, and law enforcement. Firefighting doesn't apply to what we're dealing with. Uh use of leased of leasing of temporary facilities or generators for um essential services that have to be provided to the populace. Um and it's it's things like that. uh you know, we uh there was um a lot of HPD uh officers uh involved in traffic safety during the storm, after the storm. Uh and um yeah, things like we found out that um we're going to have to look at each uh uh community assistance center uh that we set up, what what was provided, services provided, uh the popup services we provided, because some some of the costs related to those services may be eligible and some may not be. So, as a part of the scoping process with the FEMA representative, we're going to determine how much of those cost, you know, the overtime incurred, for instance, will be um covered by FEMA.

Okay, thank you. That that's really helpful. It looks like there is a category F utilities at 41.8 million. Could you just explain that? Uh it's called public utilities. So, it's power water, wastewater, and I know there's a big one. If Dr. Babcock uh can correct me again, I I believe it's about 20 million $20 million for damage to the uh Kyua wastewater treatment plant. Yeah, he So, that's that's just the rough current estimate. So, the storm runoff uh there was so there was so much water going into the plant, it damaged equipment. So,

Okay. and and some of the facilities housing the equipment.

Oh, interesting. That I I didn't know about that. That's that's new. Um stream cleaning. So, I was out there and I saw um the DOT director, state director out there. Um but our facilities maintenance crews were out there, too. I saw the deputy director out there with his whole crew. Um, is there anywhere in this budget that reflects the stream cleaning that the city is encountering? Would that be under roads and bridges?

It uh it it depend. Yeah, it's it's either um No, I think I think it's going to be under debris removal because they did a lot of that. they're removing a lot of debris with the ENV team. Uh and also there may be um work related to um emergency protective services for in that's category B uh for instance uh removal of um the homes for instance at Otake camp that were completely demolished. So pieces debris from the homes had to be removed. Uh you know they probably were involved in that. Uh we're going to have to carefully look at their costs because I and again I believe they're still working. They're still still doing stream bed clearing uh and and digging to get rid of islands that can block water, you know, in the stream stream beds. And uh at some point because we are moving further and further away from the uh emergency during the disaster, the natural disaster, some of that may or may not be included, you know, in terms of eligible costs for reimbursement.

Okay. And understood that it's an ongoing process. You know, I did have questions regarding the RPT relief program, but I wanted to turn it back over to Council Member Dos Santos Tam to follow up on any questions that we've had so far. Thank you. Um, I actually have some plans related to the long-term uh disaster rec recovery plan. I don't know if you're prepared to talk about that plan or if that's a director Collins question. I believe that's a director Collins question. Is he? We do have Director Collins coming up uh right after Andy Kuano. I'll I'll save it for him then. Fantastic. Thank you. Any other questions for Director Kuano members?

Actually, now I realize one of them is a director Kuano question. Um in the plan the it specifies that the city will develop an organized and standardized system of categorizing, tracking and reporting federal funds expenditure uh so we can prepare for future audits if necessary um and monitoring compliance by federal agencies. What do we have a specific system for that? Is it separate from our own internal control processes that we already do? Is this an additional level? like tell tell me about that so we're prepared for federal audits and compliance.

So I believe it goes beyond what's required uh under um uh general accounting principles and um you know uh internal control processes that are um prevalent in government. uh there there's more documentation in terms of describing the work and the activity involved uh and and tied to the cost that uh you know the city believes is eligible for reimbursement. So you know we're going to we're going to we're in the process of adding a layer or two more of um documentation in within the system itself. Um and and frankly, you know, we in some cases we may have to go back to departments and I think uh uh Dr. Collins will talk about it, but we may have to go back to departments to gather more information on the description of work done so that we can properly categorize the costs. Um going forward knowing that uh these types of uh events will happen more frequently uh I'm sure that uh we're going to uh burn into uh our systems um a extra layer or two of coding if you will so that uh we know that uh a cost is not only tied to a storm event but also tied to a particular type of work that would be FEMA eligible and that's in progress right now.

Yeah. And one of the other uh recommendations from the long-term discover disaster recovery plan is uh that the city have pre-positioned contracts and a pre-qualified list of contractors and vendors to allow for a more quick and efficient recovery. Do we have a list of disaster recovery vendors um people who have made it through uh some level of procurement so we don't have to start from ground zero? Yes, we we do have master agreements that uh we can tap on and we have um but uh there are um specialists that are involved in planning, structuring, you know, documentation, uh reporting for FEMA purposes that uh we may not have on board and we're in the process right now of figuring out how to contract them for the short term and long term.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Kia Aa.

Um, director, I just wanted to make sure with regard to the Kyoa wastewater treatment plant, we actually have uh significant funding in the current budget for improvements. And I'm hoping that uh with any damage um acrewing from the storms, it could be weathered through the current budgetary items. Yeah, that's going to be uh we're it's going to require some finesse. Uh and um because not getting into the complexity of wastewater treatment plans because I'm not, you know, an expert in that, but uh I do understand that um if you have a project related to an asset.

Yeah. and the storm damaged the asset, you know, pre pre um project commencement date, but you know, you have it on the board, so it's it's in our budget. Uh my understanding is that the the onus is on us, the city, to prove that the damage Yes. was uh truly caused by the storm and not due to deferred maintenance. Okay. But having said that, if in if indeed it was approved, uh the money that we have in the current budget to make improvements could potentially be reimbured. That's all I'm trying to clarify. That is correct. Yes. Okay, that's all. Thank you.

Thank you. Before we hear from Dr. Collins, director of emergency management, can you just give us a brief update on the RPT relief program and status?

Yeah. Geez. Okay. I I'm current only from about a week ago uh maybe two weeks ago. So about two weeks ago I was informed by the real property assessment division that they had received um just over 70 applications. um they got since then they've gotten a file of um um residents, businesses that have filed for relief through emergency management and they've mailed out they've done outreach. So, they've mailed out about 1,200 um packets uh to um households that may have um or and businesses that may have incurred losses, businesses, farms as well that may have incurred losses. So, they're in the process now of followup. Uh they've also hitten the streets. So, the appraisers have gone out to look at uh you know and validate some of the um uh claims for um remission and uh it's it that's also in progress. And uh people have to realize that the taxes that'll be uh refunded, if you will, uh would be taxes paid during fiscal year 26. So, if you have uh just for a round number a million-doll home, you're going to pay and and it's your primary home, you have, you know, uh you you have um the exemption um you're going to pay just over $3,000, closer to $3,500. The the potential refund is that. Um however uh the refund is also based on whether it's you have damage to the land or the structure on the land. Right? So if there's no damage to your land but you had home damage that qualifies the

