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VI UPDATE U.S. Virgin Islands Public Records TRANSCRIPT OF PUBLIC PROCEEDINGS | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety Legislature USVI October 14, 2022 · 4.7 hours · gov Source recording https://youtu.be/ERN5EpnUpdA Status This is a working transcript produced by machine from a recording of a public proceeding. It is a finding aid, not an official record of the Legislature. Transcribed by VI Update, using OpenAI Whisper large-v3-turbo, run locally. Not reviewed by a person. Reliability Automatic transcription, UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording before relying on it. Speech recognition splits spoken digits and wraps figures mid-number, so a dollar amount, a vote count or a bill number can be wrong in a way that reads as correct. Speakers are not identified: automatic speaker labelling was measured unusable and removed. Public record The underlying proceeding is a public record of the Legislature of the Virgin Islands. 3 V.I.C. § 881(a) defines public records to include all records and documents of or belonging to this Territory or any branch of government, or any "department, board, council or committee of any branch of government" · which names legislative committees by category. § 881(b) gives every citizen the right to examine and copy such records, and the news media the right to publish them. (The open-meetings chapter, 1 V.I.C. § 254, does NOT reach the Legislature: § 253(b) expressly excludes it and its Standing and Special Committees. § 881 does, and it is § 881 that confers the right to copy and publish.) The Legislature broadcast this proceeding publicly itself. The source recording is not ours, is not hosted here, and remains with its publisher at the link above. Rights To what we added · the transcription, its arrangement and its description · we assert nothing. A verbatim transcript is mechanical rather than authored, so there is likely nothing in it to own; to the extent any copyright is nonetheless found to subsist, it is dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0. Please copy it, quote it, index it, train on it, republish it, mirror it, sell it. Redistribution is the point: a public record with one copy is one fire from gone. No permission is needed, and none is ours to grant or withhold. . Thank you. [2 such phrases repeated 9 times · standby audio before the proceeding, transcribed by the recogniser as speech] 0:00:00 Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The Committee on Homeland Security Justice and Public Safety is hereby called to order. The members of the Committee of Homeland Security and Justice and Public Safety are Honorable 0:04:29 Senator Duane M. de Graaff, Vice Chair, Honorable Senator Kenneth L. Giddens, Honorable Senator Novell E. Francis, Jr., Honorable Senator Javon E. James, Sr., Honorable Senator Alma Francis Heilegger, Honorable Senator Franklin D. Johnson, and I am Angel Bulkes, Jr., Senator, Chairman of this committee. I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate the Peace Officers Recruit Classes of 2022-1, graduating in the districts of St. Cory and St. Thomas, St. John. I'd like to commend them for their exemplary work and fundamental duty to serve and safeguard the lives and property and to protect the innocent against deception, the weak against oppression or intimidation. 0:15:01 The month of October is a very busy month. We have participated in a number of very meaningful observances, to include contract day, which is a very important part of the labor rights movement here on the island of St. Croix. Also, in observances this month, we have Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Domestic Violence Month, Mental Health Month, and Fire Prevention Week, and of course, Virgin Islands Puerto Rico Friendship Day, which has now celebrated about 58 years now. So, upcoming observances tomorrow is White Cane Day to celebrate the achievements of people who are blind or visually impaired for their important work and also for their tool of independence, the White Cane. Also on the 24th of October is United Nations Day. It's an annual commemorative day reflecting on the official creation of the United Nations, which is the 24th of October, 1945. 0:15:56 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 1 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety The UN's purpose is to maintain an international peace and security of all, and develop nations and achieve international cooperation, and to harmonize the actions of all nations. Today we have a very important hearing, which concerns the preparedness and the emergency response to hurricanes or natural disasters. As we know, hurricane season has fluctuated. Historically, it's been between June and November. But as global warming takes place, things change in our environment. However, we must be prepared and respond and have ongoing recovery throughout the year. Entities such as the Virgin Islands, Territorial Emergency Management Agency, the National Guard, Human Services and other important departments and agencies in the government stand ready with their troops, equipment and other capabilities to assist in order for us to prepare and provide humanitarian efforts for disaster response support. 0:17:09 It is very important to plan and put things in place to ensure the safety in case of a hurricane or a natural disaster in our territory again. Today my colleagues and I are going to focus on the strengths, the weaknesses, the opportunities and threats, also known as SWAT, that potentially could happen. Some of the things that come to mind are the chain of command, emergency functions, who will perform them during broad or specific situations, specific procedures including routes and exits, procedures accounting for people who are alive and, God forbid, deceased. 0:18:22 Adequate equipment and personnel obviously is important. And today I'm honored to have VITEMA National Guard and also Human Services with us today in order to dive in to this collective discussion, which is very important to every single person in this territory. Good morning to everyone in the well. I would like to start off with the Director of VITEMA. Could you please introduce yourself and your supporting staff? Good morning, Senator Volkis. Director Darrell Joshin, the Director for the Virgin Islands Territory Emergency Management Agency. With me to my right, your left, I have my Deputy Director Philamine, Deputy Director of Human Resources and Labor Relations, And then two over is Deputy Director Bruce Kelly from Operations, and then I have online should be my Public Information Officer, Eric Ackerson, and I also have with me representing the Department of Health today is Assistant Commissioner Ruben Malloy, and I also should have online or present should be Assistant Commissioner Michael Michelle Rimer-Brown from the Department of Human Services, and we also should have online Ms. Yvette Henry from the department of human services okay thank you director joshien uh and everyone online can you hear us uh loud and clear on your side good morning yes sir okay excellent excellent i would like to say for everyone who is in attendance here in person please uh have your cell phones on silent or vibrate that way we don't interrupt the discussion uh madam clerk can you please take the roll call. Senator Dwayne M. DeGraff? Senator Novell E. Francis? One moment. I believe that Vice Chair DeGraff is in attendance, but his microphone was muted. Okay. Let's try that one more time. Apologies. Senator Dwayne M. DeGraff present. Senator Novell Frances? Senator Novelli Frances absent. Senator Alma Frances Heiliger? Senator Alma Frances 0:19:01 Heiliger absent. Senator Kenneth L. Gittins? Senator Kenneth L. Gittins present. Senator Senator Javan E. James Sr. Senator Javan E. James Sr. absent. Senator Franklin D. Johnson. Senator Franklin D. Johnson absent. Senator Angel L. Bocas Jr. Present. 0:21:21 Senator Angel L. Bocas Jr. present. We have three present, four absent. Thank you, Madam Clerk. If there are any non-committee members present in the St. Thomas, St. John District, I see the Honorable Marvin A. Blyden. Thank you, Senator, for attending. Please mark Senator Marvin A. Blyden as present, Madam Clerk. Okay. Madam Clerk, are there any correspondents? 0:21:47 Yes. Please read them into the record. The Honorable Angel Bocas, Jr. Chairman, Committee on Homeland Security, Justice, and Public Safety. This is Senator Franklin D. Johnson. Dear Mr. Chair, I'll be late in attending today, Friday, October 14, 2022, Committee on Homeland Security, Justice, and Public Safety meeting, scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. in the Fritz-Elouette Legislative Conference Room on St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. My sincere apologies for any inconvenience. My delayed arrival may cause as I'm a guest speaker at the White Cane Safety Day Ceremony and Awareness Walk event taking place today, Friday, October 14th, 2022 at 10 a.m. at the Eliza McBean Tower in Frederick St. Synchro, U.S. Virgin Islands. My sincere apologies for any inconvenience. My delayed arrival may cause. Sincerely, Franklin D. Johnson, Senator. And then this one is from the office of Senator Novell E. Francis Jr. Dear Senator Volquez, I'm writing to advise that I'll be tardy for today's meeting of the Committee on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety, as I'm attending the 2022 conference hosted by the St. Croix Federation of Teachers. 0:22:22 sincerely apologize for any inconvenience my tardiness may cause and thank you in advance for your understanding. Regards, Novelli Francis Jr., Senate Vice President, 34th Legislature of the Virgin Islands. And this one is from the office of Senator Alma Francis Heiliger. Greetings, Senator Bolquez. Please note for the records, I'll be tardy to the Committee on Homeland Security. One moment, Madam Clerk, I believe I heard the voice of Senator Alma Francis-Hyleger. Yes, I am present. 0:23:50 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 2 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety Thank you for being here, Senator. Please disregard that correspondence and mark Senator Alma Francis-Hyleger as present. Are there any more correspondence? Yes, Mr. Chair. uh this one is from the office of uh the commissioner department of human services their chairman boquez thank you for your invitation to testify before the committee on homeland security justice and public safety scheduled for friday october 14 2022 at fritz elawetz legislative conference room on saint croix the vi department of human services is co-sponsoring the 2022 she which is strength health through equity women's empowerment summit with the vi department of health and therefore i cannot attend in person as i'm giving opening and closing remarks and will be assistant throughout the entire day of the event therefore in my absence the following vi department of human services team will be in attendance virtually the Assistant Commissioner ESC STT STJ Michael Reimer Brown, Community Affairs Coordinator ESF6 Mass Care Specialist ESC STT Yvette Henry and Social Recreation Program Director ESC STJ Abigail Hendricks. We humbly request a virtual attendance link from your public affairs staff be sent accordingly so we can respond to any questions regarding the submitted joint interdepartmental testimony on the mass care thank you for your consideration in this matter respectfully kimberly cossey gomez thank you madam chair before reading the agenda into the record we're going to go on a brief two-minute recess. 0:24:29 We'll be right back. Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you. Good morning to the people of the Virgin Islands. we are back from recess the committee of homeland security justice and public safety madam clerk can you please read the agenda into the record yes mr chair the committee 0:26:53 on homeland security justice and public safety has scheduled a hearing on friday october 14 2022 10 a.m in the fritz elouette's legislative conference room in saint croix to receive updates on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats SWAT of all projects and programs related to hurricane preparedness for the following agencies. Virgin Islands Territorial Emergency Management Agency, VITEMA, Virgin Islands Department of Human Services, DHS, and the Virgin Islands National Guard, VING. Block one, reporting on the SWAT analysis of all projects and programs related to hurricane preparedness for vitima dhs and ving invited testifiers kimberly cossey gomez commissioner virgin islands department of human services and daryl jashen director virgin islands territorial emanaged emergency management agency and general caught joe knox limbecker adjutant general virgin islands national guard thank you madam clerk before receiving the testimony i would like to have our online virtual testifiers do a mic check please state your name and title good morning mccal rima brown assistant commissioner the department of human services good morning yvette henry community affairs coordinator department of human services Good morning, Abigail Hendricks, ESF Space Coordinator, St. John, Department of Human Services. 0:30:37 Good morning, Eric Ackerson, Public Information Officer for VITEMA. And good morning, Major General Kojo Knox-Lenbacker, Adjutant General, and the Commander of the Army and the Air National Guard. Okay, I believe that that's everyone online. And now we will hear the testimony of Director Joshin. Please proceed, sir. 0:32:24 Good morning, Senator Angel Bolkus, Jr., Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, Justice, Public Safety, and other committee members, 34th Legislature, and those in the viewing and listening audience. I'm Darrell D. Joshin, the Director of the Virgin Islands Territory Emergency Management Agency, known as VITEMA. With me today are from the Department of Human Services, our Assistant Commissioner, Mikael Reimer-Brown, Ms. Yvette Henry, Department of Health, Assistant Commissioner, Ruben Molloy, and from VITEMA, Deputy Director of Operations, Bruce Kelly, Deputy Director of Human Resources and Labor Relations, Merlinda Philomine, and Public Information Officer, Eric Ackerson, as I want to also recognize Major General Knox Limbacher, the Adjutant General of the Virgin Islands National Guard. We've been invited here today to provide this committee an update on the territory's preparedness and emergency procedures for the 2022 hurricane season. This testimony is provided as a combined testimony of VITEMA, the Department of Human Services, the Department of Health, and the Virgin Islands National Guard. To date, the Atlantic hurricane season 2022 has generated 11 named storms of which three have made landfall as hurricanes with sustained winds greater than 74 miles per hour category one fiona in puerto rico on the 18th of september with 85 mile winds and hurricane ian which made landfall three times first as a category three in cuba on 27 september with 125 mile-hour winds then as a very strong category four in florida on 28th September with 155 mile an hour winds, storm surge of up to 12 feet moving across the state to the Atlantic coast and finally is a category one in South Carolina on 30th September with 85 mile an hour winds moving towards both North Carolina and Virginia. The most recent Hurricane Julia made landfall as a category one in Nicaragua on 9 October with 85 mile an hour winds. 0:33:00 For the U.S. Virgin Islands thus far in 2022, Tropical Storm Fiona passed within 67 miles of the south shore of St. Croix on early Sunday morning, 18 September, with Tropical Storm Force winds of 39 miles per hour going out 114 miles from the center as Fiona passed, moving towards Puerto Rico. As far as our readiness initiatives prior to hurricane season, going back to January of 2022 by tema and fema began the process of identifying folks focused readiness initiatives and key government territorial agencies to lead assessment and improvement efforts prior to the start of hurricane season 0:35:01 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 3 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety which begins at 1 june meetings were held every two weeks with over 15 territorial government agencies by tema and fema to update assessments and response plans as well well as determined methods to exercise joint teams working side by side with their federal partners. Individual readiness initiatives meetings were held by territorial government agencies were conducted between these update meetings. A total of 19 focus initiatives continued to be developed over the period from January to April, with May reserved for our capstone exercise 2022. The areas of focus were developed based on experiences from Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017. The focus areas are emergency temporary power, port openings both air and sea, operational integration, commodity distribution, sheltering, emergency feeding, damage assessments, public warning and communication, urban search and rescue, debris management, patient movement, National Guard soldier and equipment force flow, bed down space requirements for federal responders, and disability integration. This is our third year in a row for readiness initiatives. VITEMA and FEMA developed an operational integration with the Territory Emergency Management Support Coordinators using for the first time in over five years the software application known as WebEOC, which joins representatives from all 15 emergency support functions and the Emergency Operations Center in St. Croix, St. Thomas, and St. John. The Public Assistance Officer of VITEMA and the Office of Justice Recovery developed and trained on the means and methods of conducting the preliminary damage assessment along with the Department of Human Services conducted integrated training on individual assistance. Department of Human Services continued to develop plans and identify key locations for congregate evacuation shelters as well as post-landfall secondary shelters. In addition to sheltering operations, the Department of Human Services by TEMA, the National Guard, verified the points of distribution called pods, sites for issuing food and water following a storm and trained individuals including volunteers for managing a pod site. A shelter preparation drill for all territory stakeholders occurred Friday 29 October on St. Thomas at Lockhart School with over 50 participants. Based on critical infrastructure facility evaluations over 70 sites in 2021 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Virgin Islands Water Power Authority, and by TEMA determined key locations for government agencies to position emergency power generators linked to down feeders following a storm. The Department of Health conducted a patient movement and evacuation plan review tabletop exercise and update with the final approval by commissioner 0:36:58 