Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Good afternoon, everyone. We'll get started in approximately one minute, I just want to give folks a few more seconds to log on, thank you.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Okay, good afternoon everyone. Thank you so much for joining us this is Jenna Mandel-Ricci with the Greater New York Hospital Association.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: It's really nice to see everyone, if all i'm getting to see is your little zoom boxes it's still Nice.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: And i'm looking forward to the day soon when we can get together in person again. I want to welcome all of you to our June emergency preparedness coordinating Council.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Today we have a gorgeous day in the region, not too hot not too cold, but our theme for today is absolutely summer hazards. And if we could go to the next slide, I just wanted to give you a little bit of a
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: preview of what we are going to be talking about, which includes heat, and coastal storms, and all of the other things that can come our way
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: over the next couple of months. I really want to thank in advance our presenters who hail from a number of different agencies. we have city, state, and federal today.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: First we're going to hear from Shannon Ethier, who you all know well, who's the Deputy Director for the office of health emergency preparedness, the New York State Department of Health.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Shannon is going to share some important coastal storm planning updates with us. And then she is going to be followed by Emily Davis,
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: a health and medical specialist at the New York City emergency management office. And she'll be sharing
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: a couple of quick things around coastal storm at the beginning and then moving through some updates to New York city's heat and coastal storm plans.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: And then lastly we're really delighted to have David Wally with us, the lead forecaster and tropical program lead from the national weather service forecast Office here in New York. And he's going to provide
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: some really detailed information about how things look for the next few months into the fall. I think this is really important information as we all head into the summer, and into the fall, and
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: move our brains, a little bit away from Covid and towards some other things that we need to be focusing on.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: And then, of course, as we always do Samia and I will share some updates and then look to our agency partners to share additional updates with all of you.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: I think everyone's super familiar with Zoom at this point, but if you do have questions for any of our presenters, which I hope you do,
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: please just hold those silly and and you can either put them in the chat, or you can raise your hand and we'll call on you.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: So, hope that sounds good to everyone, again, thank you for tuning in.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: And with that, I am going to turn things over to Shannon, we're actually, if we could just go back one slide Samia, I think we're just going to hang out here, because Shannon doesn't have any slides, we're just gonna listen. Thank you so much.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Thanks Jenna, can you hear me okay?
Shannon Ethier: Yes, okay great. So thank you so much for having me on today, i'm going to run through some of our coastal storm preparedness planning efforts at the state level.
Shannon Ethier: For many of you, this will be a reminder and a little bit of a repeat, but it never hurts to hear it more than once.
Shannon Ethier: New York State Department of Health is in the process of updating our facility guidance documents and our health care facility evacuation Center manual.
Shannon Ethier: Based on updates to zone information that was reaching recently done by New York City emergency management, I know my colleagues are on the line today, so they may talk a little bit more about that.
Shannon Ethier: With the change of zones for some facilities, who will be receiving that notice directly,
Shannon Ethier: we are making updates to those documents for coastal storm planning at the state level as well.
Shannon Ethier: So once those updates are complete, the State will be issuing out the facility guidance document, as we do annually, to all New York City based facilities and facilities in the surrounding counties.
Shannon Ethier: I do want to note that it's important for all facilities to continue reviewing the information and their facility evacuation planning application, or the FEPA application.
Shannon Ethier: Thanks to all of your hard work and dedication, despite all the other response activities that you all had going on, we did achieve a 95% compliance rates for the 2021
Shannon Ethier: FEPA compliance period for all New York City based facilities.
Shannon Ethier: So we are strongly encouraging all facilities to continue thinking through all of those arrangements and making sure you're documenting any new or historic arrangements that may not be included yet within your FEPA profile.
Shannon Ethier: One of the things we're working on right now is making those zone changes within FEPA to align with the updated zone from New York City emergency management. There's no action required by facilities to make any changes within FEPA related to those zone changes.
Shannon Ethier: For those of you that use FEPA, the way arrangements are highlighted is distinguished between arrangements with an in zone facility, to receive patients or residents from your facility,
Shannon Ethier: or with an out of zone facility. And that's because we try not to use
Shannon Ethier: arrangements where you're moving patients or residents to an end zone facility for coastal storm response purposes and planning assumptions.
Shannon Ethier: So with that said, any changes to the zones will be updated within FEPA and reflected, just as other arrangements are at this time.
Shannon Ethier: And that will be done in the next couple of weeks, so once it's complete, the state health department will put out a notice to all city based facilities about that update in FEPA having occurred.
Shannon Ethier: We've already done a review of these existing arrangements in FEPA that might be impacted by those zone changes, and they are very minimal so.
Shannon Ethier: We will be reaching out to facilities that have impacted arrangements to let them know and ask them to consider making additional arrangements or updates using the application.
Shannon Ethier: Additionally, I just wanted to note when we talk about the health care facility evacuation Center some key points for facilities. First it's important to remind you all that the use of finds to track movement of patients between facilities, both senders and receivers,
Shannon Ethier: is important and also facility should be prepared to use efinds in response to a coastal storm scenario for patient tracking.
Shannon Ethier: Early consideration at the facility level about decompression, about the need to evacuate at the facility distinguishments, even prior to an evacuation order,
Shannon Ethier: activation of your incident command, and your hospital emergency operation Center, and considering activation of those send receive arrangements that are documented in FEPA or other mutual aid agreement.
Shannon Ethier: Or at least taking a look at them, even before the announcement is made about an evacuation order or the ... being activated.
Shannon Ethier: Facility should continue to be prepared to respond to our coastal storm surveys that come out through HERDS.
Shannon Ethier: Again, those surveys come out in two forms for sending facilities, or in zone facilities, you receive a survey asking about your census information by the bed type indicated in FEPA and ...
Shannon Ethier: And for receiving facilities, you'll be asked about available receiving capacity by those same bed types.
Shannon Ethier: Additionally, facility should be prepared to identify the transportation assistance level for all patients that you need support evacuating.
Shannon Ethier: And track that information accordingly when you're communicating with the ... and with other facilities about those send receive arrangements.
Shannon Ethier: Facilities should continue maximizing existing arrangements to support evacuation prior to contacting the ...
Shannon Ethier: However, once the ... is activated, the ... will need to stay informed of all patient transfers to ensure that they have up to date information on the status of the evacuations, and that the census level for those evacuating facilities is tracked appropriately.
Shannon Ethier: As I mentioned before, the state health department is in the process of rolling out our health care facility evacuation Center manual updates to our partner agencies, who helped us staff the ... when activated.
Shannon Ethier: That includes information on our recorded trainings that are available through our state learning management system.
Shannon Ethier: We're sharing those with all of our agency partners to ensure that staff have the opportunity to review those as a refresher or newly Identified staff have the opportunity to take those trainings prior to being included in an activation.
Shannon Ethier: We're also continuing to coordinate with NICEM and our transportation branch partners on some updates to the ... application, which is housed in our health commerce system,
Shannon Ethier: related to vehicle inventory tracking and transfers of patients by trip. Once those updates are completed and rolled out,
Shannon Ethier: and we have updated those within our eval system, but they're still going through some testing for changes to our production system, we will be finalizing our transportation branch training to include in those recorded material to send out to our partners.
Shannon Ethier: And I also wanted to note that we're having ongoing discussions internally, at DOH, and with our leadership about the different models and options for ... staffing. Certainly in terms of
Shannon Ethier: Covid response, we had to consider some alternate modalities for operation. So we continue to look at remote
Shannon Ethier: operations, as well as including recommendations for at least two locations, which we have exercised in the past. And so we'll continue to share more information on that when we have those plans and feedback received from our do each leadership.
Shannon Ethier: I also wanted to share some updates from our office of primary care and health systems management. Dr. ... was unable to be on the call today, but she shared her updates with me, so i'm going to go through those for you all.
Shannon Ethier: First, OPCHSM and ... are working with home care association, as well as the OPCHSM adult care facility program to assist facilities and creating comprehensive emergency management plans.
Shannon Ethier: Many of you may recall that there were
Shannon Ethier: some templates created back in 2009 through the office of health emergency preparedness for nursing homes and adult care facilities.
Shannon Ethier: In the case of home care agencies,
Shannon Ethier: we're working with those templates to modify them so that they are tailored specifically for the unique characteristics of home care. Similar to what was done for nursing home
Shannon Ethier: and assisting them to develop the required pandemic emergency plan previously. And in the case of adult care facilities,
Shannon Ethier: we're working to reinforce that planning effort. Adult care facilities are regulated under the CMS emergency preparedness rule, but we strongly feel it will be beneficial to continue working with them on additional planning and, additionally, using the efinds application to support evacuations.