the part of the the assessed value allocated to the land is not would would not be included in any refund amount. uh they would look solely at the value of the structure and uh determine the extent of damage of the structure. Okay, that was going to be my question. Does the program cover only structures not land which the answer is yes. What does the program do for farmers? For farmers it's essentially same thing land and structures crops are not covered and that's where a lot you know a lot of the acid base for farmers are in the actual crops what they're growing and stuff like that that's not covered. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. Any follow-up questions, council members? See none. Thank you so much. Next, we have Director of Emergency Management, Dr. Randall Collins. Aloha. Welcome. Aloha. Thanks for having me again this morning. It's a pleasure to be with you all, Chair Waters, council members. Um, as uh the DMD indicated, we're going to talk a lot about recovery today and what our journey looks like uh from from and how we got here and where we're going. So, uh, one thing that I want you all to know is that we went to great deal, uh, great deal of effort to bring in a lot of outside help, uh, to support us, uh, both in the response and the recovery. Uh we brought in the FDNY incident management team. We brought in the Palmetto incident support team. That support team from South Carolina is a team that helped uh develop a transition plan into recovery. So it was a a huge uh support there. Then we brought in a consultant uh a uh recovery consultant from Long View Long View Solutions. Uh and that person actually uh Jason's name he he is uh quite responsible for a lot of the different slides that you're going to see here today. Uh huge help to uh dem myself and Jennifer and um and what his expertise is in in in recovery. Then we have uh uh we're working on right now a a federal programs consultant and a cost recovery uh contractor both to bring in and maximize our return on investment if you will maximize the amount of uh reimbursement we can get from FEMA. So that's uh really the focus there

and where we're at is as you well know we had our immediate response that seemed to go on and on and on with the different storm systems. Then we went through short-term recovery where we were doing the debris operations that you heard about from uh director Babcock uh where we did the community assistance centers uh and other events uh trying to help really uh restore uh some level of uh normaly uh and we're really at the point where we're really start about to enter into immediate recovery uh two months to 18 months out and we'll have a lot of work to do in this area and then we'll transition into long-term term recovery. One thing I do want to note is that recovery is not really just about getting reimbursement from FEMA, although we will spend a lot of time on that and show uh what uh FEMA can provide and the uh steps that we'll have to go through to do that. Uh also know that uh recovery is really about leveraging all the different community services uh from nonprofits, from private sector uh donations uh and from government services and trying to maximize the uh those benefits as well as uh really match all the unmet needs which obviously government services don't don't provide for all the unmet needs. And so we want to try to find um services for all the unmet needs. Okay. So, where we're at, you know, obviously we had the disaster, then we had to do a request for declaration that the uh governor sent up to uh through FEMA, to DHS, to the president. The declaration was approved on, I believe, April 7th. And then we begin to receive federal assistance. And where we're going to focus our discussion today is in the FEMA's individual assistance uh program. their public assistance program and we'll also talk about SBA assistance.

When we received that declaration, it was given a number. It's DR4909. Uh, as I said, the declaration date was on April 7th. That's important because it starts to trigger a lot of different uh, excuse me, a lot of different deadlines that uh, we need to look at. Uh, the incident period was March 10th through the 24th. That's very significant as well because they included Konalo one and Konolo 2. We were very worried that they were going to make them separate events and that was going to be a real challenge for everyone. So, we're very thankful that FEMA allowed us uh and allowed the state to merge the Konalos together. Um and then the uh Maui, Hawaii County, and Aahu all uh received the declaration and as it was mentioned by Director Kuano uh at a 75 25% share. Um and so that's the program that we're uh jumping into. our responsibilities. Uh I think it was mentioned um before uh but it's it's definitely uh uh localled local governmentled uh in terms of doing the work that we need to do to uh participate in recovery activities. Um and then the state uh they have their particular role in terms of getting resources from the federal government and so forth, but they act uh much like a a middleman. um and we are the actual subreient of uh the different grants that that we get and then the federal government as you know uh provides the different services and and so forth. So uh some of the programs that we uh that we uh are eligible for is the FEMA programs and emergency work and um and permanent work under public assistance that was already talked about a little bit. We'll go into a little bit more detail on that. Uh and then we're also eligible for the uh federal highway uh road uh repair as well as USDA services

and uh we're currently working with all the different departments to leverage uh all the different resources available to us and there's another slide later that shows I think even a few more programs there. Um but that's the public sector side in terms of government recovery. In terms of individual side, uh individuals and households uh often are um primarily going to get the individual assistance from FEMA which includes financial housing assistance as well as other needs assistance and we'll talk about those a little bit more. Then we also can get into the SBA loans and then other services that can be provided uh by or through FEMA uh listed there in many of the social services, crisis counseling, legal services and so forth that may be needed. And then when we transition into long-term recovery, we'll be looking toward a uh community development block grant through HUD uh that we can use uh and it's specifically listed for disaster recovery work to make uh jurisdictions more resilient after the fact. And so uh you know when we get into that it that that is definitely uh 18 months out and longer before we will see that. So we're going to be in this for a long time uh in terms of recovery. This isn't something that happens quickly. Um as uh uh director Kuana was indicating even our rebuilding is going to take many years. Um as an example, Northridge earthquake obviously a much bigger disaster but they took 23 years before they closed out all the different projects. So, uh this is much smaller uh but we are going to be uh in recovery for quite quite a long time in terms of how we re rebuild uh the different um uh the different buildings that receive damage and and that sort of thing. So, uh we talked a little bit um the last speaker talked a little bit about the different categories that you have under public assist assistance. Um category A is debris removal. all the

work that Roger was talking about um would be covered under uh under debris removal and and and a few other uh projects that you might be able to lump together there. Uh category B emergency protective measures. I I was impressed that Director Kuano was able to come up here and and and and recite what it's all about. We've largely lost um uh any opportunity for emergency protective measures now. uh those typically are are really done in the response phase uh during uh actual life-saving events and and and uh trying to stabilize different infrastructure or whatever that could cause more problems. So there could be circumstances where we could classify some things outside of that period. Uh but by and large that uh that that period has passed. Um then we get into what we call permanent work categories C through F which includes roads and bridges, water control facilities, public buildings and equipment and public utilities. One thing that we did not get is category G which is for parks and other facilities. And I believe that the state is currently appealing that uh decision uh in hopes that we can get uh parks and other facilities uh that category uh approved for federal assistance as well. That being said, I would tell you, you know, I heard some questions earlier and and these continue. We will look at every single project that we have and uh do our best to to uh fight with FEMA to make them eligible whether they're in one category or another. So there was this discussion about uh um some debris removal, but if you know some of that debris was impacting a road and bridge, we might look at trying to get it um approved under roads and bridges rather than under debris removal uh or vice versa. So there are different uh tricks to the trade, which kind of goes back to why we um you know uh um why we want these uh

different contractors that can come in and help us make the different arguments uh that know uh this part of emergency management uh a lot better. And I will say that public assistance uh is governed by about a 328 page what we call Papa G uh public assistance u policy guide. And um and so it's it's very uh and that's just under the public assistance. There's a whole another manual under debris management uh or debris operations as well. So it gets very specific and very uh nuanced in how you can uh approach getting some of these uh projects under these different categories approved. It's a long process and this is kind of where we're at in that process. We just had our applicants briefing on Monday and um and then the next thing will be the submission of our request for public assistance which uh we're doing here. We will be the primary DEM will be the primary applicant uh for the city and county of Honolulu and we'll take all the other projects uh underneath the DEM uh moniker if you will. And then uh the only other um exception to that is uh Bord of Water Supply uh given their uh circumstances will be their own individual applicant. But that being said then and you've already heard a little bit about it, we we're going to have to go into scoping. We have about 60 days to uh capture all the different projects and the scoping and to firm up some of those um some of those uh estimates that uh Director Kuano was talking about. Um once we do that scoping it gets uh moved into formulation of projects and sometimes we'll uh merge uh smaller projects together into one larger project. Uh but then we'll look at others. Uh as mentioned uh the the the um the $20 million project would be obviously its own project. Uh then we get into approval. Uh and then um once we get into approval, you get into the project

