Skip to playerSkip to main contentSkip to footer

Recommended

  • today
Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) and other officials hold a press briefing on the ongoing response to the deadly flooding in Texas Hill Country.

Category

🗞
News
Transcript
00:00I want to thank everybody for being with us here today.
00:19We are in Austin today as opposed to Kerrville because of deadly storms that have swept across
00:27central Texas and areas outside of the Kerrville area and because of more expected storms that
00:36will pose life-threatening danger over the next 24 to 48 hours.
00:41I want to emphasize, however, even though we now are broadening the area that we are
00:47focused on, we are not at all reducing our focus on Kerrville.
00:53They remain a key focus in so many different ways.
00:58We continue 24-7 operations to search for anybody who was affected by that deadly storm.
01:08We still have our Department of Public Safety Assets, the National Guard, Texas Task Force
01:131 and 2, and Game Wardens all fully engaged in responding to the disaster in Kerrville.
01:21We also intensify our focus on the families affected by this.
01:27They're going through horrific events that have turned their lives upside down.
01:33We're working to aid them, assist them with regard to counseling, grief,
01:39all kinds of things we can do to assist those families.
01:43One of the most important things that we can do is to address their greatest concern.
01:49And that is there are so many families that are still waiting to learn about their loved
01:54one.
01:55And we are working 24-7 to get the information that we'll be able to answer their question.
02:00What I can tell you is several things.
02:04I had the opportunity yesterday to visit Camp Mystic and get to see firsthand what happened
02:10there as well as all the way downstream after that.
02:14And it was nothing short of horrific to see what those young children went through.
02:20And we will remain 100% dedicated searching for every single one of the children who were
02:27at Camp Mystic as well as anybody else and the entire riverbed to make sure that they're
02:33going to be recovered.
02:35We know that parents and families, they want information, they want closure, and we want
02:42them to know that we are working as swiftly as possible to get them accurate information
02:47that will provide that closure.
02:50I do want to thank the local officials, city and county and otherwise, who also are working
02:56around the clock to make sure they are addressing those concerns.
03:01The information I'm going to give you is, as of this current moment in time, knowing
03:05that this information will constantly change throughout the remainder of today as well as
03:09in the coming days.
03:12In Kerrville, in Kerr County, there are 59 confirmed deceased.
03:19There's still 11 missing from Camp Mystic.
03:24From there, in the Central Texas area, there are confirmed 10 deceased.
03:32And across the state, in all the areas affected by flooding, there are 41 known missing.
03:41So important to emphasize this, especially in the Kerrville area, there were so many people
03:47who were just camping out, not children in camps, but adults camping out near the river.
03:54People in RVs and things like that.
03:56There are people who are missing who are not on the known confirmed missing because we don't
04:04yet know who they are.
04:06We will maintain our ongoing search throughout the entire river system to find anybody who
04:13may be missing.
04:15One thing that could help this is if you are a relative or friend of someone that you think
04:23was in Kerrville or Kerr County but you think is missing, please contact the local officials
04:30in Kerr County and let them know that you have the name, identification, and other information
04:38about a person who is suspected to be missing.
04:42If however, you don't have confirmed information about that and you're making phone calls, you're
04:47slowing down the process of the first responders being able to respond to those who are clearly
04:53identified as missing.
04:56If you're doing that, you're interrupting official business and that could be potentially illegal.
05:02Call only if you have specific information.
05:08While we continue the search process in Kerr County, we are now also beginning the process
05:16of responding to the disaster that took place.
05:20Includes things like debris removal.
05:23Anybody seen any images whatsoever in the Kerr County area, you know there's debris all over
05:28the place that makes roads impassable, that makes reconstruction projects unachievable,
05:35that makes search process more difficult and the state and local governments are working
05:43now on that debris removal process.
05:47That process is improved because of President Trump's swift declaration of our major disaster
05:57declaration.
05:58He ensured in less than 24 hours that that major disaster declaration was approved, ensuring
06:07that state and local governments are going to have more resources to be able to respond
06:12to that disaster, more resources to begin the debris removal, more resources to help individuals
06:19who have been impacted by this as well as local governments that have been impacted by this.
06:24Part of mine is this, and that is the swift and very robust action by President Trump is
06:29an extraordinary help to our response.
06:32I also want to thank Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem with whom I spent the day yesterday
06:39in Kerr County.
06:41I've been doing this a long time and I've never seen anybody as responsive and as quickly
06:48in her response as what she was yesterday.
