Tuesday March 19, 2024
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Due to high water on the Ohio River, the annual Mary M. Miller cruises from Riverview Park have been cancelled for Sunday October 7th. The vessel’s crew has advised that they will not be able to safely access the boarding site at the park given the expected water levels this weekend.

The cruises, sponsored by District 12 and District 14, have been rescheduled for Sunday, April 14th, 2019.

Those who made advanced reservations through the Southwest Community Ministries will be contacted about the cancellation. All advanced reservations will be honored for the rescheduled date. New reservations can be made by visiting Southwest Community Ministries during their regular business hours of 9 am to 3 pm on weekdays. Seats will also be available on a first-come, first-served basis on the day of the cruise.

Louisville Metro Emergency Services provided this update today on the heavy rains and potential for flash flooding in Louisville:

  • MSD, our city’s Public Works and first responders remain in communication about the potential for flash flooding.
  • The EOC was activated this morning to Level 1, which involves personnel monitoring the situation, and assisting with potential needs of agencies involved in the event. Key city officials are alerted to Level 1 status by text, which initiates a chain of communication among senior leadership, including the Mayor and Deputy Mayor.
  • With the National Weather Service predicting more heavy rain over the next two days, MetroSafe will continue to monitor conditions and activate the EOC as appropriate.
  • Louisville Fire had only one rescue call today. A motorist attempted to drive through standing water, and their car stalled at Frankfort Avenue and Cable Street. The motorist was rescued.
  • Since 6 a.m. Saturday through 4 p.m. today, MSD’s Call Center answered 437 customer calls.
  • MSD has crews out in the community throughout any weather event, monitoring stormwater drainage channels and pipes, catch basins.
  • Public Works also is patrolling roads to clear any clogged catch basins and reduce flooding. Public Works received two calls today; both related to clogged catch basins. Both were cleared.
  • Public Works has crews on standby to place barricades if streets must be closed, and have ordered additional barricades to be used if needed.
  • We encourage the media to continue to share our reminders to the public to stay away from pooling water and to “Turn Around. Don’t Drown.”

Next Steps

  • The city’s Public Works’ Road division has inspected the city’s 32 viaducts and found that 17 of them are marked with signs advising motorists, “Do Not Enter When Flooded.” In other areas, those signs have been removed; the city is taking steps to replace those.
  • Public Works also is working with MSD to identify the potential standing water depth in each of 32 viaducts in our community and then paint visible marks on each, as an additional warning to keep people from driving through during a heavy rain event.
  • The city will use data from MSD, the National Weather Service, Louisville Fire and MetroSafe to project potential dangerous water conditions in the steepest and deepest viaducts and establish a mechanism to trigger visible warning lights to avoid entering flooded areas.

“Public safety is our No. 1 priority, and I am extremely confident in the commitment in the work of our police, fire and emergency management teams,” said Mayor Greg Fischer. “It’s important that citizens be our partner in this mission, taking the steps they can to keep themselves and their families safe.”

Louisville Metro Emergency Services, Louisville Fire Department (LFD) and Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD) officials provided a briefing today about the city’s response to a 2-hour flash flooding event on Saturday, Sept. 8, including steps being taken to better educate the public about the dangers of flash flooding and to provide more warning for high-water incidents.

Louisville Metro Public Services Chief Doug Hamilton conveyed the city’s condolences to the family and friends of Abdinasir Siyat, a local taxi driver who drowned that night after driving his car into a flooded viaduct at 13th Street and West Oak.

“This is a tragedy, and we’re all saddened by Mr. Siyat’s death,” Chief Hamilton said, adding that some details of that incident cannot be released until a Louisville Metro Police Department death investigation is complete, in approximately 90 days.

Timeline of event

  • Jody Meiman, executive director for Emergency Services, said the first call to MetroSafe 911 about Mr. Siyat came at 8:44 p.m. on Sept. 8 from his employer, Yellow Cab, which said he needed help, but was unable to provide his location. MetroSafe took Mr. Siyat’s number from Yellow Cab and unsuccessfully attempted to call him twice.
  • Siyat called 911 himself, at 8:46 p.m., and told the dispatcher that he was at Dixie and Oak streets. MetroSafe dispatched Louisville Fire to Dixie and Oak; they arrived at 8:54 p.m. but found no one.
  • At that same time, a passing motorist called to report a vehicle in the water at 13th and Oak. LFD was dispatched to that location, arriving at 8:56 p.m. to find a vehicle fully submerged. A swift water team entered the water at 9 p.m. but was unable to access the vehicle, and reported they could find no victims. They were cleared from the scene and sent to other rescue calls.
  • Siyat was found unresponsive in his car at 10:47 p.m., after the floodwaters had receded.