uh completion, getting built, repairs made, funding um gets reimbursed after the fact and so forth. Um and so it's a it is a very long journey and while we've made it through several steps very quickly here, uh it really slows down in the long end when we're doing construction and and those construction projects takes a takes a long time. So that's public assistance. And then the other big major program and uh is what we call individual assistance. And this is assistance that goes directly to the survivors of the uh of the flood. And um some of the big programs there uh or sub subcategories of programs are the financial housing assistance um which provides uh financial assistance to uh individuals and households for uh uh if they've been displaced from their home and need temporary housing and that sort of thing. And then you have other needs assistance that provides uh several different categories which we'll go into. We did not get the direct housing assistance. What that is is normally when uh FEMA provides um uh uh trailers or other types of uh temporary housing. Uh that was not approved for this particular uh emergency. And then other programs that also benefit uh individuals and survivors are the SBA loans and as mentioned before the crisis counseling, disaster legal services, uh case management, the DSNAP program and unemployment assistance. So those are the things that we'll be looking at um in individual assistance where um they're available right now uh and uh FEMA is taking registrations and I'll have more information on that uh in a bit. But financial housing assistance can provide lodging, rental assistance, home repair assistance, and home replacement. Uh up to uh $44,000, $44,800 for repair and replacement in in those

housing categories. Additionally, uh under the other needs assistance program, this is intended to address the unmet needs there that uh are kind of unforeseen and they can go toward transportation, repair, replacement of uh vehicles, uh personal pro property repair, medical and dental uh if if you need uh medical or dental costs as a result of the disaster. Uh any serious needs assistance for urgent needs like food, water, and first aid. uh child care assistance and moving and storage if that is a um a need. Uh there's a process uh in in regards to uh obtaining your individual assistance uh uh services. Uh of course we got the presidential declaration. Then the surviv survivors need to register with FEMA. uh FEMA does their due diligence to inspect and document uh what's uh what might be a need or an unmet need uh what's not covered by insurance and so forth and they'll determine the eligibility of the applicant and then they disperse that assistance. Uh if they get turned down they do have a process uh to appeal uh those decisions support has already begun. Um and these are yesterday's numbers. I have actually today's numbers as well but um as of yesterday 590 had registered uh these are Aahu numbers only um and then uh the amount approved for the individual um uh and households program has been 1,371 uh in and change as well as the uh in terms of housing assistance approved uh it's been 728,000 and then another needs assistance approved 643,000. We are also eligible for the SBA

disaster loans. And um in terms of uh who can apply, this is really important because a lot of people think they're not a business and it doesn't it's not limited only to businesses. Of course, businesses of all sizes do uh can apply as well as private nonprofits, homeowners, and renters. Um, so, uh, you don't, you know, if you're a homeowner or a renter, you are eligible for these loans and you should be or and I I would encourage survivors to, uh, apply for any of the services provided by SBA loans, which include the following: home and personal property loans, business physical disaster loans, economic injury disaster loans, uh, mitigation assistance, and, uh, any military reserveist uh, support there that the SBA can provide. So those are the different programs that SBA provides and as mentioned uh this will eventually turn into a long-term recovery uh program in which case we hope to take advantage of uh CB uh CDBGDR uh services uh or uh funding in which case we can look at um improving uh the different uh areas around the the county including housing rehabilitation reconstruction, affordable housing, infrastructure, unmet needs, uh as well as economic recovery. So, we'll be looking into that into the longer term with the recovery team that is uh being put together. And then with that, these are the two different areas where survivors can uh go and apply for uh FEMA assistance. They can register at disasterass assistance.gov online um or or they can call in uh with this particular phone number and then uh with the SBA uh lending.sba.gov uh disaster and you can also register by phone there um with the phone number provided there. And then looking into the long term and

just so you understand that we are uh uh attempting to take advantage of every uh service we do have more of a a chart here that uh shows where the services that are provided and when they actually kick in versus an estimated timeline. Um with that I uh conclude the presentation and be happy to answer any of your questions. Thank you so much. That's been very helpful. Council members, any questions for the director? Council member Kia.

Thank you, director. I have to tell you this is one of the uh best um presentations that I have seen um with regard to um having you know sometimes it's um when presentations of this magnitude are given it's kind of skimpy and wanting. This was very detailed and I appreciated um your focusing on the immediate because uh medium and then long-term because that determines the federal source of funding. So I just wanted to tell you that this is really good. um uh two two agencies that I feel um need to be explored um uh u that could help. Although I feel that um your focus on the um HUD's uh CDBG disaster recovery grants is spot on. It is the most flexible uh system, but of course as you noted it, it has to be congressionally approved. So it's uh important that you work with your point of contact on the ground and the delegation. I I would recommend that you add the um US Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration. Um they also have disaster grants and they like the um CDBG disaster recovery. They there are not permanent programs as you know. You have to have a declaration and then it has to be congressionally appropriated. Uh but I I see the deputy for the office of economic revitalization there. Uh most of these programs that you've outlined, they say they can help with housing, they can help with economic recovery, but in my view, the more the marrier. And when you um um you have these uh types of uh supplemental disastery disaster bills coming through, uh it's it's in the billions of dollars of course, right?

And it goes to affected state. So, I just wanted to make sure that um and they're really good. We work well with them um out of Seattle and they have a a person here. I was telling um the DPP director that they should be part of the HOIE uh when you guys go to Northshore. And the other um one that I I is a little missing because sometimes I don't know where they where they fit. It's the USDA rural development program. um they don't uh give out as many grants as other agencies, but they do have lowinterest loans and because I feel that farmers are very often um um uh not eligible for a lot of the programs coming down the pipeline. Um I feel that we need to explore federal funding mechanisms where our farmers could be taken care of. So no questions. I just want to tell you this was a very good presentation. Thank you, council member. I appreciate those words. Um, and I will tell you that OEER has been um at the table and working very hard. Uh, and actually this morning I received a nice uh little pamphlet from them that they have for the farmers of the community that shows the different programs that they may be eligible for. So, uh, that is available and, um, and that is certainly one area that we are continuing to explore.

Thank you. I I do have a number of questions, but we do have one registered testifier who's been waiting here patiently. Thank you so much. Why don't we go to public testimony since we only have one and then I'll allow for questions. So, welcome and aloha, Tara Gregory. Aloha. How much time do I have? One minute. Oh, I'll give you a little leeway.