carcyon on august 22 2022 the government house and the public information officer conducted training for agency public information officers and operated a joint information center doing a capstone exercise 2022. the virgin islands fire service met several times with the federal urban search and rescue teams to evaluate capabilities and begin development of a joint operations plan to support integrated response efforts both department of public works and waste management authority meant to continue development of the territory route clearance and debris removal plan actual exercise itself conducted with vitima and fema conducting the hurricane capsule exercise from 23 to 26 may besides vitima and fema other participants included strategic federal partners such as the army corps of engineers the defense coordinating element the u.s health and human services the virgin islands national guard and all key lead and support territorial agencies in addition to meeting exercising in person at tabletop and functional exercise level validation of hurricane response plans as well as gaps were identified the capstone exercise 2022 culminated with a briefing by 11 of the Territory Emergency Agencies to Governor Bryan on 27 May. As a result of this briefing, Governor Bryan took additional steps to increase our preparedness and readiness posture by consolidating emergency generators under VITEMA and providing initial funding of $500,000 to purchase 10 emergency generators. As a result, VITEMA now has In this inventory, 10 generators, four for St. Thomas, four for St. Croix, and two for 0:38:44 St. John are positioned in the appropriate districts and islands. These generators are ready to deploy during recent storms, evacuation shelters, and to support the Department of Health with a medical shelter. In the capstone exercise and review with Governor Bryan, a team of deployed quick-look reports, which are quick after-action reports focused on process improvements efforts. So far, quick look reports have been completed and provided to agency senior leadership for the following, Department of Health for Mass Care, VI Fire Services for Urban Search and Rescue, and the Virgin Islands Waste Management Authority for Debris Management. VITEMA has successfully exercised its ability to request additional support from the Virgin Islands National Guard, other National Guard states, and requests from assistance from Department of Defense. A 50-person FEMA Incident Management Assistance Team, known as IMAT, supported requests for assistance at the Vitema Emergency Operations Centers on St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John, which were all at full activation status for the capstone exercise. One of the gaps identified during the exercise is a limited number of individuals in Vitema and with the lead support function agencies to operate two 12-hour shifts which is anticipated in response to a major hurricane anticipating to impact the territory. One solution for Vitema is to request through EMAC assistance from another state in staffing, planning, operations, logistics, admin, and finance sections. It's been over four years since Vitema and FEMA conducted the initial Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria tabletop after action after review, known as the AAR, in June of 2018. Many of the government Virgin Islands agencies had used this time and lessons learned to build more resilient organizations, acquire technology enhancements, and train their staff. 0:40:30 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 4 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety As a territory, we are much stronger. For example, VITEMA and VIT now have satellite phones and all three VITEMA emergency operations centers. We have high-frequency radio communications also in all three at Virgin Operations Center. We have six mobile virtual small aperture terminals known as VSATs. We have very high frequency repeaters covering both St. Thomas and St. John, and we have six mobile 100-foot towers with antennas to support the government of the Virgin Islands radio communication net for first responders. During the capstone exercise, the Bureau of Information Technology successfully erected one of their six 100-foot mobile towers at D.C. Kansas City Park. 0:42:29 The team have purchased and activated 30 satellite phones and it has over 40 handheld mobile radios as well as providers, a dedicated radio channel for the core emergency management council known as EMC members. Liberty, the communications network staff, has trained on AT&T, provided FirstNet equipment and has positioned in each district mobile communications towers to quickly activate the FirstNet emergency responder phone coverage to areas damaged from a disaster. The range for each tower is two miles. 0:43:14 The mobile towers were successfully demonstrated by Liberty and AT&T on 3 May at Kramers Park and on 7 June at Coral Bay on St. John. The Virgin Islands, VINGN, and VIA have retained the ability to activate the Wi-Fi hotspots following a major disaster on the islands of St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John, and many of the pre-storm shelters with the Department of Human Services already have a working VINGN hotspots. Another example is with the commodity points of distribution known as PODs. The Department of Human Services as a lead agency in support with BITEMA, Virgin Islands National Guard, Virgin Islands Police Department, Department of Education, volunteers, and faith-based organizations work together identifying, managing, and maintaining these points of distribution for food and water following a storm. 0:43:49 BITEMA is responsible for maintaining the approved distribution management plan. FEMA maintains warehouses on St. Thomas and St. Croix that each hold a 10-day supply of food and water based on authorizing individuals two shelf-stable meals per day and three liters of water per day. On St. John, FEMA controls a 40-foot trailer's pre-position on St. John and also holds a 10-day supply of food and water. 0:44:45 a major disaster declaration and based upon clearing routes of movement, VITEMA submits a mission assignment to FEMA to stage and transfer enough food to VITEMA for food and water to feed up to 10,000 individuals per day on St. Thomas and St. Croix and 2,000 individuals on St. John. Once the transfers occurs, the National Guard transports the food and water to pre-identified points of distribution and sets up operations for the day. The The POD site is managed by trained individuals from Department of Human Services or Department of Education. Due to a limited number of available Virgin Islands National Guard members, only a very few sites can be operated simultaneously. Faith-based organizations and volunteers also assist in distribution of food and water. When available, the blue tarps will be distributed at each POD site. VIPD is responsible for traffic control in and out of each site. 0:45:16 The deposits will cease to operate once normal food supply chain operations are re-established and banking systems, credit cards, SNAP, DSNAP and ATMs are operational. With sheltering, every effort should be made to prepare and remain at home with neighbors or with faith-based organizations during the passing of a hurricane. Adequate preparations are needed to include transportation for individuals unable to shelter in place. The Department of Human Services is the lead agency for congregate shelters, and the Department of Health is the lead agency for medical special needs shelters. The process of establishing and maintaining shelters is supported by VITEMA, the Department of Education, the Department of Sports, Parks and Recreation, the Office of the Governor of America's Disability Act's Coordinator, the American Red Cross, the Virgin Islands Police Department, and the Virgin Islands Fire Service. 0:46:12 congregate medical and post landfall shelters have been identified and assessed on st croix st thomas st john and water island using the american red cross individual calculation of 20 square feet per person for an evacuation shelter st croix shelters have the capacity of 792 individuals and staff and st thomas evacuation have the capacity of 869 individuals and staff the st john shelter has a capacity of 15 individuals medical special needs shelters on st thomas and st croix have the capacity to support those with pre-identified needing medical assistance and are staffed accordingly following a storm and if needed additional shelters known as secondary shelters can be operated and staffed to support those individuals who have lost their homes to storm damage with adequate notice and preparation evacuation and medical special needs shelters open 24 hours prior to the arrival of hurricane force winds which are sustained winds at 75 74 miles per hour a hurricane watch is issued 48 hours prior to the arrival of the hurricane warning is also issued at 36 hours prior if the impact is severe shelters may remain open until individuals find other temporary housing the american red cross provides food and water for the first 72 hours the shelters open and then department education assumes the meal operations there's very limited space for individuals and their pets and special sections of the shelters are reserved owners are required to bring cages food leashes and any medical medicine for their pets and are responsible for cleaning up after the pets assistance for individuals with functional disabilities will be available at a few shelters and the department of of Human 0:47:05 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 5 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety Services will announce which shelters support their needs. In January of 2019, the 33rd Legislature passed Act 8151, which provided the responsibility for the Department of Health and Human Services to develop a plan for hurricane response medical patient movement and evacuation, along with case management and support to medical patients returning to the territory. This plan, developed, is led by the Department of Health, and this year the U.S. Health and Human Services assisted in a tabletop review of the plan. Changes to the plan now include the requirement for a family caregiver to accompany the patient during movement and evacuation. All patients identified to evacuate must check in and be tracked to one of the territories hospitals using the Joint Patient Assistance and Tracking System known as JPATS. little pre-storm off-island patient evacuation is conducted and preparation for post-storm coordination is through U.S. Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense. Division of the decision to evacuate dialysis patients following a storm is made by the Department of Health and is based upon damages to facilities, availability of medical staff, water, emergency power. 0:49:00 Pre-storm movement of patients from St. John to St. Thomas Schneider Regional Medical Center is done by consultation with medical professionals in the Department of Health. I'll talk in a second about the Emergency Management Council of VITEMA. Pursuant to VI Code Title 23 Section 1007, VITEMA Director Chairs the Emergency Management and Homeland Security EMC Council. The Emergency Management Council meets monthly except for December either virtually or in person or a combination of virtual and in person. The The EMC currently includes participants from 61 different agencies, including six federal partners, three private sector partners, 12 semi-autonomous agencies, 31 cabinet agencies, nine volunteer agencies and representatives from the legislature and judicial branches. Island administrators from St. Croix, St. Thomas, and St. John, and Chief of Staff or Governor Bryan also attend. The next meeting of the EMC is scheduled for this Thursday, 20 October. 0:50:14 each of the VITEMA's EOC operation centers. The EOCs are connected via video teleconference, known as VTC. VITEMA attended in person in 2022 the National Hurricane Conference that went from 11 to 14 April in Orlando, Florida. This conference averages over 1,500 attendees and VITEMA sent representatives from Operations, Planning and Preparedness, Hazard Mitigation, assistance and public information sections along with senior leadership other territorial agencies include the department of human services department public works and the bureau of corrections vitima was afforded the opportunity to present on three different sessions which covered topics from covet 19 response from an emergency management aspect which all leadership participated in and was facilitated by the assistant director barbara peterson to a presentation the hazard mitigation Resiliency Plan in collaboration with the University of Virgin Islands. Deputy Director of Plans and Preparedness, Ms. Regina Brown, participated in a roundtable discussion on preparedness and equity in the field of emergency management. Lastly, Deputy Director Bruce Kelly, along with Public Information Officer Eric Ackerson and EOC Supervisor Akeem Charswell, presented on our operational coordination based on our unique geographical location. 0:51:18 This was the first time the agency was able to present at a conference and will also submit abstracts to present at the next conference in New Orleans. Avergency Territory Emergency Operations Plan. Also in April, VITEMA published a new Territorial Emergency Operations Plan known as a TEOP, which updated responsibilities of territorial agencies for all 15 emergency support functions, introduced the use of community lifelines in assessing and prioritizing response efforts, and provided a new essential elements of information known as eeis the eeis are used for coordination response activities for community lifelines of safety and security food water shelter health and medical energy which includes power and fuel communications transportation and hazardous materials the new hazard annex now includes additional context for coordinating and supporting the agencies identified to respond to the seven most serious threats to the territory active shooter cyber security hurricane earthquake terrorism tsunami and pandemic the previous hurricane checklist covering preparedness and response phases is now a separate document is updated annually during the capstone exercise by individual emergency support functions esf agency leads As the Territory is now in its fifth hurricane season since the two Category 5 Hurricanes Irma and Maria impacted the Territory in September 2017, it's extremely important that every individual, family, private business, government agency, and federal partner living or working the Territory take actions of preparedness serious. 0:52:36 VITEMA conducted outreach and messaging throughout the Territory as part of National Hurricane preparing this week from 1 to 7 may the overall theme for the week for individuals families and businesses is be prepared stay informed and be vigilant my team of staff visited several radio talk shows in both districts conducted social media campaigns with public service announcements and delivered a 2022 hurricane maps to gas stations and grocery stores one of the key major messages for the week and for the remainder of the previous year's preparedness activities is that every individual and family needs to be prepared to be self-sufficient with food and water and other items necessary for a minimum of five days following the impact of a hurricane the government of the virgin islands will conduct life-saving missions assess 0:54:25 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 6 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety damages mitigate risks open routes and prepare disappointed distribution with food and water to distribute to individuals living in damaged areas as quickly as possible. Once the areas are assessed, individuals are transported to health care facilities, road debris removed, temporary emergency power established, the territory will begin the critical infrastructure restoration to include ports, transportation hubs, power telecommunications, banking, ATM operations, issuing DSTAP cards, and food store restoration operations. Hurricane preparedness and outreach activities continued during the 50th Agricultural and Food Fair on St. Croix from 28 to 30 May, with joint booths themed as Partners in Paradise with Vitima, FEMA, Tropical Shipping, and O'Neill's Transport. A drawing was held for a new generator donated from the Home Depot, and Vitima signed up an additional 270 individuals for the Alert VI Mass Messaging Notification System. I'd like to now talk about the Virgin Islands National Guard. The Adjutant General, Major General Knox Lumbacher, and his senior staff leaders of the Virgin Islands National Guard attended the Army North Rehearsal of Concept, known as the Rock Drill, at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, the same week with the Vitima Capstone Exercise. The Rehearsal of Concept scenario focused on the Department of Defense timeline to respond from 24 hours to 96 hours following landfall, exercising joint capabilities to support vital needs during two Category 4 hurricanes and a Category 5 hurricane with multiple landfalls in Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. With the rock drill complete, U.S. NORTHCOM Commander Lieutenant General John Evans and the FEMA Regional Defense Courting Officer Colonel Tom Pike visited U.S. Virgin Islands on 7 June and met with the Adjutant General, Major General Knox Lumbacher, Pima-Virgin Islands Caribbean Coordinator Mark Walters, and VITEMA Director and Territory Recording Officer Darrell Joshin. General Evans received a briefing on VITEMA's hurricane season 2022 preparedness and response and readiness, and anticipated pre-identified missions assignment requests for Department of Defense support for a major hurricane impact to the territory. For this hurricane season, assistance if needed will come primarily from Michigan and Kentucky National Guards. Two of the limitations of the Virgin Islands National Guard is one, the lack of rotary wing aircraft and two, the time required to transport National Guards from other states to include activation under state active duty orders. There are also limited National Guard troop transportation vehicles and bed down sites for more than 900 National Guard soldiers and airmen needed to respond following a major 0:56:19 hurricane impacting the territory. I can talk about the now emergency communications and our amateur radio operators. While the Capsulean exercise did test some levels of emergency communications, it did not incorporate any of the territory's amateur radio operators who are all volunteers. MS radio operators, or HAMS as they are normally called, are licensed individuals by the Federal Communications Commission, FCC, and while many support VITEMA and FEMA during Hurricanes Irma Maria, many are newly licensed and have not participated in a functional exercise drill. On 25 and 26 June, VITEMA supported the annual exercise on St. Croix. 