Shannon Ethier: OPCHSM is also working with the ESRD network, and is scheduling additional conversations about working together to leverage the network CMS required scope of work with some of our department emergency preparedness efforts.
Shannon Ethier: Especially in terms of exercises, communication, and data sharing. We think this is super important and the difficulty of protecting this capacity in emergencies will definitely benefit from that joint planning and testing.
Shannon Ethier: At the OPCHSM program level, our department is revising processes and developing a new OPCHSM emergency preparedness annex and communications policy with our office and our regional offices.
Shannon Ethier: Our DOH programs are outlining those roles and responsibilities in emergencies, and that's going to become a part of our department health emergency preparedness and response plan.
Shannon Ethier: In addition, OPCHSM is working on a command structure that will operate, even in non emergency times. The purpose of this
Shannon Ethier: center will be to gather and process various fields of information, and critical metrics, and health system indicators in a centralized point so that they can continue
Shannon Ethier: to predict, monitor, and monitor potential problem operational and arising issues, and take proactive steps,
Shannon Ethier: rather than being in a reactive mode. So there's ongoing efforts related to that and that will be rolled out with our partners as
Shannon Ethier: it comes to fruition. And then lastly, i'll just note that the department is in the early stages of efforts towards streamlining and improving our data collection processes, and there will be much more to come on that.
Shannon Ethier: But I will pause there and see if there any questions for me.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Shannon, thank you so much for all those updates. I'm just going to do a pause and see if anyone has anything in the chat, or if anyone has raised their hand.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: I'm not seeing anything. I did want to mention just two things sort of in follow up to what Shannon said. One is
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Greater New York is planning on putting together kind of a compilation of all the different coastal storm preparedness resources and updates
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: in like a Bulletin format that will get out to all of our Members likely in July. So we will definitely be including all of the things that Shannon mentioned. And then,
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Samia and I are working hard to make updates to Sit Stat surveys and other things that and make sure that they complement
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: the processes that are set up through the state for the ... and reporting and HERDS surveys. So we will also touch on that in the Bulletin that we're sending out, so hopefully everything will be very clear in the streamlined.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Any just one more call for questions, before we let Shannon go.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Okay Shannon, you must have been very clear. No questions, thank you so much for joining us, we really appreciate that.
Shannon Ethier: Thank you all.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: And with that I am going to turn things over to Emily Davis with New York City emergency management. Emily, thank you so much for for being with us. And isn't it nice not to be running the meeting today? Usually you're running the ... meetings right? Thanks for joining us.
Emilie Davis: Yes, so I will apologize, my slides going to say heat plan behind me, but
Emilie Davis: we're going to start with talking about the evacuation zone updates for coastal storm season. As Shannon kind of alluded to, for this season, so starting June 1,
Emilie Davis: we have updated evacuation zones in the city of New York, so the five boroughs. And so just a reminder about what those evacuation zones are,
Emilie Davis: they are different than FEMA flood zones. So they're unique to New York City and unique to
Emilie Davis: most likelihood of flood risk in particular areas of the city. So they are zones one through six, one being the area's most at risk of flooding out to zone six. And then there is
Emilie Davis: plenty of the sea that's also outside of the evacuation zones. And so, in the event of a hurricane, tropical storm coming towards the city,
Emilie Davis: residents and facilities in these zones might be ordered to evacuate depending on the severity of storm. And so, just for information about where you can find where you know,
Emilie Davis: these zones can be looked at. You can see kind of a map of the city that's available through nyc dot gov slash know your zone,
Emilie Davis: which is publicly available. So anyone can go look up an address, be it their home address, the facility to see you know where that particular location falls within these zones or whether it's out of zone.
Emilie Davis: So, in terms of these updates,
Emilie Davis: we just wanted to note that we incorporated kind of new and improved data to inform these zones, as well as information from actual events. So the idea is that we should be having a zones that are more predictive of flood risk, based on the available data that we have.
Emilie Davis: And so, with these changes, this year roughly 1 million new Yorkers now live in a different hurricane evacuation zone than last year.
Emilie Davis: So that's that estimate of kind of the impact to the public. And as far as the facilities,
Emilie Davis: I just want to note kind of first off that this does not impact the majority of our health care facilities. Since we already had the structure of zone one through six,
Emilie Davis: there's only you know a few facilities, depending on hospital, nursing home, adult care facility that have moved zone. And
Emilie Davis: by moving zone, that could mean a facility moved within, so they were either like a zone two then they moved up to a zone three.
Emilie Davis: Or that could mean a facility moves you know from outside of the zone into a zone six or vice versa, so.
Emilie Davis: I just want to kind of make that distinction is that it doesn't mean that you know every facility that change is moving in or out, it could just be within the different levels of zones that's facilities are moving this year. And so as far as our
Emilie Davis: actions with these changes so, for our part as New York City emergency management, we will be sending out notification directly to the facilities that have changed them this year and so.
Emilie Davis: We have a kind of formal letter that has just been approved so that should be coming your way shortly. If you are a facility that has been impacted,
Emilie Davis: but as an agency, we're trying to share kind of public messaging because, when you think about this doesn't just affect our health care facilities, it could also affect you and your employees and
Emilie Davis: making sure the general public knows you know where their evacuation zone is, you know as far as their home address and kind of making those plans for
Emilie Davis: coastal storm situation so.
Emilie Davis: As always, and as Shannon said, you know just plan on reviewing your send receive arrangements, as always, we always remind you just to look at your
Emilie Davis: plans you have in place for evacuation, as well as utility impacts. Which is true for, i'll talk about heat as well, but also just coastal storms in general. And
Emilie Davis: that we always recommend signing up for notify NYC, it's where you'll get emergency alerts and important changes to city services. And so that's available at nyc dot gov slash notify nyc.
Emilie Davis: And I think those are the main points I wanted to say about our evacuation zone changes.
Emilie Davis: So I will pause here, to see if there's any feedback before I go into heat plan.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: So Emily, we did get one question from a colleague who said, with a long term care association, asking if associations will also get notices about members that may have had zone changes so that we can support them?
Emilie Davis: Ideally, yes. So we are you know, we do have some indication of which facilities are members of which associations, but that's certainly one thing we want to work on, is making sure we have
Emilie Davis: accurate information so that we can let the associations know as well, because we
Emilie Davis: you know utilize, you know their messaging as well, to help us get this message out. Not just to the facilities changing zone, but to all the facilities that this has happened.
Emilie Davis: So they can always reach out to our unit as well, if you want more information so we're at health medical at oem dot nyc dotgov.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: And Emily, it's Jenna, if I can just say just I know all the long term care and nursing home associations in New York City work very closely together so.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: I'm sure, and I know my colleague, Lisa Fenger's very involved in that work. So I think if we can you know we could get it to one place, and they can all look at it together, so that they can support members, because obviously it's all hands on deck when when something happens.
Emilie Davis: We can actually, we can work on you know, and I know the long term care groups also have you know some standing meetings they have as well, so that's our our job in emergency management is to kind of get this message out and make sure it gets into the right hands. Thank you.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Any other questions about zoning changes before Emily talks about heat?
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Okay, i'm not seeing anything Emily, so I think you can switch gears whenever you like.
Emilie Davis: Alright, so i'm going to switch now into our New York City heat emergency plan, and i'll say next slide.
Emilie Davis: There we go. So our agenda today, just to remind everyone of our heat plan thresholds and objectives,
Emilie Davis: our cooling centers and outdoor cooling operations, homeless outreach, so specifically DSS code red, utility and infrastructure considerations, and then our health and medical ESF coordination and communication role in the event of a heat events.
Emilie Davis: Next slide.
Emilie Davis: So, looking at our thresholds, this should hopefully just be a reminder, but just to note that our thresholds have not changed, they're the same as last year, but
Emilie Davis: at lower temperatures, you know, there might be some enhanced messaging or some programs may start to activate, just depending on the nature of the heat events so.
Emilie Davis: Just something to be aware of, but the thresholds that would kind of activate this emergency plan are you know, a heat index of 95 degrees or higher for two days or more, heat index of 100 degrees or higher for one day or more, and then our kind of enhanced
Emilie Davis: and kind of excessive heat situation would be heat index of 105 degrees for any duration or 95 degrees for four days or more.
Emilie Davis: And so that would be to be considered excessive heat and that would be enhanced actions at that point. And then, as far as our objectives for this plan is to disseminate public information, minimize the impacts to public health, and minimize those impacts to infrastructure. Next slide.