06:51She didn't wait to get back to us.
06:53She was able to, in a matter of minutes, get answers to very important demands.
07:00And on behalf of the state of Texas, we cannot thank her or the Trump administration enough.
07:05I've also been in contact with and people reached out from Secretary Kennedy, Secretary
07:12Burgum and others that in the entire administration are a tremendous help.
07:19I also want to add that there are governors across the country that have been in contact
07:25with either myself or with Chief Jim Kidd or state agencies offering their assistance, including
07:32Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the governor of Arkansas, Kim Reynolds, the governor of Iowa, Jim Pillen,
07:37the governor of Nebraska, Bill Lee, the governor of Tennessee, Glenn Youngkin, the governor of Virginia,
07:43Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, the governor of Oklahoma, and Governor Landry
07:48in Louisiana.
07:49And again, I'm sorry if I missed some, I know there's others that are constantly reaching
07:54out.
07:57We're here, as I mentioned, in Austin today because there have been lives lost in this
08:05greater region.
08:07And importantly, there are dangers over the next 24 to 48 hours that could pose public safety
08:15threats to people in these regions.
08:19There is heavy rainfall that's already occurred, and there's more heavy rainfall that's expected
08:25that will lead to potential flash flooding broadly in these regions.
08:31The big country, Concho Valley, Central Texas, and, once again, Kerrville.
08:38The point is this, if you're in any of those regions, you need to realize, for one, you're
08:44in an area with land that's already saturated with water.
08:49But for another, when more water comes down, it could lead to rapid flash flooding events.
08:56Now there's nothing expected at this time to the magnitude of what we're seeing in Kerrville.
09:04That said, flash flooding can occur at lower levels of water than what happened in Kerrville.
09:11It's a particular threat for people who are driving on roadways.
09:16Some of the lives lost in Central Texas were people who were swept away in vehicles or in
09:22similar crossing type situations.
09:24Know that rising water on roads can occur very rapidly.
09:28You may think you can drive through it only to find out when you're in there that it's
09:32too late and that you're getting swept away.
09:35So we urge everybody to be extraordinarily cautious for the next 24 to 48 hours.
09:41If there's any water on the road, you've got to be safe.
09:46There's an old saying for a reason, because it's true, and that is turn around, don't drown.
09:54You don't need to get from point A to point B if it's going to risk your life.
09:57Your job, the most important thing you can do is to protect your lives.
10:03Taking a step back, for all of us up here, that's our number one job.
10:09We put public safety first, and we'll worry about the physical damage second.
10:16There are still public safety issues and lives to be saved in Kerr County.
10:20There are lives to be saved in all these regions that I just mentioned here.
10:24We want our fellow Texans to be safe and secure, and you can do more about that yourself than
10:31anybody else can.
10:35With that, I will, I think, pass it to you, Colonel.
10:40Yes, sir.
10:41Colonel Freeman Martin of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
10:45It's been a tough three days for Texans, and I can assure you here at this table today
10:50that everything that can be done is being done.
10:53Currently, we have operations going on in several different counties.
10:57Williamson County had three people missing.
10:59They recovered one.
11:00Two are still missing.
11:02Ongoing searching.
11:03Burnett County is missing, two people missing.
11:06The fire chief and a 17-year-old female.
11:10The Department of Public Safety is offering any and every resource that we have to help with
11:16field searches, whether it be boat teams, rescue, divers, helicopters, drone operators, drones.
11:24So there's a lot of work being done.
11:28The governor's very accurate.
11:29The ground is saturated, so now a little bit of rainfall and watershed can cause issues.
11:33Williamson County is well aware of that.
11:37The ground was saturated.
11:38They knew that it had issues, and they evacuated neighborhoods which saved lives.
11:43All that being done, they still have three that were washed away.
11:48I'll touch on Kerr County.
11:50We have about 230 DPS personnel assigned to Kerr County, and everybody thinks about search
11:54and rescue and what we're doing.
11:56There's a lot of stuff going on.
11:58We're filling every gap, and first off, this is nothing negative about Kerr County.
12:03They've got a very good sheriff.
12:05Their fire chief is exceptional.
12:07Their police chief is exceptional.
12:09Everybody's working together.
12:10The outpouring of support.
12:12There's a lot of volunteers.
12:13There's a lot of good stuff going on, but there's just a huge need, and it's a large area.
12:20So we're providing 18 tactical marine units with boats.