0:58:12 This field day, as it's known, tests radio operators' team's ability to operate for 24 hours, communicating using high-frequency radios and antennas, long-distance using temporary emergency power at a location other than an office environment. Over 1,000 other teams also conducted field day throughout North America during the same period. St. Croix conducted the field day exercise out of the Vitima Mobile EOC at Cane Bay and welcomed the public on Saturday 25 June from 2 to 4 p.m. to see them in action and learn about amateur radio. To further develop skills in emergency operations and emergency command for times during hurricanes and other emergencies, VITEMA hosted a 40-hour in-person immediate, intermediate, and advanced incident command ICS course on St. Croix and St. Thomas. The St. Thomas course ran 13 to 17 June and the St. Croix course ran 21 to 24 June. Over 60 individuals attended to various lead government's emergency support function agencies, the National Guard, and volunteers. I'd like to talk about VITEMA's Continuity of Operations Plan known as COOP. VITEMA recommends every business development train and test its own Continuity of Operations Plan known as COOP. The template is available from VITEMA and and with our planning and preparedness team, we'll review and provide feedback on your plan. VITEMA completed and updated its own COOP in April 2022, conducted all hands review of its plan in June 2nd, and conducted several COOP functional drills in September. VITEMA's COOP plan and drill focus on the ability to successfully set up and conduct our three essential functions. One, 911 emergency communications, two emergency operations centers, and three recovery operations. 0:58:56 On June 7th, Vitima hosted a private sector partnership, a coordination meeting with representatives from the transportation sector of Tropical, Crowley, O'Neill's Transportation, the Communications Group via Banking Sector, Bank of St. Croix, the food sector, the market and quality, the the fuel sector of Lime Tree Bay, territorial DLCA, the Licensing Consumer Affairs Agency, FEMA, Department of Homeland Security, Region 2, CISA Coordinator, and representatives from Puerto Rico Private Partnership. The purpose of this meeting was to coordinate response and recovery activities with the private sector and focus territory unity of effort on reestablishing critical infrastructure and supply chain structure. The group uses community lifelines to set up teams and identify several critical activities following a disaster as well as establish a business emergency operations center which interacts with VITEMA EOCs. 1:00:50 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 7 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety On 13 June, VITEMA Director Darrell Josh and the Department of Human Services Community Affairs Coordinator Miss Yvette Henry met with Pastor Isaac and other members of the St. John Pastors Fellowship in Cruz Bay to discuss hurricane preparedness and response this hurricane season concerns were raised about sheltering capacities support to the sick during curfews ferry port closings center line closing communication and medical care following a storm i'd like to now turn to senior registry act number 8058 identifies the requirement for department human services to maintain a volunteer senior registry for persons 60 years or older with disabilities living alone. Currently, there are 780 individuals listed in the registry and the Department of Human Services utilizes a mass messaging system to notify individuals for any storm-related information and support following a disaster event. VITEMA partnered on 6 September at the University of Virgin Islands, St. Thomas, and on 30 September, University of Virgin Islands, St. Croix, the Office of the Governor, department of human services department of health the virgin island association of independent living disability rights center for virgin islands the american red cross the vi university center of excellence for development disabilities to conduct an in-person and live broadcast on disaster preparedness expo the exo provided information to senior citizens and adults with disabilities expo was a tremendous success with 124 participants on saint thomas and 90 participants on saint Croy. I'd like to now turn to VITEMA's Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. 1:01:50 As a special request of this committee, I'll provide VITEMA's analysis of its strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. On 30 June 2021, VITEMA conducted, with facilitation by Office of Management and Budget, a formal SWOT analysis. Participants from VITEMA included director daryl joshan assistant director barbara peterson deputy director logistics steve de blasio public assistance officer melinda vigilant messer deputy director of operations bruce kelly deputy director of planning preparedness regina brown and from hazard mitigation miss trinita webster from the swat analysis by team identified and prioritized its strengths its weaknesses its opportunities and threats our top three prioritized areas are identified as follows for strengths number one is our staff the team has a good team of people skill and they like each other two coordinating abilities vitima can coordinate within agency even though they're geographically split and three planning vitima continually develops and maintains plans needed for preparation response mitigation and recovery our weaknesses one staffing challenges finding and retaining qualified staff for its diverse requirements for both districts. Two, lack of redundancy. Employees do not share what they learn or know. Three, internal coordination and communication. VITEMA is very capable of successfully coordination, but at times, can be very chaotic. When communication falls short, it also shows up as a failure or a weakness. Although coordination is what VITEMA does, there are times when it doesn't work. Section synergy, internal coordination across VITEMA divisions sometimes ends up stepping all over each other. Meetings are sometimes set up by multiple persons at the same time. Our opportunities, number one, is cross-training. VITEMA needs to develop a program for times when emergencies occur as some positions are needed to be staffed 24-hour operations. Number two, new technology. VITEMA should take advantage of advanced communications and software capabilities. And three, training. VITEMA should take advantage of training by federal partners. 1:03:38 Our threats. Number one, our employee loss and shrinkage. Due to salary inequities, VITEMA will continue to lose employees to better paying companies and even within the government of the Virgin Islands. Two, lack of resources. VITEMA must update and repair its infrastructure, providing capacity and commodity for storage and equipment. Number three, funding. VITEMA government budget meets essential needs but should be expanded to support additional training services and equipment enhancements. 1:05:51 As a result of the SWOT analysis, VITEMA set the following strategic priorities for both fiscal year 2022 and now going to fiscal year 2023. First is staffing. Our inability to keep staffing because of funding, salaries are not competitive, there's There's talent out there, but we need to find it, and it's hard to find. Second are staffing retention. Because of the storms, people are floating around between agencies because almost every agency has a disaster recovery specialist. Three are salaries, our equity within positions. Next is training, opportunity for process improvement, project management, and emergency management. And coordination, opportunities to interact with new agencies and build positive relationships. messaging and misconception or image messaging, VITEMA is more than just hurricanes. And finally, our federal partnership and reputation, we want to build confidence with federal partners and ability to as emergency managers. In closing, while VITEMA territorial agencies have worked both individually and within the emergency support functions, there will always be ways to work ahead as well as continue to improve our processes. 1:06:23 should continue constantly refine and update their plans conduct drills educate new staff and ensure our own families and agencies are prepared we're very proud of each and every member of our agencies and the seriousness in which they accept their roles and not only preparing their agencies but in preparing themselves and their families we want to thank governor albert bryan jr and lieutenant governor treyander roach for their continued leadership guidance and emphasis on the importance of the emergency management council and its efforts to continually improve our abilities to plan, train, and respond to any major disaster whether advance notice such as a hurricane or a pandemic or whether there's little or no 1:07:35 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 8 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety notice such as an earthquake or tsunami. Thank you committee chairman Senator Angel L. Ocas Jr. for this opportunity to provide test combined testimony with VITEMA, Department of Human Services, Department of Health, and the Virgin Islands National Guard. We're prepared to address any questions you have at this time. Thank you, Director Joshin. Let me be the first to say thank you for our comprehensive testimony. It definitely speaks volumes as to the collaboration and communication that all of the agencies that are before us today partake in in order to do this job, this job that is a tough one. You are the expert in that area, so I thank everyone for the comprehensive testimony. Some of the questions before we go into a five-minute round that I have are specifically for St. John. I want to ask about the shelter there. 1:08:30 I know that on St. Croix there's a shelter for 792 individuals, St. Thomas 869, but St. john unfortunately can only house 15 individuals and you can see what the disparity is there with the island that has about almost 5 000 people on it are there any plans to try to find any other location on saint john that could provide shelter services the easy answer center is yes there are plans even commissioner cosigomas we've been outreach with the private sector they're asking them if they want to volunteer to take on as an emergency shelter there's also a cost in some cases to do this and that's something we're also working with member m's agreement if i can ask miss yvette henry because she's been very involved with shelter operations to expand on that she will do that sir and please do miss henry be recognized good morning uh senator commissioner kimberly gauzy gomez and myself have gone through st john and we have reached out to the private uh sector over on saint john in partnershiping with uh the department of human services uh we case in point have even gone through the location over in coral bay where we would have the folks in that community uh shelter in place but we would support them in aiding with uh comfort kits blankets and whatever food supplies water that they would need to make sure that they are sheltering in place as director joshan said a lot of things came about as far as pricing acquiring space and so that is something that the department and gvi on a whole would have to look into in acquiring um space to to fit the saint johnians as we move forward in 1:09:18 the hurricane season okay i i believe i also see online the uh the manager of the shelter miss abigail hendricks if if she's available to speak and can she provide us with any information if there's any challenges in that specific shelter that we should know about well the shelter that we have available um this is abigail hendricks vhs um the shelter that we do have available is quite suitable brand new handicap accessible um as far as other facilities go we have push come to shove miss hendrix i apologize for interrupting you can can you turn on your camera for me please it's on oh it's not we're not seeing you over here there you are there okay good please proceed yes yes we do have a couple of people in the private sector who are willing to assist if need be um of course um we do encourage folks to shelter in place but if push comes to shove and we do need to shelter folks after post post hurricane we do have a few people who are willing to assist us with that um also through attending the hurricane convention we learned that in our district there are several programs who will assist us through hud in housing people post hurricane and we have utilized those programs in 2018 after the major storms in 2017 and will be more than happy to assist and activate those programs if we 1:11:15 need to do sheltering or covering people and placing them in facilities that these you these agencies will assist us in taking care of them okay thank you Thank you very much. And we're going to proceed into a five-minute round. There's going to be two rounds. We are going to begin with the Honourable Senator Kenny L. Giddens. I'd also like to recognize the presence of our Vice President, the Honourable Novell E. Francis, Jr. Thank you for being here, Senator. Senator Giddens, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning to all. Congratulations on chairing your first meeting. You're doing a good job so far. I must say, though, that I've been waiting for this opportunity for quite some time, as we have not had a Homeland Security hearing for a number of months. 1:13:07 So five minutes would not be sufficient for me, but we will begin anyway. First things first. Are all our police stations equipped with an automatic generator? And I ask that, and I want you to respond to me with your full knowledge and not your beliefs, because I can tell you that Frederickset Police Station was in pitch darkness some time ago with the generators not working. 1:14:15 So tell me, are our police stations, territory-wide, fully equipped with an automatic generator, and whether or not we're doing routine maintenance to these generators? Thank you, Senator Gittins. Every Friday we have a meeting on ESF 13, which is Virginia's police, and we do talk about generators, generator statuses. After we had Tropical Storm Fiona come through, there were a couple of challenges about the automatic transfer switches versus manual transfer switches. So based on the feedback, there are at least one or two that right now are looking at validating their transfer switches, sir. 1:14:51 So I'll ask you to follow up, especially on that one at the Frederickstead headquarters. because this was before Fiona, and that station was in total darkness. Specifically on Frederick Stead, sir, we did put a temporary generator down in there for a couple of weeks. They had a part that was repaired that were brought in to bring it back on board, but I will do a validation with them, sir. I've repeatedly asked about the CAD system, the computer-aided device system. Are you 1:15:30 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 9 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety utilizing a CAD system at this time, coordinating with other agencies, such as you talk about clearing of guts, et cetera, pathways and whatnot? Do we know the location of all our bridges and guts in the territory? The answer to the question, we are using the computer-aided dispatch and record management system, CADRMS. We do have that tied in to the EOCs. We do have a stand-up emergency like we did for Fiona. As far as the actual locations, we do have representatives from the Department of Public Works in each of our EOCs, and we stand up and support that, so they're the ones that will respond to that. Are you aware if the CAD system is also utilized for those other assisting agencies, such as Department of Public Works, Water and Power Authority, Waste Management, et cetera, especially for the coordination whenever they're doing roadside digging and WAPA, not WAPA, but Waste Management or Public Works might dig somewhere and cut a line for WAPA or something like that. Are you aware whether or not these individual agencies are utilizing a CAD system? 1:16:20 Okay. I'll ask Deputy Kelly to talk about our 911 CAD system, which is specific for fire, EMS, and police. Well, I'm fully aware that you have a CAD system for those emergency agencies. That's why I'm asking specifically to WAPA, Public Works, Waste Management, et cetera. But let's move on from that. Are we coordinating with the Water and Power Authority to clear trees out of the active lines prior to hurricane season? I've had to call WAPA a number of times for trees overgrown into these active wires. Is the Virgin Islands Territorial Emergency Management Agency coordinating and looking out for these hazards? 1:17:28 Our coordination would happen during times of emergency. The normal day-to-day operations would be directly done through Water Power Authority with their messaging system online, where you can call their services. But during emergency, definitely we have representatives inside the VITIMA at UOC. So you're talking about during emergencies, but I'm talking about before an emergency. I'm talking about being proactive. Do we have anyone coordinating these types of services prior to an emergency taking place? There's nothing specifically to have that checked that box before the storm, sir. We do have the emergency management councils. 1:18:21 We do have get-together with the lead agencies to talk about such issues, but right now there's nothing that's specifically focused on that issue. So can we take a look at that please? Yes, sir. Who's coordinating your or updating Vytema's Facebook page? Time. We have a contract with Omni Services, and then my PIO Eric Akerson will interface with them to bring updates for that, as well as the Facebook itself is Mr. Akerson. And you speak a lot about social media and whatnot, but you realize that we have a large population of elderly people here that don't use social media. How are we reaching those individuals that want to hear from you directly? Well, we do have press releases that go out, and we have a group that we go to. We do have conversations with the seniors. 1:19:00 There will be opportunities through radio stations, but that's the other means by which we do communicate, not just Facebook, but through radio station interviews, through press releases. Time was called, but Mr. Chair, can I wrap up with one other question, and then I'll save the others for the next? Thank you. Generators at our senior homes, Wim Gardens, Queen Louise and St. Thomas, and other areas. Are these areas equipped with a fully automatic generator at this time? 1:19:46 I might have to refer to Department of Human Services, Assistant Commissioner, Abigail, I mean, Mikel Reimer-Brown. And before we go over there, wasn't Vytema responsible for issuing generators to some of these sites? Vytema's responsibility is for the shelters, the primary shelters that we set up, the 10 generators we identified. Yes, sir. Not the human services, but the shelters that are considered Congress shelters. So let's not narrow it to the shelters. Vytema had a number of generators before that was distributed. Do we know where those generators are? Yes, sir. I know exactly where all 10 generators are located. 