Emilie Davis: So, as far as our cooling Center and outdoor cooling operations,
Emilie Davis: for those who might not be familiar with our cooling centers, it's a coordination with partners across the city to open up library, senior centers, Community centers as a cool space during a heat events.
Emilie Davis: And so, a lot of planning went into this given Covid considerations last year. And so, with the gradual reopening of see services,
Emilie Davis: our number of centers are about at 208, which, compared to our usual is about 500 so a lot of work is going into identifying new partners to kind of fill that gap.
Emilie Davis: You know, as you know, our usual kind of cooling center partners come in through phase reopening. And so that is one of our main ways to kind of provide a cool space for individuals who may not have it at home or anywhere else, but
Emilie Davis: that is that program. And then for outdoor cooling, you know this year we're expecting normal pool and beach operations
Emilie Davis: with you know pools kind of considering capacity considerations right now I don't think they've made a decision yet how they might
Emilie Davis: adjust that with Covid considerations. But during a heat event, pools would have extended hours to give some people someplace cool to be during one of these heat events. And then also with New York City parks, you know, mist stations and spray showers available throughout the city
Emilie Davis: to help people stay cool, next slide.
Emilie Davis: And then, this is about specifically homeless outreach during heat events, So in the events,
Emilie Davis: you know, a heat event in the city, DSS has levels for code red. So the way they distinguish it is Level one and Level two, which, if you look at those
Emilie Davis: specifications for Level one and Level two, it's pretty consistent with our city wide plan. That you know Level one is any of those heat advisories you know hundred degree,
Emilie Davis: you know or 95 for two more days versus what I described as kind of the excessive heat situation where you have you know 105 degree heat index,
Emilie Davis: or you know, a longer duration event, so that's 95 degrees for four more days. And what's
Emilie Davis: code red really means is that there's increased monitoring and outreach efforts to assist the homeless population in the city. And so you know there's teams going out to you know check on people, try to get people to cool spaces.
Emilie Davis: And a note for the hospitals, because I know this is definitely something that came up last year,
Emilie Davis: was that many DSS clients will go to hospital emergency rooms, who are not there for medical purposes. And so one thing that
Emilie Davis: has been the messaging for this year is that you know those individuals can be transported to
Emilie Davis: you know another setting by contacting the DHS joint command Center. And so that's,
Emilie Davis: we'll work with you know both Greater New York, h&h central office, you know anytime there's a huge event to kind of get that messaging out. But if there's a situation where
Emilie Davis: you know you're having issues with social distancing, and their clients for DHS that aren't there for medical purposes, that would be a situation contact the joint command Center.
Emilie Davis: Next slide.
Emilie Davis: And then definitely when there's a heat event in the city, we want to talk about our utility and infrastructure considerations. So depending on the severity of that, as well as how long the heat event might be lasting, you might see some actions taken by the utility partners to
Emilie Davis: you know, make a customer appeal. They might be trying to manage the peak load, demand response, voltage reduction, and load shedding. So in the event that any of these utility actions are impacting facilities and
Emilie Davis: their ability to function, you know we definitely remind everyone to contact our NICEM watch command
Emilie Davis: to report any kind of issues or impacts to your facility. And then we, as you know, NICEM health and medical, we also try to conduct outreach to facilities
Emilie Davis: just to assess any issues or needs, and we might deploy some of our CICs, which is our responders that go out in the fields and can kind of work directly for two facilities to see what
Emilie Davis: those impacts are and how you know we can kind of coordinate any response. And so, just a reminder to hospitals to review those emergency plans, including your utility disruption plans.
Emilie Davis: You know, always a good idea check your backup generator and fuel supplies, and then to maintain the operation of radio equipment, just so that if you know, a utility impact impacts your phone lines, any way of communicating you have some backup communication available, next slide.
Emilie Davis: And then, as far as our role as an emergency management, health and medical, we will kind of proactively put out messaging when that heat plan is activated. So we will put out messaging through email and now through Microsoft Teams.
Emilie Davis: And then you know we include any updates that the national weather service has provided, if there's a health alert that's been released, any air quality advisories, and then any kind of initial summary of the city's preparedness and response activities.
Emilie Davis: So we would be sharing that kind of proactively and then you know looking to kind of give updates, depending on the, how long an event lasts.
Emilie Davis: You know, and then as situations change, you know we'll try to keep that kind of messaging out and giving as any updates as we're able to.
Emilie Davis: And then we also do have radio messaging that goes out. And so that is issued, through our NICEM watch commands over the hospital nursing home and adult care facility channels.
Emilie Davis: Which just includes a basic message about whether information and recommendations to facilities in advance of the heat event, next slide.
Emilie Davis: All right, and so any questions? And you'll see there i've got the email for our units and health medical at oem dot nyc dot gov.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Emily, thank you so much for sharing all this and for very useful information. I'm going to do, just a quick pause, if we have any don't see any questions in the chat, want to see if we have any raised hands.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: I know we already had a couple of 90 degree weekends, so they were sort of test runs for
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: the summer ahead.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: And Pat ... from SUNY Downstate is asking what is the guidance for cooling centers regarding COVID-19 now that governor Cuomo has lifted restrictions?
Emilie Davis: I have not heard any updates as of yet as to how
Emilie Davis: you know any changes will impact our cooling centers. I don't know if any of my other colleagues on the line might have heard anything different, but I think you know, we have not seen any change in stance as far as the cooling centers.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Not seeing anybody else pipe up.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Oh, ... saying no updates as of yet, we will message out as they are made, and i'm sure that information will be shared on future ... calls.
Great.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Any other questions?
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Okay well, Emily, we will hope for more weather like today. Instead of heat events, but thank you for preparing all of us. We really appreciate you spending time with us.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: and
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: oh, and then Pat says the information has to make it to the general public as well. Absolutely, absolutely, well put.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Okay, with that, I think we are going to turn things over to David Wally with the national weather service. David, thank you very much for joining us.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Hopefully, we will not leave this presentation to depressed about about our chances for the next couple of months, but it's always good to be prepared, and you are the man to do it, to tell us
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: what we may have in store for us, and how we can best stay informed as things happen.
David Wally: Okay yeah, good afternoon everyone. Now I hope I have the right slide show here, because the title slide is not my name on it.
David Wally: Interesting, maybe I forgot I was adjusting the slides here, hopefully that's all it was, but if you go to the next slide here.
David Wally: Anyway, my my name is David Wally, I am ... program lead with the national weather service, New York office. I've been in that role for a little bit over 10 years.
David Wally: I'm also one of the lead forecasters there as well.
David Wally: I've had some unique opportunities. I've had a chance to work besides some of the hurricane forecasters at the national hurricane Center.
David Wally: For a period week. I've attended many conferences and i'm quite active with the hurricane specialist. And we interact quite a bit during the preseason and planning, and also when we do have events. Okay, so the first slide here,
David Wally: that i'll show you is the the outlook for the hurricane season. This is done by the national weather service is climate prediction Center. And essentially,
David Wally: there's several, multiple variables, but in the last 20 years we've had a very active,
David Wally: very active period. In fact we've only had four seasons that have been below normal. A normal seasons typically 12 named storms, six of which are hurricanes,
David Wally: and, two of which are major hurricanes. So with a 60% probability of above normal season here, we're looking at potential for 13 to 20 named storm, six to 10 hurricanes, and three to five major hurricanes. You can go to next slide please.
David Wally: The primary factors that are weighing into the seasons above normal activity, or at least forecast above normal activity, once again in that
David Wally: area, called the Atlantic main development region, in the tropics there that area shaded in a dark red.
David Wally: Generally, looking at weak easterly winds, favorable wind shear, and when I say favorable wind shear, means no winch here at all. And also, above normal sea surface temperatures and a stronger, wetter African monsoon. And we've seen a pattern like this quite often.
David Wally: Like I said, it's, we've been in this cycle for about 20 years. And usually that's what the cycles typically last, they call them multi decadal cycles.
David Wally: And perhaps we'll be coming out of this in the next few years, but by now, looking at another above normal season. Last season, we saw 30 named storms, which was a record.
David Wally: Previous record was 2005,
David Wally: we had, I think we had, we had 18. I think we had, last year we had six, 14 hurricanes, and seven of them were major. The biggest one being Laura which impacted the Gulf coast, Louisiana Southwest gulf coast.
David Wally: Next slide please.