Okay. Thank you. Mahalo. Aloha. My name is Tara Malia Gregory. I live in Hawaii Kai. Uh but I want to testify just regarding the Konolo storms and I actually want to say thank you for the the last gentleman that spoke because he really did speak to boots on the ground that was actually happening maybe not specifically with many of the agencies but there was one gentleman his name is Evan with Haima that was there. Um but my testimony is really regarding um the preparedness and the communication accountability. I know we're here for talking about 50 to$100 million potentially of recovery. Uh but I just want to just share exactly what happened during that time. Um based on what we saw, there's this clear pattern of delayed responses and fragmented coordination and lack of boots on the ground of emergency response systems from the city and the state. Um, I'm an avid law reader, so I'm very aware of chapter 127A and where we need to make some changes there. So, we don't come up with 50 to$100 million and we're better prepared. Uh, the many of the communities didn't receive the coordinated support that they were expecting. It was the LAOI, it was the community. So I'm here to testify on behalf of the Lahooi and the community that are probably in recovery mode right now from Walua Northshore Monoa all the way to the west side. Uh my team and I and I just say team because it's just people in the community uh were able to in East Honolulu create four hubs within 12 hours and disperse not only water, diapers. There were people on their roofs on third floors and there was just no action. There was an emergency proclamation set forth March 9th and there was no one from the city or the state available to help anybody boots on the ground until 7 days after that, 3 days after the harsh part

happened. And I want to testify on behalf of that. I had an opportunity to speak with uh Mr. Waters uh briefly uh last night at the neighborhood board. So, he does know where I'm coming from, but I just wanted to be on record in saying there needs to be something in a budget that prepares us better when things happen initially. There is no way that there should be an emergency proclamation and then 4 days later an emergency happens and then now we're sitting here thinking of 50 to$100 million and we're talking about crops that can't even be recovered. How is that going to be recovered? People are losing everything. they can't even afford insurance. Um, so if anyone has any questions, we did uh mobilize quite a few teams uh with uh Aahu uh Kings Aahu uh New Hope Hawaii Kai. We were able to mobilize uh for Monoa specifically and Walua Northshore and the west side where they really got hit and nobody knew about it for three days. And also the house established there's a a really bright young girl. she was able to put something together that, you know, I'd love to talk about. I don't want to take up too much time, but if there's any questions about how we actually were able to execute on mobilizing things like water, hazmat suits, and things like that when I just have to say the city and the state did fail the people in preparedness. Uh, so mahalo for the time to speak.

Thank you, Tara. Any questions for the testifier or follow-up questions for Director Collins? Council member dos Santos Tam.

Thank you. I I have a number of uh questions uh for the department. Um first of all, uh I guess many of my questions deal with how DEM interacts with other agencies because it's kind of agency soup. Um but before we begin, I'd like to go to the very first slide. I guess it's really the second slide of the presentation after the cover. The um retain support these five different contractors. Are these contractors costs built in? to the $100 million estimate provided by BFS. This slide. Yeah. So the FDNY incident management team and the Palmetto incident support team are were done under EMAC and that was part of the response and so we are currently have them uh what we their estimates are blocked out in that provisional uh disaster fund that director Quana was talking about the 7.5 that uh is uh is is part of us. Um the uh I I believe that the uh Long View uh consultants is also in that provisional fund and then the next two have not been uh procured yet. So we are in the uh middle of we actually just working on um initiating that procurement developing the scope of work and that sort of thing. So that has not been identified yet. And

so is that procurement going to be part of that 100 million or is this part of your sort of regular budget? Where does that come from? So we would be looking at uh depending on what the the the estimate is but we would be looking at primarily using the provisional fund. Okay. Um my next set of questions deal with sort of DEM and sort of the other agencies involved and I know that there's many. So in the city's long-term disaster recovery plan um it suggests the mayor appoint a local disaster recovery coordinator to lead recovery implementation. Who's performing that role? Is that is that you? Is that a different person? Is it Krishna?

It's not Krishna, but Krishna is going to answer the question. We've been working very closely with the MD's office, and I think he's uh prepared for those types of questions.

Yeah, council member, thank you for the question. So, as you noted, the the large plan does require a long-term disaster recovery coordinator. Uh we've met um almost daily in the last two weeks to talk about this. Um, we have a team set up for this purpose and so it'll be run out of the managing director's office, uh, Andrew Malhoff, Anthony Miranda. Uh, they'll be supported by dedicated personnel from purchasing, from legal, uh, um, Erica Moritugu, Anika Noaki. Um, we'll also have a consultant that's attached to support them. And then underneath them, there'll be there'll be other structures to to move us forward. But they they will be perforing that uh that coordination and oversight role reporting to the managing director.

Yeah. And uh while you're up here, uh the plan also talks about this financial and grants management recovery team. Um do we have this team in place? What departments are part of that? So it's the same it's a it's a similar group. It's going to be budget. It's going to be uh our federal grants people who are who are who have expertise in this drawing gun consultants. We're also pulling from BFS somebody to do just the grant part of it. Not so much the um not so much the what is available but how to track. And so there there's a team being set up for that as well.

And then within CCSR CCSR also has a hazard mitigation program manager. Is that person part of this effort or is their role more long-term? Tell me more about that.

So CCSR is also involved. They've been uh in every meeting thus far. They were together with DEM the leads on the long-term disaster recovery plan. Um so they will be continuing to support. Um it's um Sarah Harris from CCSR. So she'll be involved short, middle, and long. Okay. I do have a question about DPP's um rebuild a registry which they set up. I think that was a good uh response, but um are we going to get some metrics and tracking on on how successful that program was in terms of matching uh affected folks with contractors or materials?

Yeah, council member. So, I don't have those uh those data points today, but I will communicate with the director and we'll get that to you either in a hearing or or to this committee, whatever is more appropriate. And and I guess is that a role best suited for DPP or is this a role best suited for DEM? I'm just trying to figure out like where the responsibilities lie after a disaster.

Yeah, I appreciate that question. You know, in the in the immediate aftermath where we were in that space where it was it was response but slowly moving into recovery, a lot of things were were put into place um at the initiative of directors who are most suited. And now that we're moving fully into recovery, we're going to make uh a lot more structure around this so that the the recovery coordinator will have oversight and understanding of what's happening. We'll make sure that the different roles go to where they're most um most able to be executed. But but but in the beginning it was absolutely DPP and it was the director's idea. Okay. I'm sorry. I do have one more question for Director Collins, but I'd be happy to turn it over to my colleagues. No, please proceed.

Okay. My uh last question uh for Director Collins is um you know obviously this takes a lot of folks in a lot of different agencies as the deputy managing director mentioned. Um within your department uh back in March um I'm trying to remember how many vacancies there were then. Are we fully staffed at this point? Are how many vacancies currently exist? Um and do we have a plan to fill those by June 30th? Uh I we have I believe two vacancies and um one is uh kind of held uh due to a reorg and the other um I'm not sure this I believe that we released it for internal candidates first. Uh I'll have to double check with the uh admin services officer on on its status there but uh I think that's where we're at. Yeah, I pulled up the um your March budget presentation which listed four vacancies. So, if you're down to two, I guess that's a good thing. Um so, thank you.