1:20:23 So are any of them assigned to the senior assisted living homes that I'm talking about? Queen Louise, Wimgarden, et cetera? No, sir. There's been no requests for those to be positioned there. No requests? All right. Let's hear from the agency, Human Services, because we're hearing that there has been no request from uh to vitima for a generator i'm not sure why not mikhail rima brown assistant commissioner we had generators uh from vitima but because we purchased new generators for the herbert grig home and the queen louise home we yielded that generator back to vitima and we are not in need of an additional generator at this time both generators at both homes queen louise and herbert greg are routinely maintained and at this point we are not in need of another generator what about whim garden and those two generators that you speak about are they generating the entire property or they're generating just the administrative offices no the queen louise and the herbert greg generates power for the entire facility the residential facility excellent thank you all excellent thank you what about uh whim gardens um i know when gardens is a shared uh entity between human services and and and uh housing authority but from the from the human services standpoint Are you looking at securing a generator for Wim Gardens? 1:21:06 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 10 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety I am not aware of what is being done by VI Housing Authority in that area, Senator, and neither am I aware of what is happening specifically at Lucinda Millen Home. Those are VI Housing Authority properties, and we provide services, but we're not in charge of the capital projects and generators. Thank you. We'll continue this conversation. Thank you for the leeway, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Senator Giddens. And before we move forward to Senator Blyden, I just had a quick question about your pod. You mentioned pods. Is there a succession plan for your pod managers that are in place? Yes, the Department of Human Services, we had training on those. 1:22:48 There's about 20 individuals in each district that are trained on those pod sites. Ms. Henry can speak more details on that, but to answer your question, yes, there is. Okay, I just wanted to assure of that. Concerning the antennas, especially the one that you erected at Carnegie, what is the range on those antennas? Can they perhaps reach out to Frederickstead? There's two types of antennas. The one that the BIT has that they can put up in the air, the 100-foot ones, those are primarily for within the district. So St. Thomas to St. Croix, just like our 911 system and dispatch, We work within the district right now for that. You'd have to go over to the other district, but they do not go between the islands right now, sir. Okay, so just for further clarity, so that antenna would suffice for the entire island of St. Croix? No, they have six of them. They have six antennas, just like we do for our dispatch services that go through fire and EMS and police. 1:23:34 You'd have to set several of those up in order to cover those areas. So part of the post-event is do the analysis to find out which towers are up and which towers are down. And if there are ones that are down, we would put one of those antennas out there or two of those antennas out there. And how many are on St. Thomas and St. John? They have two on St. Thomas. I don't know if there's anyone on St. John at this point. I know there are definitely two on St. Thomas. That would be something we can discuss. At this time, I'd like to give Senator Blyden five minutes. You recognize her? We cannot hear your mic, Senator Blyden. One moment. We're not hearing Senator Blyden. 1:24:30 And while that·yes, and before you go, Senator Blyden, I neglected to acknowledge the Honorable Senator Jovan James Sr., who is present. Madam Clerk, please mark him as present. Please proceed. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning again to my colleagues, the listening and viewing audiences, staff, central staff. Good morning. and thank you so much for your comprehensive testimony and good morning to all the other testifiers by our teams. Let me start by saying in terms of the testimony, it is quite comprehensive, but for clarification, point of clarification, Director Joshin, you spoke to the 10 new generators that you received in your inventory. Were those to replace prior generators or are those in addition to what you already have in your stock and where are the others located? 1:25:25 Excellent question, sir. Overall, you go back to Hurricanes Irma Maria, FEMA actually sent out those generators based upon the disaster declaration. When I took over as a director, there were 12 generators still that were out being used. FEMA basically said we want our generators back. What have you done to basically replace those? So from that we were able to recover 11 of those generators. One was remaining was at the Department of Agriculture here on St. Croix. Commissioner Positive Nelson worked for about a year and a half to get a generator to replace that so he has his generator back. The 10 debt we received through Governor Bryan for $500,000 or through CARES Act. We did not have any other generators that belong to Vitima directly. 1:26:28 So of those, we have four that are on St. Croix. Right now, those are physically located right now at Complex has one set up as a shelter. SeaTex is right next to it as a shelter. We have one at DC Kanagata set up and we just finished one for the Department of Health over here at Golden Rock for Medical Needs Shelter. Over on St. Thomas right now, we have two that are being positioned to go out to Eudora Ken, if you need to put them out there as shelters we have two that are at the Vitima building on St. Thomas and then we have two that are over on St. John. Neither of those have to be put out in those locations but they're physically on on St. John. So those are all 10 of our 100 kilowatt generators. They are self-contained and since they're on wheels with their own fuel tanks as well they can be picked up and moved to locations as we need to. 1:27:12 Thank you for that. And in addition to the 30 satellite phone and 40 handheld mobile radios, who are those distributed to, in particular? Under 30 satellite phones, I have them split between St. Thomas and St. Croix, and I think I have two on St. John. John. Those are primarily to the Cabinet Emergency Management Council leaders, Governor Bryan, Lieutenant Governor Roach, Joint Information Center, the key ESF leaders for that. The radios themselves, there's 40 of them that we have activated right now. Some agencies have their own radios. That is right primarily for the Emergency Management Council to have backup communications in case email goes down, texting goes down, but that's a backup communication. We test that every Tuesday with BIT on each district from 8 30 till 11 30 in the morning. 1:28:06 Good thank you for that um good morning Ms. Henry let me ask um in respect to St. John and my colleagues put the chair spoke to the 15 um room for 15 individuals in terms of the um St. John shelter so are we saying on St. John that no one else who are willing to or able to provide or assist with a shelter for the residents of saint john that's not sufficient at all what about any of the churches not even the churches that's what you're telling me this morning good morning senator 1:29:03 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 11 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety thank you yvette henry department of human services community affairs coordinator we the department of human services and with our support agencies have gone out looking for other sources to house folks in the event of a hurricane or any disaster one minute we have and we have found that um there are lots of places that are still damaged and other places um even the churches that have damaged and cannot assist at this time we have exhausted all our loopholes and have now gone creatively to um to the private sector to work in getting places for folks to be sheltered at senator wow wow that's hard that's hard to swallow um it's hard to swallow but nonetheless i appreciate the the effort you're putting forth and i'll see what i can do for my in terms of seeing if i can assist in finding somewhere to house our people because that's critical and before my time is up uh let me act in respect to um human services and i know you're deeply involved but let me speak to the senior homes and our elderly and disabled in housing communities i know when i was there we we have we have an elderly and disabled listing within those communities and we work closely with the department of human services what type of collaboration or meetings have you had say within the last several months and moving forward with the housing authority in respect to um preparedness and operations when it comes to any type of disaster can you please put on the record for us yes mikhail rhima brown assistant commissioner human services we meet regularly and vi housing authority are part of our esf6 meetings and just to let you know i just wanted to confirm and i did that per ceo lydia pell we have all the senior homes lucinda millen wim gardens and joseph james they all have working generators and the housing authority if there are any issues they will usually contact us they work closely with our adult protective services as many of you may know we provide nursing support services at lucinda millen and wim gardens and also uh homemaker services throughout the community including housing authority properties so there is a very close working relationship which i think is very effective and and thank you for that and i know i do know that they have a maintenance um plan for those generators um director jasmine um do you have a maintenance plan for all the other generators that was given from fema for the different locations and thank you so much mr chair for the time i don't want to abuse my time senator uh the generators that were from fema once they're issued out from fema fema's response to remaining those all have now been return back to fema fema took those out i believe it was last year and had them refreshed and they're now back in the territory stage ready to go if we need those but i cannot get access those until after we have a disaster there's a whole process to go through we did identify you know critical infrastructure uh last year with army corps of engineers coming in to identify those ahead of 1:30:59 time so we already have the risks identified again back to water power authority with the feeder lines to make sure we sync up with them. As far as for the tent generators themselves, yes, we do have a maintenance plan with those, as well as property procurement. If you already have a generator at your facility, property procurement supports maintaining those generators basically 24 hour or 20, all 12 months out of the year, part of the emergency contract with property procurement. Thank you so much for your response. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 1:32:50 Thank you, Senator Blyden. And in respect to what my colleague mentioned, I must say that faith-based organizations and nonprofits played a very key role in assisting public safety agencies during Irma and Maria. So I do agree that it's imperative that we should collaborate and form relationships, closer ones, with those faith-based organizations in order to compile a ledger of organizations that would be willing to assist in any case scenario. So I definitely agree with that. 1:33:21 I'd like to quickly ask General Limbacher a question. Are you still on the line, sir? Yes, Mr. Limbacher, I'm on the line. Go ahead. Okay, great. Concerning your manpower, womanpower, or official troops, how many active National Guards are their territory-wide currently? So when you say active National Guard members, so Army right now, I have about 575 and roughly here about 557. 1:33:54 And so as the territory continues to shrink in size, those personnel continue to transfer to other Guard and Reserve for active duty or their time have terminated and the Guard has significantly shrunk. Okay. And General, can you please put on your camera, please? Okay, thank you, sir. And currently, what is the number of members that are about to retire in that amount? You're now muted, sir. Please unmute. 1:34:31 Actually, it's very few. about 10 is about to retire. As we look at the National Guard standpoint, they can stay until the age of 60. At that point, then they have a mandatory time unless they get a one or two year extension due to the ability to retire fully on the active guard reserve program. But most of the exits that we're seeing in your young population that have transferred to the active duty or have finished their term and have now completely left the uh the guard so overall right now from a recruiting standpoint the military itself is having an issue to recruit and retain personnel and of the current population uh only nine percent of the 23 percent that's eligible to serve in the military are actually willing to serve in our nation's military okay thank you for that and in the event of an emergency are they retired soldiers are they called back to duty temporarily for that or is that something that there's a process for that or is it something that that generally happens if a hurricane or a natural disaster takes place no we don't so so right now the way the way the national 1:35:11 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 12 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety guard works we have the pilot the 54 as we would like to call it so we have 54 states and territories that executes an emergency management agreement compact, which Director Johnson just spoke about. So I leverage both Michigan, Kentucky, and other states to fill that requirement. So they have the Guard members in their states that will flow quickly to our territory. And for example, the National Guard from Michigan will provide us 130 plus MPs, as well as about 120 engineers, um as far as that emac agreement to support our requirements in the territory and then we get aviation and other assets from all the other states in a pre-arranged agreement that's actually solidified during our rock trails and army north and our rock trails what we have here in the territory with uh my team understood so i think that was line three or five in the testimony where director joshin mentioned michigan and kentucky so that is something that collectively is uh memorandum of understanding pertinent to where the guards would come from from whatever state at any given year. However, once we come back around, maybe in the second rung, I have a few questions concerning some other ways that we can try to collectively work with other island nations concerning emergency management. Next we have the Honourable Senator Alma Francis Heilegger. you're now recognized thank you thank you thank you um good morning to my colleagues to the people of the territory um good morning to the testifiers um and central staff and my staff the first question i would like to ask has to do yesterday we had individuals from the board of pharmacy and i want to know is there any type of coordination between by tema human services the health department to make sure that the flow of life-saving drugs such as insulin and some of these other things that are needed that might be disrupted through a hurricane that the supply chain is um either still in place do you guys coordinate stuff like that senator good morning director josh and i do have with me assistant commissioner ruben malloy from department of health and i know we've talked about this and drilled on this so ma'am i'll turn it over to him to respond to that particular question. Good morning, Assistant Commissioner Reuben Molloy. Yes. Good morning. Good morning. Yes, we do, part of ESF 8's responsibility and the lifeline is, what do you call it? 1:37:23 Supply line, sorry, supply line of medication. and we do collaborate uh with and include all appropriate parties in um developing our plans and procedures so yes pharmacy is engaged as it relates to preparedness again um i remember last year october um director josh and you were before the committee on government operations where i presented bill i think it was 34.0103 and that was in regards to identifying essential workers and businesses um at the time you were in support of the piece of legislation because one of the things you did share with us is that it was a benefit and a plus to your organization to be able to already have these locations and businesses identified in order once they were already previously identified through law you would be able to assist them through um consistent in information classes um making sure who needs um equipment on a continuous basis because we are in a hurricane zone are you still of the same mindset as it relates to my continued pursuit of that particular piece of legislation or do you feel that you have mastered some other way around getting this done? Senator, we have stood up this year through the interaction with Department of License and Consumer Affairs, our Business Emergency Operations Center, which is really all private sector, focusing on those seven lifelines. So we really, we modeled this off of Puerto Rico, and we've been very successful. It was going to be just a test environment, but we've actually used at least for three real world events, and specifically on the last storm, fiona we did use that that relationship to drive prioritization get oxygen in the territory so we did have an impact in puerto rico with vessels coming out as well as in puerto rico so i support that completely we have stood up a business emergency operations center with fantastic 1:39:18 support from the private sector excellent so are you saying you no longer need that or i'm trying to what are your thoughts so i didn't understand i understand what you're doing now But would you still be in need of being able to identify them as a standard throughout the year so you could work with them? Or are you saying you already are, so it's not necessary? It goes back to that definition of essential. My thought was if you're essential, then we can talk about getting generators in. We can talk about support, a continuity of operations plan, which would help focus the activities. Right now, with the BEOC, we're getting the same sort of support from them, and they're basically looking at a tiered approach to that. So as far as essential, I think we're actually working that very well with our business emergency operations center. 