David Wally: If you see the activity here, tropical cyclone activity peaks in around September, mid September there, September 10, and where we are now. So we're just ramping up typically, typically for us, you get into,
David Wally: will start ramping up more in the August to September time period. And the reason is a lot of the development,
David Wally: besides the water temperatures warming up along the east coast, a lot of the development that we see, a lot of systems that come up into this neck of the woods
David Wally: originate off the African coast. And generally as a ton of time to get here it's probably about on the order of two weeks, sometimes so.
David Wally: Most of the systems, Sandy was, Sandy was unique
David Wally: in the sense that it was a late October, late October storm which typically developed in the western Caribbean. And that's what Sandy very well did. But,
David Wally: most of the systems in the past, major hurricanes, or hurricanes period that come up the eastern seaboard, generally do so September, October, September, October and mainly and usually originated off the African coast. Next slide please.
David Wally: This is a tropical cyclone return period. Generally, we see a hurricane return every, about every 20 years. And next, please.
David Wally: And a major hurricane, 70 to 75 years. Most of the island, you'll see the East end,
David Wally: because it sticks out, 52 years. You'll see that it goes to Cape Cod and all that just because the coast protrudes out there, you get a little bit, a little bit higher frequency.
David Wally: Nothing, of course, like the Carolina coast, where you see the Cape ... which ssticks out, gets about 16, every 16 years a major hurricane.
David Wally: They said it seems more frequent to me than that lately, but anyway, and, as far as last major hurricane, many of us, you know many of you may have heard of the 1938 long island express, which made landfall in Bellport. But we also have the 1954 storm, if you go to the next slide please.
David Wally: Oh, sorry about that, 36, and 36 years since a cat one. So one of the points here that's being made is that while we haven't seen,
David Wally: we really haven't seen any landfall in the area, Sandy made landfall in southern Jersey, ... last year, which was was
David Wally: a pretty decent punch to the area, with a lot of trees down and power outages, actually made landfall over the Carolinas. So 83 years since the 38 hurricane, and we did have a category three hurricane,
David Wally: back in 1954. Carol that made it across the East end of long island as well. A lot of us just remember the 38 storm, next.
David Wally: So yes, point is we're overdue, overdue for a landfall system. But, of course, you know you don't have to have landfall to have impacts, and we've seen that over the last 10 years. Next, please.
David Wally: So here's a significant tri state area tropical cyclones from 1900 to 2015, and you'll see the 1938 system, which is number four there.
David Wally: Sandy's number 16 there, going down, making landfall along the south Jersey coast there. And it's got a great out because
David Wally: it became a subtropical, extra tropical system. But nevertheless, I think the morning before sandy hit it had briefly touch cat two strength.
David Wally: And then it started weakening. Your thinking and all extra tropical means is that a system starting to gain, and a lot of our mid-latitudes storms had. They start,
David Wally: they are, they develop, or their main source of energy is differences between the two air masses, cold versus warm.
David Wally: Jet, the polar jet stream. So it started to transition into a very large system because of that transition.
David Wally: Tropical systems, tropical storms are pretty much driven by the heat engine of the warm ocean water is that they're over.
David Wally: So it goes through that change in structure, and often when you see those changes and structure, we go from a tropical to an extra tropical system.
David Wally: Which in most cases of what happened, the storms come up the eastern seaboard. They actually sometimes the wind fields can actually become larger.
David Wally: So, that's typically what happens in our case. And then you see number five there,
David Wally: i'm sorry number six there going across the East end of long island, that was 1954 Carol, which was a category three, as well. And far of the east end was another category three so.
David Wally: You know, it will happen, you know when I can't say. And Sandy was a very devastating track, because the way the storm turned back to the Northwest.
David Wally: And we had something like that, with a category three track that would be very alarming, especially for the New York harbor area. Sandy was a track that really funneled a lot of water into the New York bite. Next slide please.
David Wally: So, here are some characteristics of the 1938 storm. It had some, keep, if you could just go through that next two buttons, yeah, okay so, it's torrential rains, record storm surge, record high wind speeds.
David Wally: That was all associated with that. I believe there were several hundred fatalities through the storm surge.
David Wally: You can see it's very intense system. And look back then, that's all we had here was kind of these facsimile charts here, and with analysis of latests observations and the winfield, next please.
David Wally: And, of course, catastrophic inland flooding next.
David Wally: But in the Grand scheme of things, numbers are all are not really important, because it only takes one storm in your community and make a bad season. So you know we've shown past storms, we saw
David Wally: back in 2010, we had I think 12 hurricanes and not one landfall for US. And then in 1992, we said hurricane Andrew,
David Wally: which hit South Florida and August. Which a category five, really compact major hurricane, but that was only four storms that whole year so.
David Wally: Regardless of whether we're talking about an active season or not, you know you know, yes, higher frequency,
David Wally: in the Atlantic basin would actually maybe give you a better chance to see landfall on the eastern seaboard.
David Wally: At the same time, you can have just a few storms in that season and just get it just happened to be the one community to get targeted.
David Wally: So, and, to be honest with you it's been the last 20 years, as i've said, it's only been four seasons, in the last 20 years that have actually been below normal and next, please.
David Wally: So take a look at some of the key national weather service tropical products to the 2021 hurricane season. On the left, there is the new list for the last names for the 2021 season. And we've already gone through Bill and very well could have Claudette in the Gulf of Mexico here shortly.
David Wally: Also, last year, we went well into the Greek alphabet it was a record setting year.
David Wally: And for the first time, the national hurricane Center has, is putting out, rather than going to the Greek alphabet if we exceed this list here,
David Wally: or surpassed this list here, they come up with a supplemental name list, which will carry over. So it no longer will be Greek alphabet that we use for systems that surpassed the the 2000s, that surpassed the Atlantic names list, next, please.
David Wally: This is, this product here's the tropical weather outlook, actually it's called the graphical tropical weather outlook.
David Wally: I'll show you at the very end, how to access this page, but this is from the national hurricane Center. So for those of you who are familiar with it that's working Center page, the first thing on your page you'll see is this, you'll see this graphical tropical outlook. And it basically denotes
David Wally: the likelihood of formation over the next two to five days. So i'd say it's a great situational awareness tool and you know each day you know,
David Wally: for emergency managers, and planners, you know just look at this look at this and see you know what's out there, and you know what what were the monitoring. And like I said typically,
David Wally: a lot of systems and back does come off the African coast. It doesn't mean only, but a lot of them do. And you see it's color coded, you know red being greater than 60% chance of development.
David Wally: So you can mouse over the systems or give you a little detail of what's going on, and it'll kind of give you an outlook area where they're expecting the formation, next.
David Wally: Okay, this is a graphic that many of us are very familiar with. This is the five day national, and I apologize some acronyms here but NHC stands for national hurricane Center.
David Wally: Which is part of the national weather service, it's one of the several main, several main centers of the weather service. We have the storm prediction Center, and then we have
David Wally: the weather prediction Center, the climate prediction center, and of course, one one of the more famous, one of the more famous ones is the national hurricane Center.
David Wally: These are the forecast is the national hurricane Center to the forecasting of track intensity and when you're ready I
David Wally: have all the all the hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin and the Eastern Pacific. But this graphic here is
David Wally: is the forecast tracks, and is called the cone of uncertainty, or the track error cone. And essentially what that true tracking, what that area that's shaded in white denotes, and then eventually goes over to hatch,
David Wally: hatch, hatch shading, is basically, that is what we call our track error. Okay, and what it means is obviously as your forecasting system, the next 12/24 hours, your track hours typically
David Wally: lot less than it would be five days out. And you'll see so statistically, the Center of the tropical cyclone usually
David Wally: is falls within this Cone about two thirds of the time. So what does that tell you? Two thirds of the time it falls within the cone,
David Wally: and one third of the time falls outside of the zone. This forecast track cone is updated every six hours by the national hurricane Center, when there is a system out there, that they are forecasting advisories on.
David Wally: And so we always want to emphasize here, this is a track, it's a forecast track. The skinny line, don't always focus on that skinny black line because sometimes hurricanes or
David Wally: tropical storms can have winfield maybe compact 150 to 200 miles in diameter, and sometimes biggest four or 500 miles. so the point is impacts can really exceed this cone
David Wally: excess this area. So the cone basically just denote, statistically, were two thirds of the time, the Center of the tropical cyclone will pass.
David Wally: Typical, for track errors are about 35 to 40 miles a day. So if you're talking about a system that is about
David Wally: two days out, you can still potentially see 35, 40 miles per day, which for two days can amount to 75, 80 miles a day.