Thank you, members. Thank you, director. You know, we have the local hazard mitigation plan, the comprehensive emergency management plan, and the long-term recovery plan. um which we could spend all day on talking about, but I want to just focus on one issue and it kind of ties into item two on the agenda dealing with stream maintenance. You know, there's a critical time I believe at 8:25 p.m. on Kona 2 that Kona stream gauges surged 2 feet in two hours. That was a key warning sign. The storm gauge near Otake camp, the primary early warning indicator for Walua flooding, recorded a rapid twoft rise. I think civil beats investigation later finds that city officials had access to this data but did not escalate their response. I know you had testified previously and you did as well on on Tuesday, I believe, that it's only as good as us monitoring it. Um, so my question is, does the DM have a list of critical streams and waterways that need to be monitored with stream gauges? Um, so that's a difficult question because we would monitor any reservoir or stream gauge that we believe that we were getting uh significant uh rain or u precipitation in. Um so you know one day it could be on the the winward side, one day it could be on the leeward side. you know, the different type of weather scenarios and the multiple var variability of weather scenarios that would come into play. Uh sometimes reservoirs or streams are something that

we need to monitor because they're high uh because we've had a lot of precipitation versus other times they're not. So depending on the reservoir and how much water they've received and and they're discharging and that sort of thing, we try to evaluate all the different um uh scenarios, identify where the risks are and monitor monitor the risk. We don't really monitor things that aren't at risk.

Well, we know Koko Koko Nahua stream, right, is is a known stream that's overflowed. We talked about it at our last hearing. We know that in Manoa that stream overflowed. We know that a Wup stream overflowed recently. Um, so I personally know of those that at least those streams that we should be monitoring, but there's got to be more streams on the island that should be monitored, if not all of them. But I'm just curious. I mean, you may have answered the question, but sounds like DEM does not have a list of critical streams that should be monitored. Is that correct?

Well, I would say that I don't accept the premise of the question. We monitor all the all the rivers and streams and when and when rivers and streams are determined to uh be significantly impacted, we start paying a lot closer attention to them. So, how do we do that? First of all, we rely on the National Weather Service. They are 247 uh watch office, if you will. And so they allow us, you know, they alert us with things like flood watches and warnings and uh and and advisories to let us know when we need to start paying attention to certain areas and and so forth. And then uh when we activate the EOC, we have a um uh we have the the gauges up and we're monitoring them and we've made even some enhancements since uh since Konalo 1 that uh we now have a a board dashboard in our VOCC system that uh automatically brings in through an API all the different streams uh and lets us know when they go up and down. That being said, we also have to understand that the system has limitations. And those limitations are this very stream that you're talking about went offline at a certain time uh after midnight and was offline for 12 hours. Some of these systems don't uh update. They're supposed to kind of update every 15 minutes or so, but many times they'll go 90 minutes without updating, at least within the system. So there are system problems that uh you know I I appreciate civic civic beats uh report there but there's no way to know that we were in the EOC and at such and such a time it you know this particular stream gauge updated at a particular time because there's incredible instability with the amount that they are actually reporting or updating um on the internet. I think what you you testified to previously is that you

didn't know that Kokoa stream had surged two feet, right? Because that wasn't being monitored. Um well, I don't Yes, it surged starting at at 8:30 p.m. It was at its lowest that it would be before it starts climbing. And then that stream climbs for the next over the next 4 hours until again it it it it goes offline at about midnight30 on the 20th. And so you know at 8 where it was at 8 ft and adding 2 feet it still wasn't anywhere near a situation where we would you know uh evacuate for or anything like that. only until, you know, in that 11:30, 12, 1:00 a.m. hour do we um really start seeing, you know, over over topping uh the bridges and and so forth. So, at 8:30, it's at, you know, it hadn't really significantly started raining yet.

Were you aware that of this though? Were you I guess what I'm trying to get at is and and this is going to tie into number two on our agenda. Um, maybe we should be updating our technology to get these push notifications. Right. So, what you're telling me is that there is a gauge on this stream, right? It's known to have flooded this area, but it you don't get push notifications. It's something that you have to actively go and look at, right? chair if I if I may also just join in this discussion.

Um you know we've previously shared that the the EOCC environment is a dynamic environment. It's a kinetic environment and I think I think when people think of stream gauges maybe they're envisioning something um that's that's constantly changing and popping up on a screen and and as Dr. Collins has shared that's that's not the case and and maybe there are technological improvements. What I'd like to offer the the council is that at Dr. Colin's urging, we are going to be doing an afteraction review. We're going to hire a contractor to do that. So, the questions you're asking are important questions and and those those answers will be coming through this independent afteraction review that's going to be contracted through the MDO. So, what I would urge is that um there are a lot of questions. Dr. Collins has as many questions as anybody else and but we will be doing that after our action review to to get to that. Now,

I appreciate that. When when can the council expect the act afteraction review report? So, we're currently um uh surveying different uh vendors that provide these kinds of services and accepting a quotation on a scope of work. Um we've gotten several uh estimates back. Some are very uh high. And so we may be uh evaluating that scope of work and uh either bifrocating it into different sections or uh slimming down the scope of work. And those conversations will go on and we'll continue to go through the procurement process when we find a uh vendor that uh is within the price point that we're looking for also.

Okay. So when can the council expect the after incident report? So these things take time. Um your best estimate. Yeah. So I I believe in the uh the scope of work that we have right now it's a 285day process which is why we decided we may want to bifrocate that because there's a lot of answers that we want sooner rather than later but some of the scope of work is a in-depth study of the uh watershed system and and that obviously takes engineers and time. So so we're looking at uh different options there. Well, I I don't if I may add C uh chair, um I I I appreciate there's an urgency to this and I appreciate that we want answers.

Um Dr. Collins mentioned a relatively large um afteraction report review. There's a component of it which is the the incident itself. So that portion of it will prioritize and speed up as much as possible. I don't have a hard date for you for when it'll be done, but as soon as I have we have a better idea, we'll let the council know. Okay. You know, in July of 2025, there was a tsunami warning. Did we complete the after incident report for the 2025 tsunami?

We we do have that uh report. It has just recently since we've been dealing with the Kona low, it's recently come in. We have uh accepted it and we have uh I believe we've even uh paid the vendor now, but we have not published it. I've not even seen it. So, um, but, uh, I know that it has been completed by the contractor. Okay. When can we expect that report? Uh, I'm sure that we'll be able to release that in the next uh, 30 days.

Okay. Thank you. Do you have a list of heavy equipment and high water vehicles and operators that that can be activated in the event that this happens again? Because what we heard from the community in Wua was that they basically did it themselves, at least at first. But just for future storms, do we have a list? Do we keep a list of these high water vehicles and operators?

Um I do not have a list of high water vehicles. We know that we can depend on uh what they call what they refer to as Clifford by HSD. It's the the big armored uh ambulance that they have that is basically qualifies as a high water vehicle. So, we know we have that inventory within the city and county of Honolulu system. The rest come from the uh Hawaii National Guard. And uh so I'm sure that they have a list and uh when we make those requests, we typically have a National Guard liaison in the emergency operations center and if they are not then we certainly can just talk to the liaison at the state emergency operations center. They have their current list of resources and assets.

Okay. My understanding is that the only high water vehicle that the city has is HPD and we have one, but you're you're saying we do have a list of of city vehicles. And can that be provided to us? Yes. So, we have the ESD uh armored ambulance that uh is is also high water vehicle. Okay. So two, we have two and then but DMB doesn't keep a list of all the high water vehicles on the island. Is that what you're saying? You're relying on other agencies to keep that list. We rely on the other agencies to maintain their resource list. Yes.

Okay. But as mentioned earlier, the sea and county of Honolulu is the number one agency that's supposed to deal with emergencies. Right. But wouldn't it be helpful for us to keep that list as well so that we could call them immediately? Otherwise, what you're saying is you got to call the other agency to contact these vehicles versus you contacting them directly. We wouldn't contact them directly. That's why we have the uh the representatives from those agencies and the emergency operations center.