12:24We've got 65 CID personnel assigned, over 230 in total, 11 Texas Rangers, 28 from our special
12:31operations group, our SWAT guys.
12:34In addition to that, we've got nine helicopters with tactical flight officers.
12:39We're providing cell towers and trying to solve the issues with the radio communications
12:44and their cell phone communications.
12:46We've provided communications operators to embed with them to handle 911 calls and handle calls
12:51with the concerned family members.
12:54Dealing with the families of these missing individuals, there's no higher priority for
12:58us than finding those children.
13:02We've assigned commission personnel and victim service personnel to the family that are working
13:07with them 24-7, can answer or address any needs that they have and get them any information
13:12they have.
13:14This is tough work recovering them.
13:17So we have victim service personnel there to work with officers that are conducting the
13:22search operations additionally.
13:25We have some unidentified individuals at the funeral home, adults and juveniles.
13:32The Texas Rangers are collecting DNA from family members and from the deceased victims,
13:38and we're flying those to the University of North Texas in Dallas.
13:41And we will have answers with rapid DNA in hours, not days, to get some closure and information
13:47back to these families.
13:49We have, in the last couple of days, an outpouring of support from our federal partners, DEA, HSI,
13:56and FBI.
13:57We've embedded them with our search and rescue teams.
14:02This is tough work.
14:03It's hot.
14:04They're in the mud.
14:05They're removing debris.
14:06There's snakes.
14:07There's water moccasins.
14:08This is God's work that they're doing.
14:11So, you know, the top priority is the family and the victims.
14:14Pray for them, but throw our first responders in there because there's a lot of good work
14:18going on.
14:19We're not taking away from any resources from Kerrville to pre-stage here.
14:23We're pulling from South Texas, West Texas, and North Texas into Central Texas to prepare
14:27for our emergency response.
14:29We're well prepared.
14:30The legislature, the governor, in previous years, has been overwhelmingly supportive of law
14:35enforcement and gave us the resources, so we're prepared to respond to events like
14:39this in multiple regions of the state at the same time.
14:43So, Governor, thank you.
14:44Thank you very much.
14:45Now, General Seltzer with the Texas National Guard.
14:48Good afternoon.
14:53The Texas Military Department remains decisively engaged across the flood operations area.
14:59Our current force composition, we have 230 personnel operating.
15:04We're flying eight helicopters, and we've increased the size of our force of high-profile
15:09military vehicles to help evacuate people from high-water areas.
15:16We've also expanded our operations area to not only include Kerrville, but we now have
15:21personnel operating in Sansaba and Burnett.
15:26The additional resources we've added since our last briefing are a behavioral health officer
15:31in Kerrville, a chaplain in Kerrville.
15:34We also sent a chaplain to Sansaba.
15:37We've expanded the state's air operations center, which is a multi-agency air coordination
15:42center hosted by TMD, but it includes every agency that operates across the interagency
15:49in Texas.
15:51So, inside the operations center, we can ensure that the right asset is going to the right
15:55location to do the right job.
15:59Additionally, today we have launched the MQ-9 Reaper remotely piloted aircraft out of Houston.
16:06That aircraft departs Houston, goes out over the Gulf of America, and climbs to 18,000 feet,
16:14and then along a special FAA corridor, traverses over to the Kerrville area to conduct persistent
16:21SAR, persistent incident awareness and assessment operations.
16:28It's truly an eye in the sky for our search and rescue people.
16:32I'd like to thank the Federal Aviation Administration today.
16:37Due to weather at 18,000 feet, we could not transit from the Gulf of America to the Kerrville
16:46area.
16:47The FAA granted a temporary flight restricted area through a lower altitude, which allowed
16:54our aircraft to safely transit across Texas and operate in the Kerr County area.
17:02In terms of rescues and evacuations for the Texas Military Department, we have a total of
17:07525 rescues or evacuations.
17:13366 have been by air and 159 by ground.
17:20Of those count, 20 ground evacuations occurred in San Saba and 5 air evacuations occurred in
17:27Burnett.
17:28That concludes my brief.
17:29Thank you, guys.
17:30There we go.
17:32Now with the LCRA.
17:33There it is.
17:34Phil.
17:35Yes, sir.
17:36Good afternoon.
17:37I'm Phil Wilson, General Manager of Lower Colorado River Authority.
17:40I think the most significant message we have in the general area right now is that if and
17:44when we get more rain, please stay off the lakes.
17:47High the lakes have a lot of debris right now.