David Wally: I will say is generally assistance get up to our latitude due to the steering wins and getting caught up in mid-latitudes and sometimes the westerlies.
David Wally: Often the track errors are giving you here over the Atlantic basin as a whole for all the hurricane, for all the tropical systems over the last five years,
David Wally: it's running average every five, its running error every five year period. Generally the trackers aren't as great,
David Wally: and often on average to be off by about a category. So cat one can be as high as a cat two. Normally, we see the higher end down more along the south east coast.
David Wally: Or over the Gulf of Mexico, where the water is warmer. And errors in the, errors where maybe it could be off by a category, typically happened down there. Once storms start getting up
David Wally: north of the Carolina's and up into our neck of the woods, they encounter colder waters. So it is typically unusual to be too off. If we're off, and maybe more on the fact that it could be in the lower end.
David Wally: But we always have to watch when it transcends the Gulf Stream. In fact, the morning of Sandy, Sandy was a very unique track year, and I don't have, I wish I would have shown it here, but
David Wally: it basically was going heading out to see off the mid Atlantic and then recurved back to the Northwest. And that actually put it back over the Gulf Stream the morning before,
David Wally: the morning before made landfall, that night off South Jersey, which actually helped it intensify even further. Next, please.
David Wally: So here's the point here, what the national hurricane Center started doing several years back there, if you see the orange, so when you look at this product, and like I said,
David Wally: most of these products that i'm going to show you are available at the national hurricane Center site.
David Wally: And also, from our weather, from your local weather forecast Office here in New York site as well, so i'll show you that at the end, but.
David Wally: One thing you can do now is you can toggle off the wind field there and then, in this case here,
David Wally: this is actually Sandy, from a forecast from October, from Friday October 26, advisory remember 19, but what we can do now is, we can toggle the winfield on and off so.
David Wally: You can see Sandy had a very large tropical storm force, tropical storm force wind field and had a small hurricane force winds of that at the time of this advisory.
David Wally: But the point is, you can see the track error cone, look how big the wind field is with respect to the error cone. So the forecast track cone, so anytime you see this graphic,
David Wally: remember it doesn't mean the impacts are just going to be within that cone, they can be well outside of it. It's just where the Center of the of the of the trump cycle typically passes about two thirds of the time, next, please.
David Wally: Also, we have time of departure graphics here. And this is strictly internal so,
David Wally: back in 2018, the national weather service first produced a new product called time of arrival, tropical storm time of arrival graphics.
David Wally: And it has the most likely at our earliest reasonable I don't have the graphic here, but basically,
David Wally: the earliest reasonable is about your one in 10 chance, your 10% chance of seeing tropical storm force winds. Very similar to the graphic here on the right, but it's for the onset of tropical storm winds.
David Wally: So your earliest reasonable is for those people who have a low risk margin, who really can't afford to be off with this.
David Wally: And then we have the most likely arrival of tropical storm force winds. That's about a fifth, so basically the hurricane Center runs about 1,000 simulations on a storm, and they incorporate the tracker into that storm.
David Wally: And that's where they come up with these these graphics, time of arrival and time of departure.
David Wally: So the time of arrival, like I said, the earliest reasonable is about one in 10 chance, and the most likely is about a 50%, about half the members of those 1,000. Those are the time of arrival for those thousand simulations.
David Wally: Now what we came out of, starting last year, and also it's only available for emergency managers that govern, and government and local officials, so if you have a ... account, this is now available this year.
David Wally: ... is online, strictly online now, it's really not a desktop application anymore, for those of you familiar with it. But you can actually get this time of departure. So why is time of departure significant? Well for first responders,
David Wally: and for even utility crews, it's a time where perhaps they can
David Wally: you know, get an idea of when they can make some critical decisions of when they can start going out and cleaning up, or maybe clearing roads, or you know what type of services that can
David Wally: be started back up again. So that's on the time of departure. The time of arrival graphics was created back, like I said, became operational 2018, because a lot of
David Wally: first responders, once winds get about you know, they try, a lot of operations, basically based on, a lot of operations cease when,
David Wally: with the onset of tropical storm force winds. And so that was the key to these two graphics, time of arrival and time of departure graphics.
David Wally: And the time of arrival graphics are public graphics, they will be available on the national hurricane Center website, but the time of departure is strictly available through the ... software which is online now. You can register for an account
David Wally: if you're part of emergency management, or emergency preparedness, and you can get an account here.
David Wally: The reason we don't want this graphic to be strictly internal versus being external to the public is we don't want public making decisions on well okay now it's safe for me to go outside.
David Wally: Because, sometimes, even with with tropical systems when winds past the area,
David Wally: you can still have other things, you can still have flooding rain threats, you could still have storm surge inundation that maybe is left over from the storm. So it
David Wally: doesn't necessarily mean it's time to go out to the public, and that's why right now, this product is strictly an internal product. Next, please.
David Wally: This is an external product, this is the five day wind speed probabilities, another product from the national hurricane Center. It's cumulative wind speed probabilities.
David Wally: On the top left, you see the tropical storm force wind speed probabilities. In the bottom right, you'll see the hurricane force wind speed probabilities. And, basically, this is a point probability, so
David Wally: these are the point probabilities for particular location within the five day period of seeing hurricane force winds or tropical storm force winds.
David Wally: This is updated every advisory cycle. So when there is a threat, system that is threatening the eastern seaboard, these will be updated every six hours with each advisory.
David Wally: Next please.
David Wally: Next slide please.
David Wally: But heres,
David Wally: here's a tropical storm force wind speed probability from Isaias last year, this was with a particular advisory, forecasts advisory number 23 from August 2.
David Wally: Isaias made landfall, I believe it was on on the fourth of August, in the early part of the day. Well, it may landfill actually out in the Carolinas and then kind of took a track just inland.
David Wally: But the greatest impacts, we had I think, we're that August 4, Tuesday late like Tuesday morning, Tuesday afternoon.
David Wally: And you can see this, so this is roughly an image, maybe about two days ahead, and it was giving us about a probability at 40%, greater than 40% chance of tropical storm force winds
David Wally: near our area. Now think of, think about your thresholds in ... for action. What we don't want to see happen, a lot of, a lot of, thinking of a tropical system as a high impact system with low probability so.
David Wally: In other words, a 40% probability is pretty darn significant a couple days out of potential tropical storm force winds, or saying that was hurricane force storm winds.
David Wally: So these are, these are events where you know, several days out, you might look at these probabilities and say you know they're not you know
David Wally: they're not that great, but at the same time, you know they are significant. And what that means is you know if you get impacted by one of these systems,
David Wally: it can be very impactful, not just property damage also fatality. So low probability for significant events are clearly very for and needs to be valued. Next, please.
David Wally: So
David Wally: this is, if you click again, please for,
David Wally: now hurricane warnings and tropical storm warnings,
David Wally: the typical definition of tropical storm warning means that tropical storm force winds are expected within the next 36 hours, and for a hurricane, hurricane force winds are expected within the next 36 hours.
David Wally: But one thing you want to keep in mind here is, and what's under line there, somewhere within the warning area.
David Wally: This is very different than your winter storm warning okay. When we when we issue winter storm warnings out of our office,
David Wally: we're looking for widespread six or more inches across a particular zone or a county okay, and we're looking for it to be widespread okay.
David Wally: And generally a very high confidence. Tropical storm warnings a hurricane warnings differ in the sense that,
David Wally: you know, because of the uncertainty of the track, I talked about maybe 35 to 40 miles a day, so two days out of you're still talking about 80 miles.
David Wally: Through the uncertainty here, often these watch and warning areas are probably going to be larger and not everybody in these watching morning areas is going to experience those conditions. Ot's analogous to, analogous to what's on the left there.
David Wally: I'm sure many of you have been out that's been a severe thunderstorm warning, but maybe scrolling on the bottom of your screen.
David Wally: Or you get it on your phone, a tornado warning, and when the radar operator, that Polygon there you see on the on the left there, when a
David Wally: radar operator ,and i've done this many times, when we create our warning for severe thunderstorm warning or tornado warning, you know it's a lot larger than you know we try to track the path and the thunderstorm, which is generally a very small localized phenomena,
David Wally: but we also have to count for a margin of error, a safety margin. And so, not everybody in that severe thunderstorm warning or that tornado warning is going to receive a tornado and thank goodness. So when you think of tropical storm or hurricane warnings,
David Wally: key in on somewhere within the warning area all right. These are high impact events
David Wally: and not everyone may see these, but sometimes it's better to be safe than sorry and because of the uncertainty in the forecast, and the fact that the science is only so good, which is getting better every year,
David Wally: clearly, I could show you back in the 70s, we had 300 mile track errors at about 1970.