Okay. But in this case, the emergency operations center wasn't open until 11:00, right? So there was no way. and the flooding was starting to happen. So unless you open the EOC, you can't access these high water vehicles as an example versus I mean that's why I guess it's important to figure out what we could do better and perhaps having list of these high water vehicles readily available by you and your department so you can make that call immediately. You get a call from HPD, the OEC is not open yet. You get a call from HPD, it's starting to flood. Okay, what do we need? We need high water vehicles to get in there. Like that way you can call immediately, right? I guess

this is what I'm getting at.

Okay, this is what I know about resource management and emergency management. U maintaining resource lists uh in DEM is only as good as the moment that you accept that information. um you know, you get a month out and one of those, two of those, five of those vehicles are in maintenance. Uh they're part of the military. They're deployed. They're just not available. So, uh it's very hard to we can have resource lists, and that's great. It lets us know where those resources are, but we're still at the uh we still go back to the process of when we need those particular vehicles, we're going to be asking the particular agency owners to activate and uh and get those resources uh there. And you know, there's a lot more to it than just focusing on where the vehicles are because it also goes back to how many operators that that you have, how many license operators, especially in those particular vehicles, uh and so forth. And so those aren't and when we talk about the National Guard, those aren't uh immediate response uh 911. They're not going to be there in minutes. Those are more hours um kind of thing.

You know, I know we were waiting for the afteraction report, which is fine. We get an independent review of what the city did, but in your opinion, what did not work as planned during this response and how can we be better? We're looking at the budget going forward and We want to be able to shape the budget to help the city do better. So, it'd be helpful if you could tell us what we could do better.

I appreciate that. Um there's uh an infinite number of of things that I think we can be doing better and it's going to take a long time to to get there. But that being said, um obviously we all know that the the forecast was off that day and uh we don't know to what extent. um the the radar being offline contributed to that and and that sort of thing. We obviously know that uh I think we need to do alerting earlier and you know I I talked to many of the members of the community and and some of the decisions that they had to make or some of the experience that they had to deal with and um I think uh alerting earlier especially in the unknown of weather and so forth is is prudent and so I think we'll be we'll be doing that. Uh I talked about the new dashboard that we have built. Um um and I would say that there's um we learned a lot with use of our incident management teams and the and the Hawaii National Guard and um and their ability to uh manage uh not only uh well to do search and rescue with their surf program uh on into their uh the infantry and the the the diversity that they provided in in terms of debris management with regards to that. So knowing how we interface with the guard uh and um I think has been a huge uh lesson learned for us. Um and uh the other thing that we uh did that I mentioned the other day with the program of the uh rivers and stream monitoring with the police and the emergency management reserve corps uh sub submitting those uh those those um uh uh status reports uh on the streams uh visualizing and seeing those particular things. Um, I think we've learned about our messaging a little bit and u addressing the different messages that that we put out uh and what the wording is on on those. Um, so you know there there are so many different things that I think that we can improve uh including

you know our planning processes uh the way that we even shifted our operations in the emergency operations center. Developing an incident action plan is another example. So we've done a lot of changes already. We're going to continue to uh make changes. We're going to continue to look at opportunities. We talked yesterday about uh the an AI hazard detection system to help us out with that. I know that uh Hoo is uh here and going to do a presentation which you know they're a part of uh the overall plan that we want to kind of put together. So, uh there's a lot of opportunities for uh the things that we're doing uh in terms of training, preparedness, planning, and exercising uh and improving our systems and our resources. And at the same time, uh one thing that we've added in uh as this is budget season, I think you uh the council already knows, we had eight new positions allocated for DEM. Uh that's going to help out. And um since uh Konal O2, we've added in another six positions into that. That's going to help DEM broaden our capabilities, provide u more resources in the EOC, more staffing available, which will broaden our ability to maintain situation awareness and coordinate.

No, thank you for that. And I think there was a huge difference between Kono storm 2 and Kona storm low storm 3, especially opening up the EOC earlier, right? Which I think was a huge difference. You did mention this today and you'd mentioned it, I believe, in Matt Wire's committee that you actually had police officers out looking at the streams. Yes, sir. Okay. Um, thank you. Any follow-up questions? Council member Okimoto.

Thank you, Chair. Aloha. Um, good morning, Director Collins. Most of my questions, I think, are going to have to be answered in the report that we're waiting for. So, thank you, um, Deputy Director, as well as you, Director Collins. I think one of the things that I'm going to input in there also because you mentioned that in the event where the storm gauge failed, there was it was some kind of lapse of information um, in getting you the information to get the to get to the community adequately. I think one of the things things I want to know I want to find is what what is the process and if something fails and you're not aware of what's going on and I'm guessing again this will come in the report that we're waiting for but you can answer that if you want to open on that now the the only other thing I was going to mention in the in the slide that you have thank you again I agree with council member K I know it was very helpful to have the information in the format that it was provided to us but I just want to verify one thing it's manini But you did have on one slide where you have the FEMA reimbursements. Just to clarify the declaration summary where you have 75% FEMA and then 25% state. I'm thinking you meant city. On a previous on a subsequent page you had city. Just so we're clear that it's the city that's going to cover the 25% not the state. Whoever did your slides they they did a great job. I just want to be sure that I understand. Are we looking at we're looking at city funds correct? state.

I think I know where you're at and what and I think I know what's happening and I think the 25% on individual assistance is uh provided by the declaration summary just to be clear because two pages after that you do have the standard cost share um for the public assistance not it's not individual assistance but I'm assuming when we've been talking numbers it's 75% federal 25% us in the city not the state just to clarify.

Yeah. So, typically uh we are on the hook in the public assistance realm for 25%. So, that's that's on us. I what I think is I haven't found where you're at, but okay. Yes, that should be local. Okay. Okay. Just to clarify because on the the two pages after it did say that. So, I just wanted to be sure I understood. And I I also like chair waters will wait. I I think a lot of the questions that he asked are questions I' I've posed in previous hearings and we would like to see um the results of this in after briefing or after storm briefing as soon as possible. But thank you.

Absolutely. And it's it's helpful to know what uh what you're interested in seeing as well. I don't know those systems are not maintained by us. uh those are federal uh storm gauge systems and uh but we'll we'll certainly be asking you know kind of what where the vulnerabilities are and and I know a little bit about how the information gets transmitted and so sometimes there's satellite um delay and and different things. So yeah because in the event that that happens again I don't think it's okay for us to just say we just didn't know because the system failed. We have to have a better um plan B to that. 100% councilman. Thank you. Thank you chair.

Thank you and thank you director. you know, your presentation today was really really helpful and and clearly you did a lot of work on this and and that's very much appreciated. May I just ask that you stick around for item number two because the presentation interesting I met these gentlemen literally years ago after the wup stream and after this happened um they happened to contact me. So the information that they presented to me in my office I thought would be wonderful for the community to see and in fact you sounds like you already familiar with these guys but what they're able to provide to the city and state um I think is pretty fantastic. So if you can stick around for that'd be great.