17:49It's not safe to be boating.
17:50It's not safe to be out there.
17:51We'll let you know when it is.
17:53But critically, stay off the lakes.
17:55It's July.
17:56People are used to summer.
17:57And this is not a good time to be out there.
18:00To echo, we're working very closely with law enforcement.
18:02We have our rangers deployed to Burnett County right now with our mobile command center trying
18:06to support the activities up there.
18:08It's a partnership working all together with law enforcement, Teetham, and everyone that's
18:13showing up to help assist.
18:14It's a very critical time for us.
18:16Next, what the governor said, we have a lot of saturation.
18:18We opened gates up at Wertz and Starkey the last couple of days.
18:23Those are closed right now.
18:24We're ready just in case we need to.
18:26We've added more than 350,000 acre-feet to the Highland Lakes in Buchanan and Lake Travis.
18:31We're 67 percent full.
18:32We have a lot of room and headroom in case more water does come in to make sure those reservoirs
18:37do what they're supposed to do, which is to capture the water for the future and protect
18:41against flooding.
18:42Thank you, Governor.
18:43Very good.
18:44Now, Chief Damakett.
18:45Thank you, Governor.
18:46I want to remind everyone life safety is still our number one priority.
18:50And what I mean by that is, and Colonel Martin said it very well, Kerrville and Kerr County
18:55have great local emergency managers and responders.
18:58They really do.
18:59But they're a community of about 55,000 people.
19:01And they had a lot of people there that were not from that area visiting, vacationing.
19:06And their resources, and this is what state agency, what the state government does when
19:09a local community gets overwhelmed is we send in additional resources.
19:13So our hats are still off to all of those local responders that live and work in that community,
19:17and that their homes and families were also impacted, and they're still there on the job.
19:20We owe them a great amount of gratitude.
19:22Second, we continue with our search, not only in Kerr County, but everywhere that we know
19:27we have missing people.
19:28And I need your help in being very cautious.
19:31Let's not get wrapped around the axle on the word recovery.
19:35You're going to start hearing the word recovery used in a lot of different contexts.
19:39Be very careful how you use that word, because I'm going to be careful how I use that word as well.
19:44We are going to begin recovery operations.
19:47That is debris cleanup.
19:49That is opening roads.
19:51That does not mean we are no longer doing search for live victims, because we still are.
19:56We are still out there in very much hopes, very much fueled by the compassion that we show for these families
20:02that we're doing everything we can to find their missing loved ones.
20:05So please help me in making sure that we're not wasting our time and efforts on debating over the meanings of words.
20:11Let's get clarity when we ask those questions.
20:13Second, I'm asking, we've driven around Kerr County and the other areas a lot.
20:18We have a lot of people that are traveling in because they want to see firsthand the damage.
20:22I'm asking you if you're not from the community and if you're not involved in our response and rescue and recovery efforts,
20:29stay out of the area.
20:31Stay out of the area because you don't know the area.
20:33Another thing I'm getting right this minute during this press conference is reports of an additional wall of water
20:38coming down some of the creeks going into the forks.
20:41I want you to think about that for a second.
20:43If you're not from that area and you don't know the low water crossings, you could find yourself in a very dangerous situation.
20:49The next thing is we see a lot of information on social media about volunteers and spontaneous volunteers being frustrated because they can't help.
20:57We are evacuating parts of the river right now because we're worried about another wall of water coming down in those areas.
21:03If you're a volunteer there that you're not checked into our operations, we have no way of accounting for you right now.
21:08There is a process that we use to get volunteers into the response and I'm asking for your help and to get that message out.
21:15It's not that we think we don't need any help, it's that we want to make sure everyone helping is doing the job that we need,
21:22where we need it and when we need it and we have the ability to communicate with them.
21:26And then finally I want to talk a little bit about the word recovery as it relates to the President's disaster declaration.
21:32We are very excited to begin those recovery operations with our federal partners who have been here with us in the Emergency Operations Center since last Thursday,
21:41since before all of the actual flooding and disaster started.
21:45And we're going to work very close with those partners to help our local communities and our families that are impacted by this recover from this disaster as fast as possible.
21:53Thank you, Governor.
21:54Thank you. We'll take a few questions. Go ahead.
21:57Isabel, I know that you mentioned high-decks in Central Texas. Is there any way you could give us a breakdown of the cities?
22:04We sure can. Chief Kidd has it.
22:07So we're showing three in Burnett County, one in Tom Green County, five in Travis County, and one in Williamson County.