David Wally: Now we're down, so maybe 48 hours that we have about a 300 mile track error back on our 1970. Now we're talking about maybe on average, maybe 75 miles on a 48 hour forecast so clearly, things are improving.
David Wally: So that's just one thing I want people to know. They are very different than a winter storm warning that you see in the winter where we're expecting almost all of the area to see that snowfall. Next, please.
David Wally: And this is same thing here, I was just trying to do same thing with hurricane watch. Hurricane watch means somewhere with a watch area, it's kind of like and we try to
David Wally: make this analogous to a tornado watch, you know or severe thunderstorm watch. Where you know conditions are favorable for severe weather, they're favorable for possible, conditions may come together for a tornado or severe thunderstorm.
David Wally: But no, not everybody in that watch area is going to get those conditions, but your best be prepared to be on the lookout. Next, please.
David Wally: Here's one of our products that,
David Wally: it's probably been out for maybe close to a decade now, maybe a little less than that. It's called the potential storm surge map.
David Wally: This will be a product that will be available on the national hurricane Center web site and also will the link to ours as well.
David Wally: But anytime a hurricane watches issue for the area, or anybody on the eastern seaboard,
David Wally: the national hurricane Center storm surge unit will issue this product here. It's called a potential storm surge flooding map. This is a one in 10 chance, 10%. It's a reasonable worst case scenario, based on the latest track information
David Wally: of what the potential inundation, and when i'm saying inundation, water above ground level, how much, what the storm surge produce above ground level
David Wally: in your area. And these are zoomable maps and so
David Wally: the only let you zoom so far in here, because you don't want people to get hung up here on my house it's not going to flood, and across the street, it is.
David Wally: So, but these are one in 10 chance, they're reasonable worst case scenario maps, they will be produced at the national hurricane center web page. And
David Wally: you see there the colors shading is greater than one foot above ground, greater than three feet above ground, and you're, so if you go to the next slide here.
David Wally: And this is also a new product that came available last year from the national hurricane Center as well. And it's called a experimental peak storm surge forecast graphic.
David Wally: And this product will be available, it will still be experimental this year. And what it does is it highlights portions along the coastline and the peak, potential peak water level. And those water levels okay are inundation okay. So when you look at this graphic,
David Wally: hurrican center often uses words like storm surge, but be mindful of what these units are, this is above ground level inundation. So somewhere along those
David Wally: lines there, you're seeing, you're going to see that three to five feet, or five to eight feet above ground level. During Sandy,
David Wally: we saw water levels in Staten Island, which was hit hardest in our area, about seven to eight feet above ground level. So basically a water levels exceeded you know height of a garage in many cases.
David Wally: A lot of the areas for anywhere from four to eight feet, but the worst of it was in the New York harbor there,
David Wally: near Staten Island, on the east facing shores of Staten Island. And that previous graphic I had shown you, that potential storm surge flooding graphic, which is a one in 10 chance was realized.
David Wally: And I forgot to speak about that previous graphic, that one image there was comparing a past event with Florence a couple years back, and showing sometimes that graphic, even though the one in 10 chance,
David Wally: it has panned out, and it panned out in Sandy, and I believe it panned out in Florence, a couple years back along the Carolinas. So low probabilities for high impact events are significant.
David Wally: Next, please.
David Wally: Here's, I want to show you, this is Hurricane Laura last year, probably well, this was the most devastating hurricane, as far as hitting the eastern, i'm, hitting the
David Wally: the Atlantic basin and impacting our country. It made landfall in Southwest Louisiana near the city of like Charles. The image on the left
David Wally: is what we call a best track, after the fact that we go back and this was the actual official, this is the best track that they came up with based on
David Wally: looking back at all the storm points you know for each advisory level and where it was located. And the
David Wally: image on the right shows had Laura shifted 20 miles westward, it could have brought a wall of none feet or greater of inundation water above ground level into lake Charles.
David Wally: Lake Charles is very fortunate there, you see the base of the track, the greatest surge is right along the the immediate coast, off to their east.
David Wally: But we saw some small towns along the coast Louisiana where they were inundation, water level marks of 20 feet above ground level.
David Wally: Now some of the people after that event where out, it wasn't you know, it wasn't, I mean, they lost a lot of trees, a lot of power outages.
David Wally: But the surge was not as bad as what was what could have been in Lake Charles. And there were some negativity after the event, in fact, people were talking about you know this was a,
David Wally: you know the wall of water didn't really come into Lake Charles. No it didn't, but we talked about uncertainty, we talked about track errors of 35 miles a day.
David Wally: And so i'm showing you a slight shift that's 20 miles to the West, and that's what can ask what storm surge. Storm surge is very, very, very sensitive, not only to the strength of the storm, how strong the winds are, but the angle of the approach to the storm,
David Wally: the slope of the shelf of where's making landfall, which is kind of kind of your symmetry,
David Wally: the shape of the coastline, the New York bite, that harbor, Sandy was just water kept getting funneled in there with the easterly flow.
David Wally: So the lot of parameters that are involved with storm surge. So you can be on the West side of a storm one year,
David Wally: and then you'd be on the east side the next year, and totally two different worlds. So always be mindful of that so when you try to go back in your head and say, well, the storm wasn't that bad.
David Wally: Remember the track error and remember the slight differences can have a world, you know tremendous amount of impact in the amount of storm surge. Very, very sensitive to where it makes landfall. Next, please.
David Wally: Here's a storm surge watch and warning. These are implemented back in 2017. They were prototype for 2015, 2016, and then like I said, they are official now. This was a prototype storm surge watch that we had issued for ...
David Wally: back in 2000 I believe it was 2016.
David Wally: And once again, kind of like your hurricane watches and warnings, a storm surge warnings and storm surge watches are basically for the danger of life threatening inundation.
David Wally: Inundation once again is just above ground level, from rising water moving inland, for watch within 48 hours, for warning within 36 hours.
David Wally: So now, this is an official product, and these are issued anytime the national hurricane Center storm surge unit feels that
David Wally: there could be three feet of inundation or higher. So three feet of water above ground level somewhere in that watch warning area, is basically the criteria for issuing these products, next.
David Wally: Okay so where do we find these products? You know, this is the national hurricane Center is web web page, this is the interface of,
David Wally: for those who you are familiar with, although you're not, it's whether it's ww dot nhc dot noaa dot gov. And the first thing when you come to this page will be the graphical tropical weather outlook, and you can actually click on the two day or the five day, it'll show you areas they're monitoring.
David Wally: It's an excellent product to maintain good situational awareness. If there is a name system out there, all of those products I showed you the cumulative wind speed probabilities, the forecast track error cone,
David Wally: potential storm surge inundation graph, they will all be available. What would happen is you would actually scroll farther down on this page and you'd see the name of the storm and all those products will be available.
David Wally: And also you have like tomorrow with web page as well, next, please.
David Wally: Okay, so this is the national weather service, this is your local forecast office web page, we're actually located at Brookhaven national laboratory in ... New York.
David Wally: So first it headlines there, So the first thing you do is click, you'll see, So the first thing you see the headlines would show you what's the headline up in your area.
David Wally: The map in the middle there's what we call watch warning advisory map. If there are any hazards out such as a hurricane watch or a storm surge watch,
David Wally: they will be highlighted in that map. And you can point and click on that map and it will bring you down, basically you can point and click anywhere you are, you reside, and it will tell you what the hazards are, what's in effect, what type of conditions you expect.
David Wally: And also, at the bottom there, we have various icons there, you see the tropical, the symbol there for tropical cyclone, that is a link to the national weather service of New York tropical page, which will also link you to the hurricane Center web page, and next, please.
David Wally: This is our, this is the national weather service of New York tropical page. So if we had any hazards and effect here, this is the case where we don't, all the products that we issue would be available, such as our hurricane local statements,
David Wally: our tropical cyclone hazard message, also the one, you can see, so right now the tab on the top that was clicked with the outlook.
David Wally: And that's basically giving you a snapshot of the of the hurricane, national hurricane Center two and five day outlook.
David Wally: The threats and impacts, if we had a system that we had a watch or a watch or warning for we'd issue these graphics for threat and impacts.
David Wally: And there are four hazards, it would be tornado, storm surge, flooding rain, and wind. So it's four hazards that we have, and we'd have to threaten impacts for those hazards.
David Wally: And within those hazards, there's a safety margin built in. It'll tell you what the potential is based on uncertainty in the forecast, this is what you should prepare for okay.