Early weather reports for that weekend predicted a total of 2 to 3 inches of rain, which generally isn’t a problem for Louisville’s sewer system to handle, said MSD Operations Chief Brian Bingham. But the storm was worse than predicted and produced a record rainfall for the date – with variations throughout the county for the four-day period ending on Sept 9, from 2.36 inches in some parts to 7.91 inches in others.

Noting the unpredictability of such storms, Chief Hamilton reminded the public today of the need to take precautions around flood waters, as intense rain events can very quickly inundate an area, and not to attempt to drive through floodwaters.

In all, Louisville Fire and Suburban Fire responded to 72 water rescue calls during the two-hour rain event, including many individuals who drove into standing water and, in some cases, around barriers.

Director Meiman noted that he and his staff were in contact with the National Weather Service (NWS) throughout the day on Sept. 8 — and based on those conversations, were expecting 2-3 inches of rain through the next day. When the rain began to intensify, and Emergency Management began getting real-time impacts of the storm from the NWS and MetroSafe, officials opened the city’s Emergency Operations Center to a Level 1, which involves personnel monitoring the situation, and assisting with potential needs of agencies involved in the event. Key city officials are alerted to Level 1 status by text, which initiates a chain of communication among senior leadership, including the Mayor and Deputy Mayor.

The decision to put the EOC on Level 1 status was made at 8:18 p.m.; the EOC was closed at 11:30 p.m., once the storm had subsided. MetroSafe was staffed throughout the event with 18 dispatchers, 10 call takers and two supervisors. MetroSafe has a combined communications system that allows personnel to see county-wide impact of any event, including agencies that are not dispatched by the city.

Next Steps

Louisville Emergency Management Services has for months been sharing a NWS video that emphasizes, “Turn Around, Don’t Drown,” but Chief Hamilton and Director Meiman agreed that the number of high-water rescues from Sept. 8 indicate that additional public education is necessary.  “When you have residents knowingly drive into standing water, including people who take down barriers to do so, it is clear the dangers have not been adequately conveyed,” Chief Hamilton said.

Chief Hamilton said city responders also have met and will continue meeting to review potential changes to keep the community safe during these increasingly severe natural disasters. For example:

  • The city’s Public Works’ Road division is working with MSD to identify the potential standing water depth in each of 32 viaducts in our community and then paint visible marks on each, as an additional warning to keep people from driving through during a heavy rain event.
  • The city will use data from MSD, the National Weather Service, Louisville Fire and MetroSafe to project potential dangerous water conditions in the steepest and deepest viaducts and establish a mechanism to trigger visible warning lights to avoid entering flooded areas.

“Public safety is our No. 1 priority, and we work on a continuous improvement model,” Chief Hamilton said. “That means we will continue to review such incidents closely to see if there are additional steps we can take to further keep our community safe.”

September 20th Test Will Appear as an Actual Emergency Message

Many of us are used to the required weekly and monthly test alerts that periodically interrupt broadcast radio and television programming with those jarring tones.  Do not be alarmed when a similar system test is conducted one week from today, although on a much larger scale, coordinated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in conjunction with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

On September 20, 2018, FEMA and FCC will conduct a nationwide test of the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, known as IPAWS.

Although this test will interrupt radio and television programming like the regular Emergency Alert System (EAS) tests, the messages will be delivered to broadcasters through next-generation alerting infrastructure rather than over the airwaves. Because this exercise make use of that new alerting technology, the alert will also trigger notifications on Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) compatible cell phones.

The widespread national test is intended to help both alert providers as well as recipients ensure that the system functions normally from end to end so that important information can be received in a timely fashion in the event of an actual emergency.

The WEA portion of the test commences at 2:18 p.m. EDT, and the EAS portion follows at 2:20 p.m. EDT.

The WEA test message will be sent to cell phones that are connected to wireless providers participating in WEA. This is the fourth EAS nationwide test and the first national WEA test. Previous EAS national tests were conducted in September 2011, 2016 and 2017 in collaboration with the FCC, broadcasters, and emergency management officials in recognition of FEMA’s National Preparedness Month.

The tests that you usually hear are typically a part of the over-the-air broadcast EAS and NOAA Weather Radio systems,” a representative of alerting equipment manufacturer, Gorman-Redlich, told Louisville Dispatch. “Those tests tend to be for a relatively small geographic area and affect only broadcast outlets. This time, the test targets a nationwide audience, with alerts being sent to all broadcasters at once by internet and satellite signals and to individual cell phones by their carriers.