1:41:26 Okay, thank you. One of the major things during the hurricane time, WAPA, what are you doing in coordinating with them as to their hardiness, preparedness, to mitigate the amount of time they might be done down you know we're not in a hurricane and we were down for several hours here in the district of saint thomas st john last night so what what's happening with them between your coordination well they are one of the lead agencies with us along with the vi energy office on preparation response efforts we do we activate we do have of representatives in the Emerging Operations Center on Water Power Authority. We did this recently for Tropical Storm Fiona. Very active information coming to us. We had our 911 center actually having those calls come in with us. Representative was there on all three EOCs. We were able to real-time put that request ticket in and get that information out. So we constantly had that interface at the EOCs with VITEMA, with Water Power Authority, and any other agencies that to respond during times of crisis okay um mr 1:42:19 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 13 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety chair may i ask my final question for this round please please proceed thank you um i want to ask my final question and it's in regards to blue tarps as you know in the hurricane season from the last sets of hurricanes we've had several people still have tarps on their roofs um have we coordinated to assist with hardlining or making them a little bit more sturdy so to help assist with um extensive flooding as because they're they're there for several years has there been any thoughts as to the improvements or um reinforcement of those blue tarps while we potentially might be going through another storm is that part of the conversation senator we mentioned earlier on the the volunteer organizations active Disaster Zone of VOADS. We work with them quite a bit already to try to get blue tarps that are available either through by TEMA. We've taken some of the large tarps and cut those down in smaller sections. We have responded as needed after every single rainstorm has come up. It's really been an ad hoc basis. As you know there's a step program that's out that was just temporarily to work with that and now we're working more with Envision. I won't go details on that ma'am but I I think as far as by TEMA, we have some available, but it's really as needed. And we worked the last storm, probably six or seven went out on St. Croix, six or seven on St. Thomas. I'm not sure about St. John, but that's really as they come up, but nothing is organized, ma'am. 1:44:25 Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the additional time. I will continue if we have a second round. Thank you, Senator Francis Heiliger. Concerning, this is for the Department of Health, I mean Human Services, I apologize. How often is the senior registry updated? Good morning. Assistant Commissioner, Mikel Rymer-Brown, Human Services. That is a continual work in process. You have the lady right there, Ms. Yvette Henry, who is continually updating, going over, looking for any duplications, looking for any errors, and confirming information. So that is a work that is regularly updated, plus we send mass messaging to our seniors and adults with disabilities on the registry. 1:44:57 You may have heard that from usually Commissioner Kazi-Gomez's voice that goes out with information for those seniors and adults with disabilities on the registry. Okay, thank you for that. Next we have Senator Novell E. Francis Jr. You're now recognized. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, good morning to you, my colleagues, good morning to the testifiers, the Vaitima from the Ving, Virgin Islands National Guard, as well as Department of Human Services, and good morning to the people of the Virgin Islands. 1:45:52 Director, obviously, I must commend you and your staff, as well as all of those individual department of health national guard that was responsible for keeping us safe during the pandemic we truly appreciate the service and the work that has been done to keep us safe so in your testimony today briefs well it's uh very comprehensive and there's a lot of information put into this but i've started as a commander i have said as a commissioner what about this testimony what about this presentation operationally that still gives you reason for pause and what keeps you up at night in respect to the situation that we're in right now and the fact that we're in hurricane alley and you know what what is what do you believe um how satisfied are you right now with the operability of the government of the virgin house to respond to a storm senator i would say you know a lot of what we learned lessons learned during uh kovid bringing the unified command together being national guard being by tema being FEMA, being Department of Health in this case, we'd also still engage when we need an actual response. So our interagency activities, both locally as well as federal partners, have been very, very strong. We just finished a state of emergency. We did a federal declaration for the sargassum threat to WAPA. Again, agencies came together for incident command, and we were very successful with doing that. 1:46:28 The challenge we have, Senator, is even though Irma Maria, we had quick response from the federal government, we cannot count on that every single time. and Agenda General Knox Lindbacher we've talked about this to get soldiers down here we were very lucky because of Hurricane Harvey in Texas positioned aircraft carriers to really quickly respond to this so we cannot have the expectations we're going to get that quick response so we say be self you know on your own for five days that's a very serious comment to be self-sufficient have your plans set up for individuals family businesses but help is going to come it's going to take a while to get here but entire the organization for st thomas st croix and st john we're very strong interagency and working with the original operation centers so having heard that and of course we know that florida was recently impacted have we done any coordination with our food supply chain uh for example have we had any discussion with them in respect to being self-sufficient over that that um you know 72 hours to five days period yeah you know looking at lessons learned from from florida again you can drive down the road you can you know you have lots of hotels those challenges here is to exist supply chain is one of our key concerns as you know 98 of our product comes from outside we saw this even after ian did impact the ships coming out of out of florida and that was one of the concerns we found out we have about a three to four day delay on those so it is a concern uh through the business emergency operations center through tropical shipping for example we are keeping tabs on the movement for those as you know most of the warehouses down here is not really warehouses with commodities so developing that that secondary capability but having that link right now with our supply chain is so critical and it's becoming stronger and stronger and i can't say enough about the support from tropical and crowley and o'neill's transportation have there been 1:47:56 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. 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VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 14 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety any after action report generated as a result of the pandemic and now that we're in the endemic phase uh we we've done two after actions from um covid one we did after year one and when we just finished doing a year year two look uh commissioner of health myself uh fema put together our focus areas interviews were done and we just finished putting a report out regarding the uh the strengths as well as the weaknesses from that the covet 19 experience and that information is posted and available for a public one minute it is not available for public use right now it came out on september 19th part of the action now the identified strength of weakness is part of our process improvement is identifying you know agencies responsible actions to be taken and timeline timelines to put in that but once that is done i'll be glad to share that with the senate um to see what we're doing and you know so lessons learned not just for the pandemic but for any other disaster some of the strength of weaknesses will come back again for us all right and before my time wind down um on this round i'd like to ask you and revisit the issue of blue tarps the need for blue tops and this territory is real and i think that it needs to go beyond um just being available during um the next storm but rather with all these heavy rains that we have been experiencing and we're not even in the height of the rainy season yet right um certainly january february will be seeing a lot of rain i think it's critical that we have a coordinated effort um between all of the entities the mr chair if i may conclude please proceed if we could have a coordinated effort between by tema the virgin annals national guard department of public works the um legislature if funding is required but i think that if we're going to do good by our community we need to address the blue tarp situation and be able to support and assist our residents you know during that critical time it's real my heart hurts every time it pours because i know that there's seniors there are individuals within our committee that's severely significantly impacted as a result of these heavy rains um so we need to know and let's do an analysis and come up with a cost of what that will take and we'll make every effort here in the 34th legislature to be able to fund and support this We are all in this together, but I believe that if we are going to do anything to impact and benefit our community, we need to support them with this blue tarp situation. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for the time. That's just food for thought. You don't have to respond to it at this time, but that is a real situation that my 1:49:57 people are experiencing. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Senator Francis. And before we go to Senator James, I wanted to ask, in line 15 of your testimony, you You mentioned your information officer. Are bilingual or even trilingual services available by your information officer, meaning Spanish, Creole, English, of course? My public information officer is Eric Eckerson. 1:52:20 Eric, I'll leave Kim has a second to answer this question, but we do work, we put publications out. The National Weather Service in Puerto Rico obviously is bilingual, so the weather report It's definitely going to be in English and Spanish. A lot of the postings we do put out are bilingual, trilingual. That's a bit of a challenge for us. I know at 9-1-1 we do use a language line. We can talk about that with Deputy Attorney Kelly, but I'll give Eric Acker soon a couple of minutes, sir. Okay. Concerning your planning or a seat at the table, are our telecommunications companies referenced or part of those discussions? The Emergency Management Council meeting right now, I have VIA. He's been very much part of it for several years now. 1:52:51 We're also going to include Liberty. So VIA, I've reached out to him and I'm going to send an invitation for next Thursday to join us to make sure we have both private sector covered communications. I didn't hear about T-Mobile, which was previously Sprint, so that could also be another. I can include T-Mobile also. Okay. Thank you. Senator James, you're recognized for your five minutes. Greetings to the people of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Thank you, testifiers, for being here. As you speak about your pod site, you mentioned that the blue tarps should be distributed, but as far as your inventory, can you give us a breakdown as far as your inventory when it comes to blue tarps? Officially, Senator James, we don't have an inventory on blue tarps. We do have some that are located on St. Thomas and St. Croix, and as we have a need for them, we will present a couple here and there but there is no official inventory i can share at this time any blue tarps we would get would come from a post disaster just like the food the water would come from fema so fema has a warehouse here on saint croix a warehouse on saint thomas and we have the 40-foot containers on saint john that's where our blue tarps would come from from a post event so my follow-up question would be when we do receive blue tops is we are funding it on a local level or that's subsidized on a federal level one minute from a post-event perspective it will come from a federal level and based upon the disaster it'll be a cost here most likely it'll be 75 25 percent or go 90 10 but that really will come from the federal side just like the water and come from the food and if we were to fund it on a local level to help our people to make sure that we have something uh how much you think that would cost for that's an average i know we can't account 1:53:34 for every single person but just to have at least some i think in inventory i think there's two types there's the you know 20 foot by 25 foot tarp and then there's basically the 100 foot type that goes on top of the roof now a lot of folks uh have a difficulty putting a 100 foot tarp up on top of the roof so the cost to do that also is it just the equipment or the just answer 1:55:21 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. 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VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 15 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety your question i'd have to find out um the cost for those those items sir and do we know the the life span of the blue tarps because you know ever since hurricanes irma maria the sun the weather changes have been beaten on those blue tops what is the lifespan for those blue tarps again they're identified to be temporary and it's part of fema's step program it's just temporary services i don't know the actual life expectancy of those i know the 20 by 25 are probably shorter because they're not as durable the longer roofs that blue tarps are more durable but again it takes another weather conditions the wind the rain will obviously and the sun will impact those off to go back and work on that and the key word here today is temporary and i'm glad you used that word temporary and it has become a permanent situation so we as a government not saying we must fix every single issue in the territory but something of that nature we have to do deal with that because the basic need for humans is basically food water and shelter and we have to make sure that we provide those resources so at a later time you can have that follow-up discussion to find out how this government can have some form of inventory because you don't know the lifespan for those blue tops and it should be temporary and it has now become permanent and as far as the Wi-Fi hotspots you mentioned with VI NGN and via how often do we test those the reliability for those Wi-Fi on hotspots because I know the governor has been talking about having Wi-Fi all of them all over the place but it's only five megabytes and even though it's sound good it's not really that fast but as far as testing the reliability of it how often do you test that to make sure when we do have a natural disaster or any kind of disaster that we are ready and can be able to utilize those resources well I work quite a bit both the via in VI and GN as far as the status of the hotspots that I would rely upon them I know that we did a recent exercise we did our tsunami siren ceremony we used a hotspot at a DC Kanagata and actually a hotspot worked at DC Kanagata very well plus outside we actually did a live broadcast from that way so that in DC Canongate is a shelter, so that's basically, you know, working with both BINGN and VIA to validate those. Okay, please do so, because I must admit that during Tropical Storm, Fiona, even though it wasn't a hurricane when it came here, we did well when it comes to technology and having access to the internet, electricity, and what have you. 1:57:34 So I want to applaud all the stakeholders and departments and agencies who have made sure that we are stayed connected and up to power with the 21st century and as far as the patient movement and evacuation plan you mentioned that in your testimony but as far as room for improvement what are the areas do you think that we need room for improvement to make sure that we can have a successful plan because not just about hurricanes it can be anything can be a tsunami or earthquake we never know what is going to be the next disaster but I just want to make sure as far as the patient movement and evacuation plan what are the areas for improvement yeah well i i'll turn this over to both health human services because they're joint in the success for patient moving evacuation so since commissioner malloy i'll ask him to go first but ultimately it's having that plan together and after the event having that the case workers stand up and support as we evacuate individuals outside the territory and then the conditions to come back in the territory that's my take on it but i'll ask Mr. Molloy. 1:58:23 Please do, and that would be my last question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And we want the elaborate version, and just expound on it, because it's very important that we have this thing placed on the record as far as, in any case of emergency, how are we going to get our people out to a safe location, if need be? Thank you. Thank you, Senator James. And I'd like to recognize my vice chair, who's up next, Senator Duane M. DeGraff. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, colleagues. Hold on, vice chair. I apologize. 1:59:23 Okay. Someone online needed to- No, this is Commissioner Malloy to answer the question about the patient movement evacuation. Okay. The lessons learned are the gaps still there. Okay. Please proceed. One moment, vice chair. Please recognize Mr. Molloy's microphone. Good morning. Good morning again. Ruben Molloy, Assistant Commissioner of Virginia's Department of Health. There were a lot of lessons learned since the 2017 storms as far as patient movement evacuation is concerned. One of the biggest improvements that we made was our efforts to keep track of our citizens once they have been evacuated outside of the territory. And we implemented the J-PATS system, which does that electronic system that keeps track of persons within the system. 2:00:01 J-PATS stands for Joint Patient Assessment Movement System. Joint Patient Assessment Something System. And tracking system. Sorry. So that was one of the improvements made. We also, and Human Services will more talk to this, but the case management surrounding patient movements and ensuring that we make more efforts to repatriate the evacuees as soon as possible. 