David Wally: So it's kind of a product, the threats and impacts tab is a graphic like I said for four hazards.
David Wally: And it will detail the potential for those four hazards and what you should prepare for. It's not a forecast, it's what you should prepare for taking the forecast
David Wally: and the uncertainty, where we talked about the forecast track error into account, and this is weather dot gov slash okx slash tropical. You can also get to it from our, from the page prior that, our homepage, by clicking on the tropical cyclone symbol on the bottom.
David Wally: And next, please.
David Wally: Social media, it's another way. You can you can follow us on Twitter or Facebook.
David Wally: So many of our products, especially with Twitter, are kind of botted.
David Wally: In other words, we issue a severe thunderstorm or tornado warning, or hurricane warning watch, it automatically is transmitted. So if you follow Twitter you'll see that.
David Wally: But we'll have some good preparedness information here on social media, we'll give you the latest track information. We might even post our latest briefing packages, so i've always that next. Next slide please.
David Wally: So here, over the last 10 years, the weather service has gotten heavily involved with IDSS, impact based decision support services.
David Wally: We've gotten together with our partners, our emergency managers, folks such as yourself, and we basically you know we're kind of you know, hopefully, we're the forecast experts here. We issue the forecast and the warnings. Our goal is to take those forecasts and warnings
David Wally: and bring them to the decision makers, our partners, and explain what the, what, based on those forecasts and those warnings, what type of impacts, you can expect.
David Wally: How do we do that in this day and age? We do one to one consultations, we do one to many through email, web briefings, webinars, conference calls.
David Wally: And we also do many to many such as products that we issue, the hurricane Center issues, social media, web pages. Typically, when we have a potential for a tropical system to make landfall in our area,
David Wally: five, you know within a five day window or so, we'll start addressing it in products that are hazardous weather outlook or graphical hazardous weather outlook, which are available on our web page.
David Wally: And we may start sending out email briefings. Once we get under a watch and a warning, at the very least we'll be sending two email briefings a day, and we'll probably even have webinars and conference calls with folks such as yourself.
David Wally: Next, please.
David Wally: anyway,
David Wally: and as far as contacting us, I'm, like I said, i'm David Wally, the toprical program lead, we also have a warning
David Wally: Coordination meteorologist, Nelson Vaz, and the meteorologist in charge of the office is Ross Disckman. So these are points of contact.
David Wally: And like I said during events, you know from emails to briefings to webinars you know, and also, if need be, you can contact the office during an event as well, if you need to leave some critical information for decision support.
David Wally: Okay yeah I guess, I know I did take a little bit longerm and some of the slides, unfortunately, where, there was some slides are the ones I wanted to include in this, but,
David Wally: unfortunately, I think i've sent out the wrong one but.
David Wally: Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this and if you have any questions, i'd be more than willing to answer, or you can more, you know, or you can simply email me as well. Thank you for your time.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: David, thank you so much, you gave us a lot of fantastic information. I think what was most helpful was you familiarized
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: us with all the products and the actions that you will take, but you also really helped us, hopefully interpret that information wisely and correctly. So really appreciate you sharing all of that, with us.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: I did want to take a pause to see if anyone has questions for David, again, you can put them in the chat or you can raise your hand and ask them directly.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: I have a quick question. How many people work at the national weather service across the country, how many?
David Wally: Across the country is about 5,000 meteorologist.
David Wally: Most of the local offices, such as ours, have about about 30 people.
David Wally: And about maybe 15 or so a meteorologist, and we have technicians and we even have a hydrologists, so yep a 5.000 the country.
David Wally: And some states, such as New York, we have an office here, obviously on the islands, we have another office at Albany, Binghampton, Buffalo, and pretty much the whole country, including Guam and Fiji are covered by the national weather service's doppler radar network.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Thank you. Well David, I think we're gonna leave it there. We so appreciate your time, we just have a couple of updates, we welcome you to stick around or if you need to drop off whatever.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Whatever you do.
David Wally: I do apologize for eating more into, it's some more time that I thought.
David Wally: No worries, all right.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Great to hear, thank you.
David Wally: Have a nice day.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: And so, thanks everyone for for sticking with us. We just have a couple of quick updates from GNYHA and then we'll go into
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: A few quick agency updates. And Samia, oh thank you. So just wanted to let you know about a couple of upcoming events and resources we've been sharing over the last few months
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: work that we have been doing related to firearm injury prevention, gun violence prevention.Wwe do have a really terrific podcast that will be coming out next week. We'll be releasing it
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: on Tuesday around the role of health care and firearm injury prevention and I interview two clinicians one at Jacobi, and one at Montefiore
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: children's hospital talking about work that they do and and the role of the health care workforce and health care institutions in this critical issue.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: I also wanted to mention, we just pushed out a heat event readiness bulletin yesterday, and we'll also be doing a drill that I think Samia will talk about in a minute.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: And, as I mentioned earlier, will be pushing out a coastal storm readiness bulletin. I also wanted to mention two other things.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: For those of you in New York City who participate in the 911 system, our five year anniversary
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: of our MCI protocols, where we use four levels and we use the fixed patient allotment,
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: is coming up on August 1. I can't believe it's been five years. So we are reviewing and updating all of the guidance documents and we're working with the fire department to update those
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: fixed patient allotment charts, and a mailing will be going out to each of your facilities in July. So please be on the lookout for that.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: And then I also wanted to mention many of you may be aware that OSHA very recently came out with a proposed emergency temporary standard around COVID-19, which has a bunch of infection prevention, infection control
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: impacts. We have a Bulletin that our colleague, Zeynep Sumer King just pushed out a little while ago about that, and about the process and how that will work. So please
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: take a look for that in your inbox and if you don't have it, you can certainly ask me for it. And with that i'm going to turn things over to Samia to provide some Sit Stat updates.
Samia McEachin: Hi everybody, just a few Sit Stat updates. So did just want to
Samia McEachin: remind folks if you weren't aware already, but a few weeks ago, we did discontinue the HERDS updates that we were providing in Sit Stat. And this was just
Samia McEachin: given the gradual decline in hospitalizations in the region. So we're no longer in putting that data each day. We will reinstate that, if needed, but hopefully we won't have to.
Samia McEachin: And then, regarding our statewide rollout of our Sit Stat 3.0 integration program, we currently have 19 hospitals enrolled state wide, this includes all of our initial pilot sites.
Samia McEachin: We are continuing to field applications, so please don't hesitate to reach out to Jenna or myself if you're interested or, if you have questions.
Samia McEachin: And we are working closely with the State Department of Health to coordinate on
Samia McEachin: their hospital capacity direct access pilot that they're working on. It's a similar initiative and using the same underlying technology so certainly some opportunities for alignment there.
Samia McEachin: And then of course we have lots of information just about Sit Stat 3.0 on our website and I linked that here so what's we send the slides out, and you can access it there.
Samia McEachin: Regarding the Sit Stat expansion to New York City nursing homes. Recruitment has been going well, our colleague Lisa on the continuing care side of Greater New York is leading this initiative
Samia McEachin: and she's continuing to hold informational and training sessions throughout the summer.
Samia McEachin: And currently over 90 nursing homes across the city have expressed interest in learning more about Sit Stat. So that's really excited and will certainly continue to update this group as that effort continues moving forward.
Samia McEachin: And then, just a few other things that we're working on, as Jenna just mentioned, we are having a heat drill next Thursday,
Samia McEachin: and will essentially just push out the survey in Sit Stat, give everyone a chance to re-familiarize themselves with the questions, and get you know
Samia McEachin: have a chance to input that data just as a quick practice, and the survey will be up for about three hours, so just a brief opportunity for folks to get into the system do that. And so will send out a reminder early next week.
Samia McEachin: And then some other initiatives were working closely with the fire department in New York City just on general efforts around
Samia McEachin: MCI notifications, that ongoing work there, but also some other strategic planning to explore possible opportunities in the future.
Samia McEachin: And then, in the same light focusing on strategic planning, we're also partnering with the New York City department of mental health and hygiene
Samia McEachin: to go on a broader strategic effort, strategic planning effort,
Samia McEachin: working with other healthcare sectors. So primary care, dialysis trying to see how we can utilize that to help bring in
Samia McEachin: more of the overall health care sector. So we'll be working with those partners, as well as a few other agencies in that effort as well.
Samia McEachin: And then we're also working to pull in some key data elements from the State Department of Health Critical Access survey in the city Department of Health
Samia McEachin: Health facility directory so listen some more information out about that.