I had planned to and uh yeah support it 100%. Awesome. Thank you. Um, I didn't call on remote testifiers, so I'd like to do that at this time. Mr. Madame Clerk, do we have any remote testifiers on item number one? There are none. Pardon? There are none. Okay. Thank you so much. Turning to item number two, a briefing by Hon Honu on flood detection, monitoring, and technology. Aloha, Dr. Brian Glazer, CEO of Honu. Thank you so much for being here. Proceed when you're ready.

You have to push the button on the bottom or illuminate.

Okay. Thank you, Council Chair Waters and council members for inviting us today. Um um I'm Brian Glazer. I was born in Pittsburgh. I lived up and down the east coast of the continent, but I've been here in Hawaii for the last 22 years. I'm an oceanography professor at uh Manoa in Soest. And going on about 12 years ago, we started developing technologies in my lab, funded by Noah, funded by uh National Science Foundation and funded by philanthropic donors to understand ways to adapt technologies that were emerging and lower cost without compromising on the rigor that we put in as academics. And we saw there was demand for that. And the University of Hawaii encouraged me to think about commercializing. So we launched Honu in 2019. We're a Delaware Ca Corporation. We're also public private. The University of Hawaii is a partial equity owner in the company. There's a lot of unique things that put us here in front of you today. I'm going to tell you a little bit about that. Um, okay. So, I want to go just very briefly through some of the background, a little bit of how and why we do what we do, where we're deployed, and how we're helping in 17 states across the US. Uh, including, uh, and we're also deployed here in Hawaii. Um, I'm going to give you specific case studies and a little bit of insight into how we're working with the city of Boston emergency management, title flooding, episodic flooding and rain. Um, as well as Lee County in Florida. We deployed about a dozen gauges right before they were hit with back-to-back um, category 4 and category 3 hurricanes Helen and Milton. Um, and we've been working closely with them since. And then finally, I'll I'll um, inform you a little bit about what our thoughts are when we were watching the the Konolo come through. So, this is not my paper. This is not my publication, but I think it resonates and it it articulates very well um what we've seen. Um we launched in 2019. We did what was natural for us as academics and we went out after some federal awards and we've grown word of mouth now

to operate in over 200 locations in 18 states. The title of this paper is unintended consequences of using maps to communicate sea level rise. This paper is specifically talking about the public's typical inability to really contextualize what does sea level rise for 2100 mean. But what's interesting to us is we're seeing the same thing with these three bullets. Coastal residents don't really understand the complexity of coastal flooding until it's hitting them and impacting them right away. And some of that is just a lack of information or lack of knowing where to get the information. A lot of it is an inaccessibility of the information. So folks who sit down, write papers, graduate students, and move on to the next project. We know how to get it, but we may not be most effective and efficient at giving that information to policy makers and decision makers and certainly not at getting that that kind of information into the general public. So what we do is we take a different approach. Rather than provide a map with a heat map and large uncertainties of where and when and how much water is going to occur, we deploy these. So, how many folks have ever sat next to or stood next to a Noah tide gauge or USGS stream gauge? The only one, right? It's not surprising. When the federal government installs a um a tide gauge, it's a $300,000 endeavor. It's very expensive to maintain annually, and there are fewer than 300 of them for 95,000 miles of US coastline. There's only two here on Aahu. When you move inland, it's even worse for USGS. fewer than one stream gauge for 450 miles of US surface waters. They're expensive, they're rigorous, and there's a reason for that, but it's not keeping up with the urgency and the more frequent and more intense flooding events that we're seeing. So, our approach was to make very rigorous sensors that mount above and look down at a surface, measure every second, and then upload one minute averages through the cloud, to a website, to an API, and

to a cell phone. So, in your packets, in the purple folders, there's a QR code. Anybody with an iPhone can download our app. This is free, freely available. We ingest all federal data, Noah and USGS, and then we also supplement that with our own installations. We never charge for just looking at the data. Um, there's also two different handouts. One is our our synopsis on the Kona low, and then all of the handouts that I'm going to show you here today. I tried to keep them very visual and not too text dense. Um, so being an academic, a bit of a control freak, we maintain, we build these in Monoa at the Monoa Innovation Center. We maintain what sensor is the right fit for what locations. We have been working on the technology inside the tube for over 12 years. And it's fully self-contained. So that means that it's very easy to deploy. We FedEx these second day air to the continent. Installers will remove the magnetic clip and immediately the sensor is working. We give them standard operating procedures about how and where to mount them. And immediately there's that sense of instant gratification that they're immediately receiving data from something that they feel connected to rather than a 50,000 or a $300,000 Noah tide gauge that maybe feels as foreign as Mars rover technologies. Um that's not where it stops. There's a hardware component, but it's also accessibility of the data. So again, if it's easy, if it's in your pocket, but also maintains the rigor that emergency management needs to never look at our website, but just ingest the API data and then fold that into their own um dashboards or internal or GIS tools, we need to be able to maintain that as well. So we work with National Weather Service in Florida. All of our sensors, there's about 50 of them throughout the state of Florida are are hosted on water.noah.gov. Um, so this is again a couple of sample installations. Um, we've several years ago, uh, the organization Purple Maya received a federal appropriation from Senator Shots's organization. We worked with

Purple Maya, we worked with about two dozen different, uh, local IA fish pond restoration groups throughout the islands pictured there in the middle. Uh, when that funding was exhausted, we didn't turn any of the sensors off. And so the Kanui Mai uh, sensor was still there. We saw a really interesting signal through these Kona lows. It matters if these kinds of rain events happen on a high tide, a low tide, a higher than normal high tide. And it matters for Wy Ki. It matters for fish ponds like these. Um, pictured on the left is in Penllis County. This is at an elevation approximately thinking about a cat 3 hurricane. And then kind of hidden on the right there. It's no longer just a tide gauge tide gauge because it is so cost-effective to deploy. That's downtown city of Boston in Chinatown. 90% of the time that sensor is looking at distance to asphalt, dry land until it's not. And then it's triggering and you want to know if you're sending first responders into a roadway, are they going into one inch of water on a roadway, 3 in, 6 in, 12 in? What are the assets that need to be deployed? When do we think about rerouting emergency responder traffic or or evacuations? Um, so there is the ease of the hardware installation, but again, it's really beyond just observations and points. It's really thinking about how users are using it and accessibility of that data is is as is fundamental to anything that we do. Um I'll just quickly flash this and it's in your handouts. These are the kinds of clients that we see. Again, we're working in 18 states, over 200 locations across mostly business to government. We're working with cities, counties, towns, municipalities, a lot of emergency management departments, public works, utilities. We have a sole source contract with the state of Florida Department of Transportation. And by the way, you're a University of Hawaii professor, right? Correct. Okay, good. Now, if you could skip because we're we're about to lose some council members. Could you skip to um what is actually accessible by phone or your computer um because what was said was

that what we learned from the past that, you know, we're not always monitoring the current um sensors. So, how many current sensors are there? And what I want the members to know and the members of the public and DEM to know that you can actually access by your phone with your technology not only the sensors that um are already there that the federal government has. But if we put them and then you can set it to have push notifications that hey there's a immediate rise of two feet, three feet, four feet, whatever you set it to that can be pushed to your phone just like a text message or some other thing. Can you just talk about that before we lose any other members?