2:01:15 So can I take a little bit, to better answer the previous question about medication supply chain, may? Before you do that, what are the areas that you needed to work on specifically? What were those areas? The collaboration between internally, so, and the changing in strategy, the strategy is to shelter in place to the extent that we can. So the first response would be to transfer within the territory based on the situation between the two hospitals. And then one of the challenges with the 2:02:00 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 16 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety 2017 storm is that, and we have since learned, is that the first option has always been to go to Puerto Rico. And that was one of the factors in losing track of our patients, of our evacuees. When Maria left here, it hit Puerto Rico, it devastated Puerto Rico. And they were initially evacuated to Puerto Rico and then had to be, because of the devastation in Puerto Rico had to be evacuated and we lost contact, hence the JPAT system. As far as keeping more in contact, again that goes to case management and ensuring the quality of life and the connection back to the territory is maintained, that does another improvement that was made, ensuring that we have pre-contracts or mutual agreements with, again, following the strategy of sheltering in place and using the resources within the territory first. For dialysis, for example, ensuring that there's a relationship with, that the hospitals establish relationship with the brick-and-mortar private dialysis companies or any other so that those dialysis patients can be can be dealt with better and that's pretty much what comes to mind. And for the chain of supply concerning medical supplies that Senator Francis Heilegger initially requested information on? 2:03:31 So as a regular part of the hospital's operations during hurricane season in particular they increased their power levels so they increased the amount of medications the number of medications rather that they have on hand and as And again, in partnership, if there's a local facility, a healthcare facility, that has the medication that is needed by another, they collaborate and share that way. 2:04:50 And then when that strategy is exhausted, it gets escalated to the Emergency Operations center where we seek federal assistance in ensuring that whatever can be done from a supply chain perspective to facilitate the receipt of the medication is is done. I appreciate those answers thank you very much and again I wanted to to introduce my vice chair sorry for the the hiccup earlier vice chair Dwayne M. DeGraff. You are now recognized, sir. 2:05:25 Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, you're doing great. Don't worry about little things like that. You're doing excellent. While we are on J-PATS, you know when I sponsored that bill and my colleagues supported it, there were individuals who were sent out from this territory out to atlanta in particular i went atlanta to visit them and they were really cut off so when i heard you speak of puerto rico you're doing your link with um how would you be able to do the link with other states in in the u.s regarding our virgin islanders leaving here to go for disaster issues. This is Senator Director Josh, and I'll take a quick, there's two parts to this. There's one, the JPATS piece that Mr. Malawi talked about, which basically tracks someone leaving here. Then the Department of Human Services has a system called PULSE, which basically then ties in the records between the different locations, hospitals, as well as patient current status. 2:06:04 so jpath you talked about already if i can ask either miss henry or uh department services to talk about the pulse i think you'll see it the overall perspective the two systems working together okay should i go ahead good morning uh mccall rymer brown assistant commissioner and we can share this um pulse is the patient unified lookup service uh system for emergencies and so our medicaid program is the primary lead on this so when we have um individuals who may have to leave the territory their medical history will track with them we will be using um the pulse also when people come to the shelters and miss henry you want to talk a little bit about that good morning yvette henry community affairs coordinator thank you uh ac bent uh mccall um rima brown pulse will track as uh ac said will track the patients through uh their medical and pharmaceutical history so when a patient comes at the shelter an individual comes at the shelter we We'll track them from their medical and pharmaceutical history. If they had to leave the shelter, going back home, or even off-island, we have tracking systems through the pulse that will be linked, and we will know where they are at all times. 2:07:14 Okay, that's good information to have. It's a big help. You know, I'd like to back up and beg my apologies. to I didn't say good morning direct mr. chair thank you good morning colleagues good morning director Josh in assistant commissioner Michael Brown morning general and and all other members present viewing a listening audience director Justin human services VA National Guard I tried and tested over years for disaster. So I have no doubt in my mind that we won't get through, we need to get through. But what was interesting in your testimony, Director Josh, when you spoke directly in regards to SWAT, the strengths are your staff. In regards to your staff, right off the bat, do you know where all your staff live and who are the essential ones for them reporting to work? Do you know of any of have young children that need to beforehand make arrangements for these kind of things uh also elderly parents or whatever do you have that kind of information when it come to your strengths for your staff for the accountability for our staff senator yes it's part of what our requirements are for a continuity of operations plan we need to know where each of our staff is located for accountability as far as elders that piece i i can't address too but deputy philamine is with me from human resources um she can address to the actual system we put in place good good morning melinda philomene good morning 2:08:48 cool plan um tracking of all of our staff we um as as well as part of our onboarding we require um addresses and point by point location for each of our staff and where they're whether where they live um as far as tracking elderly parents um things of that nature that's not something that we're tracking right now but we do track each of our staff where they live we have strip maps um as uh that's downloaded in our system that our leadership can access to look to locate staff in the 2:10:38 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. 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VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 17 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety event of an emergency and and also in closing mr chair also for the um department with human services and the national guard for your critical essential workers do you have that kind of information uh to track them prior to so once they come out to work these are some information that you would have for assisting them uh and closing you could just answer on the chair's time thank you for the time mr chair uh good afternoon mckell rima brown assistant commissioner human services we do track our staff we have our addresses i know we update them so we can know where our our staff are located we actually also for all emergencies not just hurricanes have formed whatsapp groups for our different divisions so our administrators can with the click of a button send mass messages to our staff especially in our homes for the aged we are those employees who have to be in place and are our essential essential staff for our 24-hour facilities our home makers our drivers human services is always on the go so we know we have to take care of staff and as we have done in past disasters we have brought supplies to the staff so they can be taken care of they do not have to go in in the massive lines because we'll actually be distributing a lot of the supplies and the food and the other assistive um services so we take care of our staff because we know our staff has to take care of the people of the virgin islands okay thank you and i wanted to recognize the presence of the honorable senator frankie johnson morning sir you are now recognized for your five minutes good morning thank you very much i wanted to make sure the time i do apologize for my tardiness today um the 15th of october is white cane day and i um do support that independent living group and lions club and i do take part in it so So I was called to be a speaker there today, and I could not pass that moment up. It was very important, very dear to me, so I made sure I attend that. So I'm very sorry, and if I do start asking questions that have already been asked, just say, ask an answer. So we could go choose smooth versus wasting up time. Again, good morning to testifiers, to the viewing and listening audience. Director Justin, how are you doing this morning? 2:13:03 Fine, Senator. I want to ask you a kind of, not a trick question, but how good is the information that we receive when it comes to weather in the area? Because about maybe two, three weeks ago, there was this downpour of rain that caught everyone by surprise. And I was traveling west going home that morning, that evening. And I have, I must say, I've never been caught in weather like that before. I stay home when weather is wrong. I come out when it's safe. But the weather, the water that was coming off the hills going down Center Line Road was very dangerous. And I, when I got home and I start tuning in and speaking to folks, people was being stuck out there and needed to be rescued and didn't hear anything about that type of rain coming down on us. Can you give me a little information on that? Thank you for the question, Senator. We work with the National Weather Service in in Puerto Rico, and so typically the depressions, the storms, we track those very well, updates that come out very nicely. What you have, you have tropical waves that are coming through, three or four, and there's three out there right now. Those tropical waves do have moisture with them. This is one in particular, I can admit, that it caught us off guard, we had no advance notice. It was coming that particular night. 2:13:59 We knew that wave was coming, we already set up to talk to the National Weather Service the following morning, but that night, we definitely were caught off guard. Even Governor Bryan and I talked about that. Deputy Kelly and the operations side of the house, we were tracking with 911 the concerns. We did have fire out there. We did have, police were out there, especially down in Frederickstead. There was some flooding that occurred, doing some of the contractor work on the road repair down there. But yes, we were out and about for that, but it did catch us off guard, Senator. Thank you. I appreciate that kindness about it because everyone was, I know you could have heard the radios the next morning, was getting a lot of whiplash coming at you. 2:15:18 But it was very, and me and my colleague, Senator Giddens, was heading down. And as he said, I was right on his bumper. I said, if he go, I go in with you. But it was very serious. People was very off guard. I want to ask you this question. How many staff members have Vytema lost, which were key players in the operation of the emergency response? How many staff members have you lost? I would say a lot of my all my staff are key players and over a period of time let me see if I can pull this out we've lost approximately over the last 12 months I'd say about 15 quickly have any conversation been had with the version of personnel and to increase those salary of your staff to prevent people from leaving a lot of times when you hear folks leave a lot of time it's because of capital, dollars and cents. 2:15:57 Senator, that's part of, again, the SWOT analysis came up with that. I'll ask Ms. Filliman to talk about that for a minute. But if you look at VITEMA broken out overall, let's say 100 individuals, 40 of those are under federal funded for disaster recovery, hazard mitigation and public assistance. We worked in getting parity with those particular positions, but not parity with the federal side, like a FEMA position. That's always gonna keep us this other side. The other 40 are with 911, ECC, and that's under Office of Collective Bargaining. We've met the obligations going forward. The last increase was 3%. We're about to go into a new contract negotiation with them. The remaining 20 are really the general fund positions which we've been working with the governor's office, and we may get something, but right now we cannot guarantee anything without going through that. 2:16:53 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 18 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety And have you guys been- One minute. Interviewing folks that are exiting to kind of get a feel as to the reason why they're leaving? Yes, yes, sir. I will ask Ms. Philomine to go ahead and elaborate on that. Please. Good morning, Senator. Come on. Merlinda Philomine, Deputy Director of HR Labor Relations. Exit interviews are conducted. They are not a requirement, but we strongly, we send the invites. The majority of the staff that do leave, they participate. And I would say the vast majority of the employees that leave VITEMA leave for other opportunities, some with FEMA, some with other government agencies, and particularly they do get paid more when they leave and they go for those opportunities. 2:17:42 All right, thank you. Is there a list of volunteers that are ready to assist during a natural disaster? And do you guys have a list, a number of volunteers that have made contact with you guys and what are the numbers? We do have a group that's based upon our CERT training, which is community emergency response team. They go through that course and then they're available if we need to. My Deputy Director for Planning and Preparedness is not here this morning, so I cannot give you a number right now, but I'd have to get back with you, Senator, on that detail. I think I heard time, but Mr. Chair, may I follow up on this last question? 2:18:22 Please proceed. We had some tests on the sirens, and I hear a lot of folks complaining, saying that they didn't even hear anything. Have we been testing? And I look at the numbers, and St. Croix is a pretty big place, And I see the numbers in reference to how many is on St. Thomas versus how much on St. Croix. Do St. Croix need more sirens to be placed? There are 19 on St. Thomas and 17 on St. Croix. 2:18:56 A lot has to do with the locations for evacuation. That's the concern right now is all the positions. There are some gaps there. I recognize that. The current project was replaced. All 44 of those have been successful being replaced now. The ones in St. Croix, the 17, were the exact same location as they were before the storm. We did not do the test on the 29th of September against the software challenges here in St. Croix. New servers coming in, and the next test we're planning to do is going to be next Thursday on the 20th of October, part of the Great Shakeout. Those 17, are they sufficient for the island of St. Croix? Are they enough? Because St. Thomas is a more hill terrain. 2:19:28 St. Croix have a lot more flat. I would say down in Frederickstead, we have three down that area. That's, again, the area they coverage and how they inform individuals who are outside to evacuate. We have three down there very nicely. We have the ones in the North Shore. They can always improve. I think, again, part of the education we're going to have as far as it's sounding now is what area is covered and what gaps we do have. That's what we want to find out as we start testing these to make sure we do have those identified. There's one in particular, like Zion Farm. it's 133 feet above elevation sea level why do i have one there i gotta i gotta answer that question again that goes back to before my time before your time um there's always things we can improve it's about 46 000 per siren to put in place um but right now we're going to try to figure out what we have here today do they work the operational with that coverage area all right thank you very much thank you very much mr chair thank you senator johnson and uh i will say that one of the most important components in in in the recovery or response process is communication and what I would like to know is with the 9-1-1 service is that available landline and wireless I've had a number of messages on the social media side stating that individuals aren't able to access 9-1-1 from their wireless phones i'm not sure how how accurate that is so i'm asking the question in a normal 24-hour day both both phones by mobile and lineline give you access to 9-1-1 in some cases if we have a lot of calls coming into one one nine one station in st thomas then basically it'll roll over to st croix you may get the st croix operator answering you if all operators are are occupied you basically you get put on a hold status until one can be freed up Now this morning was a specific case that did impact 9-1-1 about 4.30 this morning. We had a situation where we only were able to receive calls in from T-Mobile and Viya customers. We found out based on discussions that we were not getting information for AT&T or Liberty side of the house. 2:20:08 So we were working with that since 4.30 this morning. As of 10 o'clock this morning we had We did put information out, both an alert VI system as well as our Facebook to let people know that. We do recognize it's a problem. It did come back. It's operational right now. If you want specific details on that, I'll turn it over to Deputy Rector Kelly, but we do validate that that was a concern this morning, sir. Deputy Rector Kelly Okay. Okay. I'm glad for that update. For those who are tuning in from social media with questions, that was the answer. With technology, we know that technology doesn't always work 100 percent of the time. However, it is a very valuable tool that we utilize in order for communication purposes. So I'm glad that you were able to rectify that and continue to have that service available. 