Samia McEachin: And then, lastly, just doing some cleanup on the back end, we'll be working with folks to do some user verification in the coming weeks as well. So that's all I have for Sit Stat today but, of course, please let me know if you have any questions about anything.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Pat, I see you have a question, does anyone know when hospitals can look forward to all the required COVID HERDS reporting? I think you're asking when it's going to end, is that what you're asking?
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: I don't know if you want to type into the chat or yes.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: And HHS as well. I know, and I know, Kate is on the line, Kate Butler as a party, so Kate if you have an answer, that would that would be great.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: We do continue to raise the issue of seven day reporting and just reporting in general, with the State Department of Health.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: The message that we've been getting, and Kate, please correct me if i'm wrong, is that for the time being, it is likely to continue, though there's continuous,
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: they're continually looking at what pieces could be removed, or shortened, or questions taken away. Kate, do you want to say anything more about that?
Kate Butler-Azzopardi: Can you hear me Jenna?
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Yes, go right ahead okay.
Kate Butler-Azzopardi: Yeah you are, you are correct. They are constantly re-evaluating it, but I know that no one is committing to kind of that drop dead date of when that everything's going to kind of stop. So we do appreciate that it is a,
Kate Butler-Azzopardi: it's inconvenient, but it is something that's going to at least be going on for the short term, until we're ultimately told otherwise.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Thanks, Kate. And Jake, I don't have an answer on the HHS reporting, but we certainly can follow up with colleagues at that level and report back.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: And just a couple other quick things before we jump into agency updates. I did want to let folks know, that after over the last several months, Samia and Lisa and I have just been kind of,
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: now that we can all kind of take a deep breath post Covid, we've been having coordination meetings with several New York City agencies,
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: plus key emergency management and public health staff in Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester counties, and I see several of them
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: on the webinar today, which is, which is really fantastic. Just really thinking about how we can coordinate better both around Sit Stat and around other efforts and those meetings have been really fantastic.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: And we are going to be working to tighten our coordination with those other agencies, especially recognizing that many of our large health systems have one foot in New York City and then other feet,
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: so to speak. in those other counties. So just wanted you all to know that that is happening, and will continue to happen.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: So I think with that, we'll move to some quick updates. Kate, did you have other State Department of Health updates that you wanted to share with the group?
Kate Butler-Azzopardi: Thanks Jenna, I don't have anything beyond the briefing that Shannon gave earlier. And we do appreciate everyone's hard work and patience as we're rolling out some of the updates for this year. So that's really all I have, thank you.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Great, thank you. And David Miller, I think I saw you on the line earlier, did you want to share some city health department updates?
David Miller: Yes, hi, good afternoon Jenna, everyone. So DOHMH, as the HPP recipient agency has responded to our NOFO, which is the notice of funding opportunity for budget period three
David Miller: of our five year grant cycle. I want to thank the governance board and all of our sub recipient representatives, who spent a lot of time with us and our project managers to develop the funded activities,
David Miller: that's you know targeted at growing and maintaining the health care coalition New York City.
David Miller: Budget period two close out is just about two weeks away so i'm, first of all, i'm really amazed at the incredible work that has been done despite the pandemic.
David Miller: And everyone really should be proud of what they've done to continue with their HPP deliverables. For last minute deliverable questions,
David Miller: any dates, finance forms, please check with your with your project managers for any changes in status or if you're having any difficulties.
David Miller: Just a couple of things left out to close out. Like organization DOHMH staff have been working around the clock,
David Miller: but after about 18 months of response we're encouraging vacation time
David Miller: for our staff to rejuvenate a bit. So if you see an a way message and it's an important email, please reach out to the designated person for coverage. You guys reached out to me if you're having any difficulty
David Miller: getting to anyone in the agency. Vaccination, DOHMH remains activated for the response and vaccination rates are excellent
David Miller: in the sense that we've vaccinated 8.8 million
David Miller: Individuals in New York City and 3.9 million have been fully vaccinated New York state. Announced this great milestone of 70% of adults receiving at least one dose and it had a lot of significant changes in masking and protocols. But we're not over,
David Miller: we're not out of the woods yet. Our variants
David Miller: continue to circulate in New York City and it makes it more transmissible. There's a really great summary of the variants that are circulating in New York City on our data website,
David Miller: that I always point you to. And a reminder that anyone ages 12 to 17 are eligible for Pfizer vaccine, just keep in mind that minors who are 12 to 15 have to be accompanied
David Miller: to the vaccination site by a parent or guardian to give their consent, otherwise written consensus is good for 15 to 17 year olds.
David Miller: In recent weeks, and we, and it was brought up on the ESFA call earlier this week, there were reports about
David Miller: myocarditis and pericarditis in individuals who received the MRNA vaccines. Those are specifically teens and young adults. We should be finding out a lot more information at
David Miller: CDC's advisory committee on immunization practices, or ACIP, that's happening tomorrow. So tune in if you want to find out the latest and greatest, i'm sure we'll summarize it early next week. Alright thanks.
David Miller: Everybody.
Thank you, David.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: And Rob Bristol and Amy, I see you all on the line, and I think Emily is still with us too. Who would like to give a report for NICEM, anything else to report?
Robert Bristol: Hi can you hear me?
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Yeah a little low, if you can talk a little louder.
Robert Bristol: Alright, i'll try to fix my mic, is that better?
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Much better thank you.
Robert Bristol: Excellent. I think the only update
Robert Bristol: that we have from emergency management for the hospital sector, specifically, is that in early July,
Robert Bristol: we are migrating our hospital partners off of OEM alert for the emergency radio program to a hospital one channel. That's going to happen after the July 4 holiday.
Robert Bristol: That week, I think it's the fifth, we'll start reaching out to the EPCs and those that are listed as Radio contacts to switch over. And then the following Monday, we
Robert Bristol: anticipate 100% change over to hospital one. And then that way, we will have a hospital radio channel, a nursing home radio channel, and an adult care facility radio channel. And then will free up OEM alert for our agency partners. So that's coming down the pipe, keep an eye out for that.
Robert Bristol: Other than that, we just appreciate everyone's participation on our now bi weekly Covid ... calls, and if you need anything you can reach us on Microsoft teams or through email.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Rob, thank you. So the hospitals don't need to do anything proactively for the switch, but if they haven't heard from you all by the end of the week at the fifth they should reach out. Is that correct?
Robert Bristol: Yes, yes, all the radios that were reissued or other
Robert Bristol: hospital networks that I put their own, their frequencies are in there already. Hospital one is is actually the old Greater New York Hospital channel that's labeled that way.
Robert Bristol: So, even if it doesn't say hospital one, we will call each facility directly by phone and work them through the switchover, and then we'll do a radio check. So nothing to do until we reach out to you the week of the fifth.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Great, thank you. And Ben Zabar, I saw you on here, I think you're still here. Any updates from FDNY EMS?
Ben Zabar: Nothing super specific. I mean i'll just point out that we are starting to do planning around some of these large events that are starting to come back.
Ben Zabar: I know the mayor's talked about some of these parades and concerts and so on. I know the marathon is back on, I think it's like 40% capacity or something like that for runners.
Ben Zabar: We're still sort of waiting to hear about some of the other things, the West Indian day parade, but I think a lot of the larger events are going to start up again so we're we're keeping track of that, but other than that nothing really to report.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Well thanks for bringing that up Ben, we all haven't had to think about large public gatherings for a while, it's kind of exciting so.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: And I see several other representatives from different agencies, I just wanted to put sort of a general
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: shout out if anyone has anything that they'd like to share with the group, It is three o'clock, but i'm sure we have a minute or two for other updates. Anything else folks want to share?
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: Okay well with that, I think, will go to the last slide, and we just wanted to remind you of upcoming meetings. I did want to let folks know that the September meeting date, which is currently September 16, it's likely we're going to
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: push it a little bit earlier in the month. And it's also likely we're still thinking it through, but of course it shares the 20th anniversary of September 11.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: And it's also the really the 20th anniversary in a lot of ways of health care emergency preparedness and so.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: We are thinking about putting together a program to really kind of look at where we've come, how far we've come. So if you have thoughts about that i'm please share them with Samia and me,
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: and we'll be beginning will start to work on that and in the coming weeks.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: But just want to thank you for hanging out with us for the last couple of hours, hopefully feel more prepared for the summer hazards and what we may need to do around those.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci: And we will see you soon, and we'll be in touch with meeting materials. Thank you so much, enjoy the rest of your afternoon take care.
Dan McCartan: Thanks.