It's exactly that easy. So on the back end on the API, the emergency management is able to ingest four triggers. And what you're looking at on the screen here is a direct hit from a tornado during a hurricane where our sensor is monitoring what that peak and storm surge are. And the yellow and orange lines, these horizontal lines on the screen are those trigger set points. So we can determine what those trigger set points are or if you know them, tell them to us. Not only can we ingest that and send that out as a push notification to the agencies, the public can hop on our dashboard. This is a screenshot of our dashboard. They can put in their text message, they can put in their cell phone number and receive a text message alert, not only for something like king tide events when we're predicting thresholds will be crossed, but also for events when that water level is actually crossed. And so I'll skip ahead here to to think a little bit. Raining events, again, the sensor doesn't care if it's salt water or fresh water or roadways. This was Charleston after Hurricane Aaron came through. They thought they were in the clear. They didn't have storm surge damage, but they had 18 inches of rain in 12 hours or something. And so each of those peaks, and again, this is a snapshot from our dashboard, are actually showing, you know, two feet of water on a roadway.

Can you show the map of Honolulu that shows the current There you go. that shows the current sensors that are out there.

Exactly. So, there's there's about 38 USGS stream gauges and two Noah tide gauges on Aahu. This is a screenshot from water.noah.gov hosted by National Weather Service. How many of us were clicking and looking at this and it's very difficult to navigate on mobile for sure. It's right. They do great job with the resources they have available. It's just kind of outside of the purview. So what we did was we took a look at posttorm assessment. There were over 150 different public flood events reported. Greater than 60% of those reported floods were over a mile from the nearest gauge. two miles was the average. And so we just are lacking the granularity. This happens to come from Maui, but could have happened here on Aahu just as easily. We aren't paid to deploy sensors in Hawaii yet. Um, but these are two of the legacy local EA sensors. And what we see here is that we captured in between the first and the third, that second Kona storm, we knew immediately how quickly it had risen and then crossed a threshold from the first Kona storm. This was uh over an hour before that roadway was actually closed. So again, DOT did a great job. EM did a great job, but this is the kind of situational awareness and intelligence that we can provide in real time to help move more quickly. So instead of needing to send officers out to say, "Hey, look at this stream. How close is it to over topping?" You open your phone, you open the API, and you know this information in real time. So currently there's 38 USGS stream gauges on Aahu. There's 48 sites that have been abandoned. So, at one point or another in the last hundred years, USGS had stream gauges at 48 additional sites. They've typically because of budget cuts have been abandoned. Um, there's also kind of highlighted on this are regions of historical sparse coverage, which again, I'd love nothing more than to sit down with Randy and his team to sit down with Ed and his team and ask and learn where were the hot spots, where do you think a lack of

coverage really impeded quick decision- making, intelligent decision- making. That's what we're poised to to really step up and help with. Um, I certainly won't go through this slide on but if you could if you could back up a minute. So, this is on your website. You could click on any one of these monitors and see real time where that stream is. Correct. Correct.

Okay. And if you know that a flood's coming, you could go on your website, click on this stream, and say, I want alerts on this monitor, that monitor, this monitor. So you don't even have to sit in front of your computer and look at that. Oh, that although during a storm that's probably a good idea, but you don't have to do that because your technology will send you a an alert. In what form will they send you alert like a text or it'll pop up on your phone? Like it's a text message. It's a text message alert. We're also interfacing with sirens in Texas for example. Okay. And I think that's super helpful. And then lastly, how much does this cost? I guess you got that right there. 300,000 annually.

We could do, you know, again, we want to sit down and think about site selection. Certainly, probably there's a need, a requirement for another 50 sensors in addition to the 38 existing. We could do that for fewer than 300k a year. And your technology currently monitors the sensors that are already out there. Correct. Okay. And that's not going to cost us anything because the sensors are already out there, but your technology actually is currently tracking that. Correct. Okay. Thank you, members. Any follow-up questions? Council member dos Santos Tam which I think I can appoint you at this point. Um oh no we have still here. Um you have to take off. So I will appoint you as a member. Thank you.

Uh thank you chair. These gauges are these placed on city property, state property, federal, private. Um we learned yesterday how many streams around the island are under city jurisdiction. Is tell us about how you select these sites. Yeah, as you know, I select them kind of from the standpoint of experimental design. I look at Monoa and what happened during the Kona storm. Our engineer lost his car at the Manoa Innovation Center. There's one of those very highly functioning, expensive USGS stream gauges right at the bridge. It happened again 20 years ago when we lost the library and biomed building on Monoa. It's going to happen more frequently and more intensely, even if there's a stream gauge right there. What we need is a better granularity upstream and downstream to think about the tributaries that are not being viewed. It helps eventually thinking about debris clearance. If you don't have to send someone to go say, "Okay, there is no debris. Water's flowing freely from this tributary." Whereas we are seeing a faster backup through time up at Lion Arboritum for example. Um but in terms of just placing them on on city property, state property, is it easier just to go with the private sector and find property owners and call it a day?

Excuse me. Um you certainly can. We have not received any resistance going through public works or emergency management, cities, counties, towns, states, bridges. They they handle the permitting again because it's very unobtrusive. It's small. Great. Thank you, Council Member Kiana. Any follow-up questions? No. Um, thank you so much. Thank you. I do believe we have one more testifier. Tara Gregory. Aloha again.

Aloha. Oh, you can hear me. Perfect. Uh, thank you for that report. Um, I actually have a background in child development, neuroscience, and psychology. So, this is not my thing, but I will tell you, um, something that we did put together as a looi was something called malamap.org. Um, I'm not sure what the response time is from what you're speaking of here, but because it's an app on a phone, um, people know right away if there's an emergency. Um, I'd love to upload that for you to see because you're just asking a question about does something pop up on your phone. And there is something that can pop up on the phone. Um, I don't know about exactly what automobiles could be dispersed, but I will tell you we needed a lot of sump pumps, bulldozers, and trailers. Um there were capuna being saved by bulldozer uh during the Konolo storms. Um so while $300,000 is probably going to be very effective in the future immediately these are the things that are needed on the ground. Um but I did want to take the time to say can you if uh if you would uh go to malamap.org so you can upload that and see if you can integrate that. They have all of the sites of the current hubs that are necessary if someone does need help and also the hubs that are necessary if someone would like to give um whether it's monetarily or if they would like to give some pumps, bulldozers and trailers in the event that something happens in the next hour or tomorrow. Uh there's a group of people that know that this exists. Um so mahalo for the time to speak.

Thank you members. Any other questions for the testifier or for the presenters? Seeing none, thank you. Um, I do have to call for any remote testifiers. Miss Madame Clerk, do we have any remote testifiers? Mr. Chair, there are none.

Saying none, thank you. Um, there being no further business, I'd like to adjourn. Although, can I just point out one last thing? Um, I got a resolution from the youth commission, resolution 26-007, which I plan to introduce on their behalf. I thought it was really timely. It says, "Uring the city and state to incorporate lessons learned from the Konolo disaster response into future disaster response plans, to integrate community feedback into post- disaster reports, and to get more community engagement for future disaster planning exercises." I thought that was really, really good. So, um, shout out to the youth commission and thank you members for your patience. Thank you to the presenters. Thank you to you, managing director and dem. I know it's been a long a long hearing, but thank you guys. Mahalo. We're adjourned.