2:22:22 And I would say, Senator, I would also encourage individuals to sign up for alert VI system. We did send an alert VI system out and we said here are the numbers to call for fire, for feed PD, for rescue if you need help and support. So that also is a means by which we communicate to the community. I have another question concerning, and clerk, please make sure you have my time. want to go over concerning sandbags you're not specifically responsible for sandbags vitema correct we're the coordinating effort it's basically three agencies vitema department of public works and fire so vitema is the one that says during an emergency open the sandbag shoot up let's get things going but ultimately it's department of 2:23:07 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 19 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety public works it is a fire the actual purchasing of the sand it's been split being the budgets one year is DPW going at 23 VITEMA has money to purchase sand and we have some sandbags also. We just spent some money at some of our sandbags. So it's a combination of the three agencies together to make sure that it's available. We went through the Blue Sky sandbags this year and again we will hold some back until an actual event but we want to try to get those out as soon as we have a threat coming out. Okay, ask the question because I find that whenever we are distributed sandbags that you know, after we utilize them, we put them somewhere in the yard and then we're not able to use the sandbag anymore. So from a financial cost-effective standpoint, have you researched other types of products that you can utilize, such as, i.e., a water door stopper, okay? I've found, I've been doing some research on them, and we want to be able to have something that people can use over and over you know while sandbag distribution is a very great component it's something that we need to do to secure our homes in the event of we want to have at least suggestionary have something that we can give the people that they can use for years to come in a sense without having to go back every time for sandbags heavy sandbags I would be very open to look at those options and costs again it goes back to the funding for those you know post-event we did get a lot of event sandbags from actually our army corps of engineers they will not give us anything pre-event they won't give us sand in between it but look at the cost for sand and sandbags if they put that together and if we can get then get a solution that we can send out that would be a great option to look at we will look at this another option also too is um the glass crushers where you crush the glass it could potentially be utilized as well that's a whole different discussion however um initially i was speaking to uh general limbacher on the line and um what i'm looking at is something from a theoretical standpoint where we want to be proactive rather than reactive in a sense and i know that we have troops and i suppose every year perhaps you have troops coming from different states when it comes to the to the the National Guards facilitating. 2:24:29 I know this here is Michigan and somewhere else. We have drills that come up, and sometimes we had the leadership that comes down from those states, but as far as doing a full-scale exercise, the last one we did was back in 2017, was the vigilant guard. So I'm looking at it this way. In the event that there is a disaster on the mainland, and those troops are elongated to serve or service or provide response for another state and may not be readily available to come here in this territory, which is the Virgin Islands, what other relationships do we have around the Caribbean, for instance, with organizations such as CEDEMA or even organizations such as PAHO, which also provide a lot of intricate services to include training for the community and other response efforts where are we on that do we have a relationship with those organizations or are we just totally um depending on the united states and whatever services we can get from them and there's two answers to this national guard and having 54 states and territories it's just not michigan and in kentucky we work with those two states they've come down they visited us they they know our leadership, they know the terrain, they know the right side of the road. So that's part of the relationship. 2:26:09 We can still get them from California, from Texas, from Virginia. It goes back to that skill set, and again, they come with understanding, you know, similar equipment, leadership, they understand how that works. We have ability to both have active duty forces come down here also for support, but you're right. If someone's spread too thin, where else do we go? The National Guard, General Lox Lindbacher, we work with Florida to establish a partnership with some other island nations. So it's a regional security system and we do work with very much the defense forces. We work with both Grenada, Trinidad, Antigua and to provide support to them, exercises they go on each year that are called Tradewinds or Beyond the Horizon, but usually it's us going to them. 2:27:34 We've had representatives from that group have come in with us as leaders and get to know each other, but there's not really been an exercise that I'm aware that we actually have come brought to here. If we look at how we would do that during an actual storm and response, for a separate island nation, we have to work with the Department of State in order to have that support going through with us. But I think from a training perspective, all of it is about establishing the relationships and the skill sets, other communications or equipment to support or just having individuals come to support us. 2:28:19 And I totally understand that. And I know that you mentioned that the support system that's in place understands the infrastructure here as well, but also you may want to consider the fact that island Caribbean nations understand our infrastructure perhaps even more than individuals who are coming from the mainland, of course, with no disrespect to them. But, you know, they understand the geography, the infrastructure in some cases, and in some cases just the culture, in a sense. So, you know, I think it wouldn't hurt to have those stakeholders at the table. That's a great opportunity to have a discussion. I can tell you, having done a deployment in Trinidad, the biggest challenge we had was the food. We want the cultural food. The military would say, no, here's your food, and we basically put that to the side. We went out and purchased local food, and we knew what to get. And that really made a big improvement for morale. 2:28:47 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 20 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety And same thing, if individuals from the island Asians came here to support us, we would want to get them local food also okay okay thank you for that and mr. chair may answer some of that question yes please proceed general yes I think the key here is authorities capability and capacity also one is a u.s. territory so u.s. territory means that only title 32 forces unless under due status commander has ability to law enforcement some of the requirements we have a foreign country no matter how Caribbean nation or other would not have the authorities to do that on a sustained department coordination and for us to even coordinate to help our Caribbean partners next door takes a significant amount of energy and processes that are beyond a timely timeline to respond. Second, capacity and capability. As you look at it, the National Guard itself is actually larger than the Marine Corps. So you can look at the amount of capacity that comes from the Guard from the 54 states and territories. They have the ability to flex personnel and equipment and aircraft of an additional amount of states. When it comes to the capability they bring, our Caribbean nations don't have the capability on the scale that we would need to help us in time of a need. The personnel who come from the different states continue to support, come rehearse and are integrated with our police force, fire stations, as well as our National guards um there's a first second and third iteration of organizations signed up so if it's not a state like michigan or uh or uh new early correction uh louisiana there's another two or three states that are signed up to be the second and third order what we call the reception stage and our movement and integration um so we've thought about that um right now the discussion really in some of southern command capacity which is soft combat controls that area so that's a the different combatant command versus the Virgin Islands of Puerto Rico or the Northern Command, we're actually looking to be able to push support to our Caribbean nations. However, as I said before, the authorities, when it crosses the country, changes significantly, and that comes into the State Department, 2:29:46 USAID, and other requirements that does not happen fast enough to happen sometime in need. Thank you for that response, General. And before we move into a recess, we're going to recess for about 20 minutes. A point of personal privilege, Senator Johnson. Senator Johnson Johnson Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge my friend, Mr. Joe Pierce, who is here with his great-granddaughters, all the way from Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Taryn Favors and Victoria Pears. These young lady came to visit their great grandfather and wanted to kind of see what we do here and how it's conducted and the business that we conduct. So I welcome you guys and I hope you get a nice experience as to what's going on and what we do for the people of this territory. Enjoy your stay here all right. Thank you very much Mr. Chair. Yes you're welcome sir and welcome to the family as well and thanks for being here and partaking in this effort we are going to take a 20-minute recess and we'll come back with a second round the committee is now in recess We'll be right back. Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. do Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Thank you. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Thank you. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Thank you. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Thank you. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Thank you. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 2:31:58 the committee on homeland security justice and public safety has now returned from recess today friday october 14 2022 we're conducting a hearing here on the island of saint croix in the fritz elouette's legislative conference room to receive update on the strengths and weaknesses on opportunities and threats of all the projects and programs related to hurricane preparedness by the following agencies, the Virgin Islands Territorial Emergency Management Agency, Virgin Islands Department of Human Services, and the Virgin Islands National Guard. 3:18:32 Mr. Joshin, concerning your communication when it comes to your towers, if or in the event of damage that has taken place to any communication towers throughout the Virgin Islands, what sort of plans do you have to mitigate or to assist with temporary communication methods? 3:19:22 Good afternoon, Senator Bulkus. Good afternoon, committee. Director Johnson from VITEMA. There's two parts to the answer to the question. One has to do like emergency communications such as 911 system for fire, EMS, and police. So the Bureau of Information Technology with Director Ross, they had purchased six 100-foot towers. And those towers can be mobile, they're on trailers, they can be set up, they're on generators. We have three on St. Croix and we have three on St. Thomas. One of the concerns for St. John that you addressed earlier was if we can get one over there, one can be 3:19:48 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 21 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety staged over there. Those trailers are 28 foot long trailers, so we also obviously have to find space for those. In talking to Director Ross, if we had the need we will take them over to St. John, we'll set them up and erect them during an outage that would be affected, such as after a hurricane or a storm that would take the outage out. That would be primarily for again 911 communication. The second part of this would be cell towers. Cell towers go down. We lost the AT&T tower over in St. John quite a bit. So we have two private providers. We have a combination of Liberty and AT&T. AT&T has provided technology with a mobile equipment called cell on wheels, and they actually did a test this year, one on St. John or down in Coral Bay, to actually set something up and actually run emergency communications. It can be set up for mobile communications for FirstNet has a range of two miles. They've been tested. The operators though would be actually out of Liberty Communications. So the live tests we did on St. John was very well received in the community. We had BIT staff out there. We had some of the senior first responders down there. We also did it on St. Croix. So again the challenge is setting them up and getting going. The private sector at Liberty just says give us a call. AT&T they'll put them up after disaster and then with BIT we'll basically self deploy as we need to concerning the island of st. John with the 28 foot container are you saying that if if we're able to house it somewhere that that can be stationed on st. John in the event of yeah I won't speak for director Ross but I think if he can find a spot over there he would be very much in favor for putting something out on st. John okay okay and concerning first net how many first net towers do we currently have uh either in the virgin islands or district wise do you have those numbers yeah that's going to be a director ross um answer but i know that with first net they're supposed to build out an additional six on st croix and some additionals on st thomas and st john uh at t is the contract to do that uh director ross has been working with them there are a couple of them active but to tell you we have a territory-wide coverage and first net we're not there yet okay noted thank you for that update uh currently um in your testimony uh you you definitely had a broad scope of uh preparation strength weaknesses and opportunities however there was one key component that i didn't quite see and i would like to see hopefully um collectively the team um address as well and and that is mental health and why do i say that it's because Because during these times of disaster when one potentially loses their life, not perhaps in a physical standpoint, but just your home, your vehicle, the food in your refrigerator, the schools have been destroyed, hospitals in shambles, whatever, your mental state of being is also a very important aspect of recovery as well. so I'd like to hopefully see more efforts not that you have not provided any efforts but more efforts to address the mental health component of the recovery process I know that that's more on the health and hospital side but I didn't quite see it in the testimony so just something to think about okay yes sir and if I can add just a couple bits 9-1-1 is special I mean, from our staffing perspective and Director Kelly can talk about this if you want in detail, but looking at stressful environment and after an event, not just a hurricane, but an event for 9-1-1, 3:21:41 even for police and fire, you want to basically prepare and take care of those individuals. We're building a new facility coming up. We actually have a separate room and there's sort of a decompression room. So I think you're saying mental health is very much a concern in the community, but especially for our 9-1-1 operators, anybody else who has to be part of emergency management. And if I may direct over to Mr. Malloy, what are some of the ways that the department is trying to focus on mental health for individuals who have been affected by natural disasters such as hurricanes? The Department of Health The staff addresses mental health across the continuum. 3:24:04 So for example, in shelters, you have identified key personnel that are placed in the shelter to include behavioral health leadership clinicians, behavioral health nurses, and state opioid response staff. The staff is identified to de-escalate stress management techniques, as well as medication management. In June, the Department of Health conducted a survey related to COVID, and some of the questions that were asked in that survey, the behavioral health questions asked in that survey, So, have you received services from a counsellor, pastor, therapist, social worker, or SAMHSA hatline for behavioural health concerns since COVID-19, for example? 3:24:49 So, I know that COVID-19 is a concern, well, has been a concern, But from a hurricane recovery standpoint, for those who have been affected to the lengths that they have lost, you know, their home, their livelihoods or whatever, what are we doing to support them? I know that the shelters are in place, but do we have individuals like counselors in a sense that are available to come to the shelters to help those individuals get through the process? 3:25:57 Yeah, behavioral health is a priority for the Department of Health and Brian, and we have been increasing the number of staff. We have hired a new director, our Deputy Commissioner, Renan Steele, a counselor. So that, the resources and the counseling services that are being provided to the public have increased, despite our clubhouse is open. It does have a small census right now. 3:26:30 That's the need. I mean, that's... So we do provide those services. Right now, the outreach vans are being used to sort of transition out of our modulars, but basically we're ramping up the services, and they're going to be deployed. 3:27:14 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 22 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety or um okay um well i'd like to i'd like to um communicate with you and um the team uh we have the the chair of the committee of uh health here with us and i'd like to collaborate with him just to find out a little bit more about what those efforts are um concerning you know mental health or grievance or counseling for individuals who have been affected by disasters such as what we're discussing today. Did you want to say? Point of clarification, Senator Francis. Well, I appreciate it. You wanted to say something, Mr. Molloy? 3:27:50 I just wanted to say that behavioral health is always a concern and is a component in the response, and after 2017 we actually asked for additional resources to come here and to provide counseling to responders. And it was fortuitous because a dear friend of mine passed, a fireman passed, a very popular person passed, and they were there to support the fire department and other first responders because they were already in the territory in response to the 2017 hurricane. That's just an example of the mechanisms that are in place, the resources that are in place to provide behavioral health services in response to a disaster. 3:28:30 Thank you. Point of information, Senator Francis. