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Item 9A v AGENDA ITEM # 9q NOVEMBER 13, 2006 November 6, 2006 MEMORANDUM TO: The Honorable Mayor and Members of the Commission FROM: Jim Hanso > Manager SUBJECT: City Manag is Report Ferrell Gas Suit; The City Commission previously authorized filing a suit to require Ferrell Gas to remove over 35 buried underground gas tanks in the Royal Palms subdivision so that they +• would not conflict with future utility reconstruction. In preparation for the first court ordered mediation meeting held last week, the city's point repair contractor, Gruhn-May, was asked to uncover one of the tanks and provide a firm estimate for it's removal. The written estimate was -~ just over $12,000. This includes removal of not only the large storage tank but also of the ~~ concrete base installed under each of the tanks. The cost to remove all the tanks is estimated to be over $400,000. A picture of the uncovered tank is attached. Newspaper Rack Ordinance; at the City Commission's direction, the staff has been working for several months to prepare a draft ordinance that would impose requirements for maintenance "'' and the use of modular racks where there are three or more boxes. A proposed ordinance has been prepared, but will be delayed until at least the next regular commission meeting at the request of one of the news vendors who would like to submit detailed comments and recommendations beforehand. After discussions over the telephone, their comments may be lengthy, technical, and may serve to improve the draft ordinance. As soon as their input can be received and reviewed, a report will be presented to the City Commissior•., l Chamber of Commerce Trip to New Orleans to Study Lessons from Hurricane Katrina; The Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce arranged for a series of speakers and tours over the three days of the trip to New Orleans that would provide attendees an understanding of the affects of Hurricane Katrina and lessons learned in the aftermath and over the last 14 months. The speakers included David Brinkley, the author of the book "The Great Deluge", as well as several leaders involved in the immediate hurricane response as well as the rebuilding efforts ~ over the last year. Several major themes came out of these presentations and tours: 1) Communications; Virtually every speaker noted the problems of communications immediately after the hurricane. Most of the communication systems (telephone, cell ~ phones, radios, etc) were not working, and those that did work were severely overloaded by so many agencies trying to use them. Even the satellite phone system was overloaded once FEMA representatives finally arrived on the scene, because they had so many of their own satellite phones that the system became overloaded. The AGENDA 1TE4t 20~ NOVEMBER 13. best advice appeared to be in getting a variety of communication alternatives available and use those that work. 2) Pets; The number of people that owned pets that were unwilling to evacuate without them was a major obstacle in the days following the hurricane. Because of space limitations, most responders were unwilling to rescue pets until the people were taken out first. Although the SPCA was involved in rescuing pets for some time thereafter, they estimated that only about 20% of the pets were reunited with their owners. Their strong recommendation was to have some shelters available for people to evacuate with their pets. 3) Wetlands; Wetlands totaling approximately the size of the state of Delaware have been lost in the New Orleans area over the last 75 years. Their loss resulted from various policies created to keep navigation channels open and the New Orleans area dry. These wetlands provided a significant barrier to protect New Orleans from hurricanes in the past. They were referred to as "speed bumps" that help dissipate hurricane force winds and flooding. We agreed that it was probably best not to refer to the beach cities in Duval County as "speed bumps". 4) Financial Burden and Related FEMA Paperwork; The ENTERGY electric company in New Orleans filed bankruptcy and the City of New Orleans has been described as very close to filing bankruptcy over the cost to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina. Many local and state agencies have not yet been reimbursed or are only partially reimbursed by FEMA after the storm. Many (most?) of the homeowners have yet to settle with their property insurance companies. While the rebuilding effort has been long and tedious, many of the speakers pointed out that it was much more difficult by having "fits of starts and stops because of paperwork delays". 5) Volunteers; Lots of volunteers came to help after the storm. The management of those volunteers gat to be very difficult. In fact, the greatest success stories immediately after the storm were from various volunteer groups who worked essentially on their own without waiting for approval from state or federal agencies. However, there were also several very serious problems. While the City was cordoned off through road blocks to ensure only emergency response personnel got in, several found that they could simply identify themselves as "SCPA" volunteers and get right through the road blocks, regardless of whether or not they were actually doing any animal related rescue work. 6} Press/Rumor Control; In the immediate aftermath of a major catastrophic event, it is often difficult to verify facts. Any rumors that are passed along to the press can often become sensationalized and become a detriment to the emergency response efforts. This was the case when reports of people shooting at the rescue helicopters caused for many of the rescue efforts to be halted until armed security forces were available. The truth was that there was only one substantiated case of shots being fired at a helicopter. In many other cases, shots were fired by people trying to get the attention of rescue helicopters, but they were not fired directly at the emergency responders. w AGENDA ITEM # 9A NOVEMBER 13, 2000 7) Command Struggles/Turf Wars; Various struggles between local, state and federal .. elected officials and agencies as to who was in control created significant impediments to saving lives and later getting the reconstruction efforts on the fastest possible track. a 8) Time to Rebuild/Plannins; Even though it has been over a year since Hurricane Katrina struck the New Orleans area in August of 2005, water and sewer and electric services are not available to many areas of the city, many of the schools remain closed and, in several areas, only a few of the homes in any given neighborhood have been made habitable. The time to rebuild public infrastructure as well as the housing stock is one that will require several years of work. The decision on rebuilding neighborhoods is being made by the homeowners by a house to house basis with ~ considerable delay from their insurance carriers and therefore will take a long time. ~ 9) Crime; While reports on the crime wave immediately after Hurricane Katrina were somewhat overblown, there was a very serious problem with looting and other crime, much of which still exists today. By many accounts, the New Orleans Police ~. Department has not yet gotten the crime problem under control. On a personal note, when I asked where would be a good running route outside of the hotel, I was advised not to go anywhere other than a short decorative river walk along the edge of the ~ French Quarter because "the hotel does not want to be responsible". Specific items found in this trip will be discussed with city staff for possible incorporation into the Atlantic Beach Hurricane Plan. While the effects of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans would be essentially different from Atlantic Beach because of their long term flooding (it took months to repair all the pump stations and then get the water pumped out), but many of the problems found could also be encountered in Atlantic Beach. It would be difficult to get a good understanding of the extent of the flooding damage without seeing it yourself. I appreciate the opportunity to travel to New Orleans to learn from their.lescons following Hurricane Katrina. ~ ~ AGENDA ITEM # 9A NOVEMBER 13.2006 N `~ ~ - s F f ~~ `' ~,~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~-~~- "".;"