22:16And again, those numbers are a few hours old. Those numbers could go up, but that's what we had as the time preparing for this briefing.
22:22You said Tom what time? Tom Green. Tom Green. Tom Green. Yes, ma'am. San Angelo area. Thank you.
22:28You just said something about a wall of water that you're just now getting reports about. Can you talk more about that and what you're seeing there?
22:34Yeah, I'll share some of it. So I apologize for looking at my phone during the press conference, but this is the live updates that we're getting right now from the field is there are unconfirmed at this point reports of additional water coming in.
22:46And as the governor mentioned, there's rain still falling on the area. It's not going to take the same amount of rain that caused this damage to make the current water levels rise up, right, because the ground is already saturated.
22:58So any rain that falls can be perceived as life-threatening rain. And so if you're in a low-lying area, we need you to move yourself out of that low-lying area.
23:07We've got DPS aircraft that are flying up to try to find this wall of water right now, and the people in the reported areas, again, unconfirmed, that are on our communication systems.
23:16We're asking them to get out of the water and out of the way so that we don't wind up having to do additional rescues. Go ahead.
23:22Governor Adelbella, CBS Austin, you had mentioned that there are dozens of central taxes missing. Local resources can't continue searching in the dark of the night.
23:30Does this federal disaster declaration mean that we have federal resources to continue searching when it's pitch black?
23:36Sure. Well, first of all, on the federal disaster declaration, it applies right now to Kerr County.
23:43Let me go back. Let me see the total of my disaster declaration counties.
23:49So let me walk you through this. So I made an original state disaster declaration, and then I amended it to add more counties.
23:59Let me first go back over those counties, then I'll explain to you what's going on.
24:03Under the state disaster declaration includes the following counties.
24:08Bandera, Bear, Burnett, Caldwell, Koch, Kamau, Concho, Gillespie, Guadalupe, Kendall, Kerr, Kimball, Lano, Mason, McCullough, Menard, Reeves, San Sabas, Tom Green, Travis, and Williamson.
24:25That means, because of that, that the state is providing additional resources for those counties and state-based assistance.
24:35On the federal disaster declaration, for the time being, that includes only Kerr County.
24:42And they are waiting to see the magnitude of what happens in other counties before they may potentially expand that, the federal disaster declaration to include other counties.
24:54Do you think for now local resources have to stop search and rescue efforts when they fall?
24:58That's not accurate. We have drones and helicopters that have thermal and night vision and FLIR where they can search at night.
25:07Our special operations groups have that. And, you know, at the law enforcement level, we don't really wait for a federal declaration.
25:14The feds come. They're there. They're there. They're helping. They offer assets and resources.
25:19You know, this helps with funding and additional resources and bringing in from out of state.
25:24But our local federal partners, they're very involved. So we've, of course, we're a lot more productive during the day.
25:30But we search at night and we're seeing some really good results, which is good.
25:36But the bad news is you will see the death toll rise today and tomorrow.
25:41One other thing to add to that is the U.S. Coast Guard part of the federal government was here working long before the declaration was granted based on our partnership and relationships.
25:49So we still have Coast Guard assets here, and they will operate at night as well. Thank you for the question.
25:54Go ahead.
25:55Can you talk a little bit more about the warnings that local officials got, the way that the state and federal government communicated with local officials,
26:05and whether you believe that these deaths were preventable?
26:08So there were multiple steps taken by the state that I'll let Chief Kidd talk about.
26:14But the state began setting up operations in preparation for what could happen in Kerr County.
26:21It happened in the early morning hours of the 4th, which is Friday.
26:27And the state had pre-positioned assets and resources entered around that area beginning on Wednesday before the storm on Friday.
26:36As we learned more on Thursday, more assets were provided in various regions.
26:42We knew based upon predicted weather, certain regions where the rain may fall, there was an inability to know precisely where that rain was going to fall and how much was going to fall where it did fall.
26:56And as far as what the locals may have done, Chief Kidd may know more than I, but I would leave it up to them to let you know.
27:05And listen, thank you for the question.
27:07We need to spend a lot of time trying to answer this question because from a technical perspective, there are multiple warning systems that are out there.
27:17And all of us can choose to sign up for warning systems in certain areas, depending on the local government that we're in and the way that their system works.
27:27There's a lot of talk about a program called WIA, the Wireless Emergency Alert, and IPAWS, the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, and how they work or sometimes don't work.
