First, can you, you know,
we're middle of the storm here.
How's it, how's the county
doing right now? We're
looking pretty good.
We were a little bit.
More prepared for this round of storms,
we predicted that this would be
much worse than this weekend was.
So we positioned ourselves
to be ready for that.
First is this weekend where we were
prepared for it to be rainy and we were
prepared for it to be a winter storm.
But I don't think anyone expected
that a system would look to stall
over us and we would see the
amount of water followed by the
amount of wind that we had just
to compound all those issues.
And what's been the big concern
either today or you know throughout
this past week with the storm
here in Macon County, really
just looking at the amount of water
that's been coming in and the consistent
amount of water that's coming in.
We know that our waterways tend to pick
up all of that water that comes in here,
plus anything that's coming
down the river systems and the
channels that feed into the delta.
So really just watching those levels,
making sure that those are staying
within the appropriate monitor stages.
If we need to look at evacuations,
but right now everything looks good
even though they look like they're
very full and they are running very
high and they're all within the
proper monitoring channels and we are
making sure that all of our partners
are watching those at the same time.
And then any any particular concerns
or things you guys are looking for that
going into this weekend and the next
kind of round of rain? Yeah, really
again, the same thing looking at
this just long-term river of storms
that are coming in, making sure that
we are working with our partners at
the delta or throughout the delta,
the reclamation districts and the
dam operators and the reservoirs,
they weren't full a couple days ago.
They're starting to fill up fairly quickly.
So just making sure that if they're
going to start making releases on
top of the storms that we're seeing.
That we just kind of coordinate with
everybody on that to make sure that
when the water gets down to us that
we are in the appropriate channels.
We don't want to exceed anyone's banks,
we don't want to cause any issues.
So really just working with everybody,
coordinating,
partnering with our cities and the
special districts just to make sure
everybody has what they need and making
sure that we are ready to go in the
event that the system changes in any fashion.
And you've seen some some
kind of bigger issues in other
counties like Sacramento, yeah,
like 10 levee breaches and you know,
deaths even in the Bay Area 2.
Aside from just the storms kind of
natural path and the geography here,
is there anything different that
we did to prepare or that we did
differently to prevent some of those
things from happening here now?
Our levy
maintaining agencies and the reclamation
districts in our county have worked
hard for several years to make sure
that their systems are able to
handle those increased capacities.
A lot of them have built them up more.
Then what the minimum standards are,
so they were ready for, they monitor,
they go out and do 24 hour patrols
when water gets to a certain level and
watching the way that the rain was coming
and they were making those preparations
and getting ready for all of that.
So if there were issues that arose,
they were there,
they were ready to take care of it and
we just didn't see that path the way
that some of the other counties did.
We got that was the one little bit
of blessing in all of this was
we got spared a bit.
And going into this weekend,
in the next kind of round,
any any message to the people out
there in Simon County wasn't always
for us, is to be prepared, be ready,
keep an eye on what's going on.
We have our SJ Ready, Facebook,
our Twitter, Instagram.
We are updating our website every day.
We just added ten additional sites in the
last 24 hours for residents to get sandbags.
So we're always posting and
sharing the information,
just being prepared, trying to find,
you know, if you can go out and
pick up medications this weekend.
Before we get into next week,
before that weather picks up again,
trying to stay off the road
as much as possible.
So really just making sure that
everybody's aware of what's going on
so that way they can make decisions
based on what they have going on.
And then one more question too.
What's it been like, you know,
for people behind these
doors here the past week,
you know, we've been activated since
Saturday and we kind of picked up
to a full level overnight just to
make sure that we were ready for
anything that could happen again.
We got lucky. The storm kind of
changed its path of the last moment
and we didn't see the results of,
you know, that bomb cyclone that
everybody had been talking about.
We were ready for it and we expected it,
but we just didn't see it.
So it was a bit of a relief this
morning to come in and know that
everybody was still safe and we
weren't seeing those things.
We still do have the localized flooding.
We're working with all of our
partners on that.
Fire departments, police departments,
Sheriff's Department,
water districts,
everybody's out there trying to
make sure that the issues that
we had seen from the last storm
get resolved before we see any
major issues for the next storm.
Most of my questions is there
anything else you want to add
you should know? Well, I think
so. Just, you know, again that reminder,
being prepared and always being ready,
having a go kit if you live in the areas
that are either low lying or near waterways.
But we continue to monitor and we want
to make sure that we give people as
much advance notice as they can to
get out of an area should they feel
threatened or if the situation changes.