The message heard on radios and televisions during this nationwide test will be similar to regular monthly EAS test messages with which the public is familiar and will include a reference to the WEA test:   Continue reading

Mandatory, Voluntary Evacuations in Place as Category 3 Storm Approaches

Emergency officials on Wednesday urged millions of residents along the southeastern U.S. coast to finish preparations ahead of Hurricane Florence, which is expected to unleash damaging winds and life-threatening amounts of rain when it makes landfall this week.

Florence was at last report a Category 3 storm with maximum sustained winds of 195 kilometers (121 miles) per hour. Although it weakened slightly Wednesday afternoon, forecasters do not expect Florence’s strength to change much before it comes ashore near the North Carolina-South Carolina border.

The massive system was about 700 kilometers (435 miles) southeast of Wilmington, North Carolina. The National Hurricane Center said Florence was “forecast to be an extremely dangerous major hurricane when it nears the U.S. coast late Thursday and Friday.”

“This is not going to be a glancing blow,” the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Jeff Byard said in Washington.

The governors of the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland and Georgia all declared states of emergency.

Byard again urged residents in danger zones to heed warnings to either evacuate or hunker down. “There will be disruptions in our services,” he said. “The power will go off. Infrastructure will be damaged. Homes will be damaged or destroyed. So, again, the time to act is now.”   Continue reading

Adverse weather rates available at all resort parks through Sept. 30

Kentucky State Resort Parks are offering a discounted rate of $49.95/night on lodge rooms to residents of any East Coast state seeking shelter from Hurricane Florence. The rate for one bedroom cottages is $69.95/night and for two bedrooms, $79.95/night.

These adverse weather rates are available at all resort parks until September 30th by calling the park front desk direct. An out of state driver’s license must be presented at check-in to receive this rate.

Park locations and phone numbers are available at https://parks.ky.gov.

As in past years, Kentucky State Parks support surrounding states during adverse weather in the same manner we support Kentucky communities in a crisis.

Louisville businesses and residents affected by the severe storms and heavy flooding from Feb. 21 through March 21, 2018, can apply for low-interest disaster loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration, officials announced Wednesday.

The loans were made available after the state of Kentucky on May 1 requested a disaster declaration by the SBA, which covered Jefferson, Hardin, Breckinridge, Bullitt, Grayson, Hart, LaRue, Meade, Nelson, Oldham, Shelby and Spencer counties in Kentucky, and Clark, Floyd and Harrison counties in Indiana.

In Jefferson County, SBA’s representatives will be available at the Disaster Loan Outreach Center set up at T.J. Middle School’s First Neighborhood Place, 1503 Rangeland Road, to answer questions about the disaster loan program and help individuals complete their applications. The center will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday, May 24, and from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays. (Closed on Memorial Day weekend). The Center will close on May 31st.

Businesses and private nonprofit organizations may borrow up to $2 million to repair or replace disaster damaged or destroyed real estate, machinery and equipment, inventory, and other business assets, according to SBA Kentucky District Director Ralph E. Ross.

For homeowners, loans up to $200,000 are available to repair or replace damaged or destroyed real estate. Homeowners and renters also are eligible for loans up to $40,000 to repair or replace damaged or destroyed personal property, according to the SBA.

For small businesses, small agricultural cooperatives, small businesses engaged in aquaculture and most private nonprofit organizations, the SBA offers Economic Injury Disaster Loans to help meet working capital needs caused by the disaster.  Economic Injury Disaster Loan assistance is available regardless of whether the business suffered any physical property damage.

Applicants may be eligible for a loan amount increase up to 20 percent of their physical damages, as verified by the SBA for mitigation purposes.  Interest rates are as low as 3.58 percent for businesses, 2.5 percent for nonprofit organizations, and 1.8 percent for homeowners and renters with terms up to 30 years.  Loan amount and terms are set by the SBA and are based on each applicant’s financial condition.

Applicants may apply online using the Electronic Loan Application (ELA) via SBA’s secure website at DisasterLoan.sba.gov. Businesses and individuals may also obtain information and loan applications by calling the SBA’s Customer Service Center at 1-800-659-2955 (1-800-877-8339 for the deaf and hard-of-hearing), or by emailing disastercustomerservice@sba.gov. Loan applications can also be downloaded at  sba.gov.  Completed applications should be returned to the center or mailed to: U.S. Small Business Administration, Processing and Disbursement Center, 14925 Kingsport Road, Fort Worth, TX 76155.

The filing deadline to return applications for physical property damage is July 23, 2018.  The deadline to return economic injury applications is Feb. 22, 2019.

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