27:38And then you have areas where there is no cell phone coverage. And if there's no cell phone coverage, it doesn't matter how many alert systems you sign up for, you're not going to get that.
27:45And then there's the NOAA weather radios from the National Weather Service. I'll ask you, how many of you have a NOAA weather radio by your bed at home?
27:53And so there can be all kinds of alert systems that are sent, and we know that some were sent, some general messaging was sent early, some urgent warnings were sent at various times.
28:05But just sending the message is not the same as receiving the message, having a plan to do something when you receive the message, and then the ability to implement that plan.
28:14And so I really would love to have a separate conversation with all of you about how we can continue to get the message to the public about what they need to do when they get a message,
28:23what they should do when that message is received, and how they communicate that back to their loved ones and family members.
28:29Let me add this also. I don't know if you guys saw this, but the city manager for Kerrville explained that on the morning of the 4th, he was out jogging at about 3.30 in the morning.
28:42And it just then began to rain a little bit. He got home and saw that it rained a little bit more.
28:48And he saw after that the torrent of water that was coming down the river.
28:54And the point that he made was that by the moment of time when they knew the magnitude of the water,
29:00it's a difficult decision whether or not to begin evacuating people or not, because if you have a warning telling everybody to evacuate,
29:09you could actually lead them to their death. We know that some deaths in Kerrville were people who died,
29:15who got swept away, who were trying to evacuate. And so local officials know the best about the terrain,
29:22about the danger spots and things like that, about who might be able to be able to evacuate those that would just be getting into a more dangerous situation.
29:31Thank you. You talked in what you just said, kind of about expertise and about just knowing the area.
29:37And that extends also to the National Weather Service folks who are in those offices and have years and years of experience.
29:43There are currently six vacancies in the local and other National Weather Service office that covered Kerr County.
29:49What is your perspective on how that could have impacted the warnings that you all were able to get and how accurate the information you all were able to get?
29:58So I know nothing about the staffing. What I do know is what they put out.
30:03And it's my understanding that what they put out was kind of the information that the state was operating off of.
30:10And that is that there were alerts or warnings about heavy rain, potential for flash flooding in certain areas.
30:19A problem with that is that to most people in the area, flash flooding would mean one thing, not what it turned out to be,
30:29because they deal with flash floods all the time, just like I put people on notice in these regions of Texas right now.
30:35There's the potential for flash flooding, but there's no expectation of a water wall of almost 30 feet high.
30:42Governor Abbott, on that topic, we know that these alerts can be life saving at times,
30:47and a lot of times these forecasters get their information from the National Weather Service.
30:51Are you communicating with your federal partners on how critical funding is from the National Weather Service
30:56in order to issue alerts like this in this disaster?
30:59It's one of the things that we spoke about when Secretary Noem was in.
31:03And this is part of ongoing conversations.
31:06And I'll add this.
31:07As you all probably know, we have a special session coming up.
31:11And the way to respond to, like, what happened in Kerrville is going to be a topic for the special session to address.
31:20We have time for two more questions for us.
31:22Is part of what you want to address, because there was a bill that was going to create a council to kind of talk about what warning systems, and it was not successful.
31:30Is it a concern that there's all these camps on this area?
31:35This is an area that deals with flash flooding, but there were no sirens that were in this area.
31:42Can you talk about that and why that hasn't been funded to this point?
31:45Well, it's going to be something that will be looked at.
31:48As you kind of pointed out, these camps go back almost 100 years.
31:53And they are familiar with the water in the area probably better than anybody else.
31:59And they have their own ways in which to deal with warnings that would involve children sometimes as young as eight or nine years old.
32:06And we need to evaluate what they know, how they respond, what they need.
32:13And that's why it's going to be good to have a session with all members working together that will bring different perspectives.
32:20Because the reality also is this, and that is what's needed in that river basin at that location could be far different than what's needed in some other river basin across the state.
32:30Go ahead.
32:40I missed the first party question.
32:42Did anyone try to get warning to the people at the camps outside of the automated system?
32:48I'm not sure that I understand the question.
32:50Does somebody go door to door and knock on the doors?
32:53Yeah, we're just wondering if there are any official outreach in the area.
32:57You know, we talked to the county emergency manager when we were there the first day.
33:00And the county does have a plan for that county and the 18 or so camps that are in that county.
33:05Probably be really good to ask them that question and let them give you that answer.
33:09It's a good question.
33:11Thank you, everyone.
33:12Thank you all.

Recommended