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I think that when we have this conversation in respect to behavioral health or even mental health is that we have to look at the comprehensive effort of behavioral health. And in fact, you know, we've been working with the administration in regards to the rollout of a comprehensive behavioral health reform. We can't have this conversation and expect that the government alone will be responsible for behavioral health, mental health. You know, we have been working with the nonprofit organization to ensure that they too are part of the discussion in respect to behavioral health. We have the Women's Coalition and those type of entity. We have NAMI. We have a number of components that's involved in the whole paradigm of discussion regarding behavioral health. When we look at the government agencies, certainly we have the EAP program through the Cigna Health Insurance that's available to support and assist in behavioral health issues for government employees and other individuals that have insurance coverage. I have been at the forefront in making sure that we're able to support this body, the 34th, the 33rd legislature, have been able to support behavioral health. We provided funding to the Department of Health. We also have the issue of our Frederickstead Health Center, the Eastern Medical Center. So this discussion about behavioral health cannot be done in a vacuum, but more importantly, that the nonprofit organization, the government entities are involved. really all the stakeholders need to come and be a part of that discussion as we discuss behavioral health. We have a number of families that continue to be under siege because of behavioral health issue. We have a number of fallouts by individuals and we try to take the cases one by one to be able to resolve some of those issues and make sure that there are proper placements. We don't have sufficient facilities. This government spent millions and millions of dollars in regards to behavioral health and having facilities off-island to address some of those chronic and acute state of behavioral health issues. My message here is that we can't just expect that the government entities will be responsible for this, but we all have to really come together as we address the behavioral health issues. Thank 3:29:26 you very much for the opportunity. Thank you to Senator Francis and Senator Kenneth L. Gittins. You are now recognized for your five minutes thank you thank you mr. chair and good afternoon to all again I leave the premium pay question for last I want to go back to the discussions of tropical storm Fiona because there was little locally generated information during that time and where we appreciate the National Weather Service updates we need to have our own local weather updates as well Because the last time, not with Fiona, but with the other rainfalls, I mean, we only know that something was happening after we were in harm's way already and the streets were already flooding. My colleague just fell short of telling you how frightened he was tailgating me heading west that day. Now, is there a way that VITEMA can better advise the community on these flash flood threats ahead of time? Good afternoon, Senator Gittins. 3:31:55 A lot of it has to do with just talking to National Weather Service in Puerto Rico. We went to the point, based upon the time of day, time of year, time of month, to actually have pre-meetings with them. a lot of times puerto rico they see the radar but they don't understand the local conditions and i can tell you for this particular event you're talking about we were having a pre-arranged meeting the following morning however this this storm did come in advanced from what we expected so that's i think one of your steps you're saying is we definitely want to have advanced communication with national weather service in puerto rico and we can't get information out as As soon as we can to the public, we want to do that. 3:33:26 So we, too, here locally need to pay a little closer attention so that we can assist them if we're depending on them. Exactly. Can they do ask us? Tell us what's going on. Yes, sir. Now, you spoke about employees attending the, what was it, national? a hurricane conference or a hurricane conference or something on the mainland uh who exactly uh attended that conference trying to find where you where you made mention on that do you recall who attended that conference i beat line 221 we had an assistant director barbara peterson she attended we had regina brown director for preparedness step director kelly to my left attended public information officer eric akerson attended also so all senior level individuals attended now when these individuals come back from these conferences do they impart that knowledge on the other staff 3:34:03 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 23 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety members is there a report generated that is reported to the community etc. Assistant Victor Peterson was the senior person there she put everybody together and we communicated that I do have twice a week staff meetings and part of that staff meeting we do share information for individuals who do go out and about to present and have those discussions so we do have some inner inner agency discussions after those conferences sir because you did mention your weaknesses and one of your weaknesses is a lack of redundancy the employees do not share what they learn or know so that hence my question to ask when they travel outside the territory for these conferences? Are they sharing the information? There's a format by which they can provide the information to our staff. Sometimes it does not happen. Sometimes it does happen. So I think it's part of our improvement process. So you as a head, what are you doing to ensure that this happens? This is your weakness that you're saying. 3:35:52 If you have recognized this to be your weakness, I want you to tell me exactly what are you doing to right that wrong. Well, we do have a form to fill out when you come back from a conference. It should be done within five days of coming back. That should be done. Is this being done, sir? I want you to be stern. You're a military, what's your rank in the military? A colonel. A colonel. Yes. I want you to be colonel-ish to me right now. Well, currently, Senator, it's not being done. Excuse me? Currently it's not being done. Currently it's not being done. So what are you going to do to ensure that it's done? We are representing the people of this territory, and we want the best. I have to enforce it. That's the easy answer. So I'm looking forward for enforcement, sir. Yes, sir. Thank you. 3:36:27 On page six, you spoke about the satellite phone and all three VITEMA EOCs. We need to continue our conversation on the auxiliary communications unit. We spoke about that. I know you're busy, but let's finalize our conversation. I have already submitted the bill drafts, which is BR number 22-1251 and 34-656. We could discuss this further so that we can finalize it and bring it to the floor for action. Yes, Senator. Okay. Now, also... Senator, your time has been called. It's called? You may ask one last question. 3:37:13 Wow, she's calling the time real soft. Okay, so let's go straight to the premium pay. All three agencies that's here, VITEMA, Department of Health, Department of Human Services. Are your employees, the question, are all your employees eligible for this premium pay? If yes, were there all names submitted to the Office of Management and Budget, and what's the status of these payments? 3:37:58 Have anyone within your agencies received premium pay thus far? Senator, I'll ask Deputy Director Philomine for VITEMA to answer that question, please. So we'll move from VITEMA to Department of Health and then to Human Services. Afternoon, Senator. I'm Melinda Philomine, Deputy Director of HR Labor Relations. All of VITEMA's employees' names were submitted to the Division of Personnel through an OMB. 117 names were submitted. 3:38:37 That include all of the employees that worked for VITEMA during the time frame prescribed, current and former employees. A total of 117 names. Pay period, September 10th, we received notice or the employees were paid out. a total of 81 employees were paid based on OMB's analysis on what should be paid to them, what categories they fall into, which we recognize the discrepancies in what we submitted to them as far as what categories they fell into. We requested an analysis from OMB to let us know which employees were paid, how much they were paid, and what categories they fell into. We received that report back. It was reviewed. We recognize the discrepancies. We should have our response back to OMB based on our review and our comparisons. By Tuesday, we should have that report back to OMB. 3:39:04 So just quickly, you said 81 were paid out. Yes. The remaining, were they in that category of over $70,000? Not all of them. Not all? Not all of them, no. So those that's not within that category of $70,000 will be paid? Well, we are resubmitting the list to OMB to ensure that those employees were captured or are captured. Thank you. And you're communicating that with the affected employees? Well, we submitted or we sent out an all-hands notification to the staff letting them know that we're doing the analysis. And once we complete the analysis, we'll keep them updated. Thank you. At least this agency has done what they're supposed to do with that. Thank you. Department of Health? 3:40:00 I'm sad that you have to get back to me with that because this is Department of Health that we're talking about. But let this not be a get back to me that you don't get back to me. I really want to know this information. Yes, sir. Department of Human Services. Good afternoon, Senator McHale-Ryma Brown, Assistant Commissioner. Human Services definitely submitted our list to our Division of Personnel office of management and budget i believe today our premium pay has been issued to our employees as we speak i've been getting thank yous from staff so i do not have the up-to-date numbers as how many people as of today were distributed we can get that from hr but checks were i think the notice notice of checks were in our employees emails letting them know that their premium pay is forthcoming or maybe in their bank accounts already so i believe that is a very good thing for our hard-working staff not every staff will receive premium pay we did have some small groups of workers who worked telework and therefore they would not be eligible but i believe we had probably close to 500 over 550 staff that will be compensated with premium pay well those are the ones that i'm 3:40:47 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 24 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety concerned about so we know that those who telework uh will not be paid but please Mr. Chair, I'm asking, it's not my fault that we haven't had a hearing in months. I'll be requesting through the chair from these three agencies a breakdown similarly to what the Deputy Director from VITEMA just gave us, letting us know the status of this premium payment to their employees, please, through the chair. Thank you so much. Thank you, Senator Giddens, and let the record reflect that when I come to the Economic Development and Agriculture Committee, which you chair, that I should have an additional three minutes of time. That's not a problem. Very well. Fair is fair, right? 3:42:32 Okay. While we are trying to remain germane to the discussion of the strengths and weaknesses on opportunities and threats of hurricane preparedness and response. I think that we· But I know how passionate you are about it, Senator Gettings, I know, so that's why I allowed it. Next up we have Senator Marvin A. Blyden. Is he available in the St. Thomas, St. John District chambers? 3:43:09 No? I now acknowledge the five minutes to Senator Alma Francis Heiliger. You're now recognized. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Good afternoon once again to my colleagues, to the legislative staff, to the testifiers. particular conversation I've continued to listen and I'm very very concerned overall with I'm trying to say this in a very we know that we have hurricane season on an annual basis and as much as I appreciate what the chairman is doing with us coming together i'm trying to understand is there a long-term way for us to have a continuous coordination as opposed to on an annual basis for this i i'm trying to this is who we are you understand what i'm saying we we live in a hurricane zone so i'm trying to figure out is there a way for us to have a plan that is so consistent every single that it rolls over that this is not we can get updates but we're so strong in what we're doing that the people look to these various agencies and teams to know that this is a solid foundation every time or if anything ever happens during the hurricane season i i like the conversations but i want some kind of solid ground and and i'm trying to understand do you think as a government will ever get to that place can can someone answer that senator joshin go ahead mr brown yes um assistant commissioner 3:43:49 mikhail rhima brown i must say senator our efforts are year round 12 months a year we have plans vitima is our lead they do extremely good work we have ongoing trainings our our staff also attended the hurricane conference we came back we did mass training of all 700 plus staff of the department of human services we have crisis response groups shelter groups we have our emergency service function esf6 our escs our coordinators who go into the vitima when we have emergencies so the work that we do across the gvi is a continual 12 months a year 365 days 366 on leap years so this is in our blood i heard senator marvin blyton say we do this we do this well we know what we're doing and i applaud especially director joshin because he leads our efforts well okay and that's the thing you keep talking about you do it well and i appreciate it i can see some of that because i'm here how do you articulate that to the public year round you understand what i'm saying i if and i'm speaking from a perspective of a representative speaking to the public and that's where my concern is it's it's one thing for me as a senator to come in here and you guys report to us it's one thing for me to get the reports for me to read them in my office but on a year-round braces could you tell me in the public how do you let them to know that this is what you're doing year round how do you let them to know that you're here for them how do you let them to know that hey we're consistently working on your behalf hey these are the shelters these are this these are the people you contact the public apparently is not getting that part of it and and as their representative when they're coming to me and they're questioning me the only people i can come to was you so that's where i'm trying to get at how do we make sure they know that you're there for them consistently year-round hey senator 3:45:56 director josh and uh there's our drills and exercises that we do also some are within agencies um some are with the public for example every october we do a great shakeout as of yesterday we have 13 000 individuals signed up in the community to participate next thursday at 10 20 in the morning on the great shakeout so i think that's one example again the talk the discussion heading up to that is so important also the month of march we do a tsunami drill that's called it's a tsunami exercise we do also now that we have the tsunami sirens going you're going to hear at least once a quarter you're going to hear drills going on for the tsunami sirens so it's by TEMA we want to be much more than just the hurricanes you heard our priorities you're going to hear more activities going on so I appreciate your discussion on that we do want to do outreach we do want to do training so those are a couple opportunities we do have to go out with the community okay well thank you for sharing that and thank you for the time thank you senator francis heileger and director joshan really quickly how frequently does vitima conduct or participate in these drills or practices or exercises you mentioned capstone and even a shelter drill recently um and also for the shelter drill let me know what your takeaways were concerning that drill obviously going to In the hurricane season, we have a capstone exercise every year. We want to get it done before 1 June, that's the intent, the start of hurricane season. We have the initiatives that were set up between by TEMA, PEMA, and the agencies to work on those areas that were identified having some gaps for the last couple of years, as at least we do that. 3:48:14 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 25 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety We mentioned the great shakeout we're doing is every year in October, tide break, not tide breaker, it's the tsunami exercise in March that we do. We always participate in that. always want to do the outreach because it's much more than just my team of doing this we want to the community to be involved with this and understand and awareness a lot of what we do is with the youth we go to schools educate them we feel we give handouts and educate them they will go back and talk to their parents and families run the dinner table and talk about hey guess what's a hurricane kit consist of what's our kit let's get together and have those conversations about our family so we do a lot of it around hurricane preparation we have a whole hurricane preparation week that we did and we just finished in september we finished national preparedness month we went to the schools again we had competitions and outreach for posters for videos we do have some public service announcements that we come up with you'll see it at movie theaters you'll see when radios you hear them so again it's tsunamis earthquakes pandemic support hurricanes that's part of the community outreach that we do okay thank you for that and i appreciate that because um you know those type of activities help to decentralize certain activities or responsibilities and promotes more self-reliant a more self-reliant community in a sense because once you're trained to do something it's almost just like second nature it's just reactionary so that you know what you need to do when you need to do it in the event of so continue to work on those efforts and I'm glad to hear that I know I recognize the president's I'm sorry I know will fall will give senator who's next Novelli Francis jr. now you're recognized for your five minutes thank you very much mr. chair director Joshin what's your volunteer component of by TEMA back in my days when I joined by TEMA civil defense and I'm aging myself here you know we 3:49:52 We had a very small staff, Lou Terrell, Elroy Harrison, Conrad Knowles, Cheeky Monsiclio over in the St. Thomas District, a very small staff at the time. What is the number of volunteers? Because those staff were supported by volunteers. What's the number of volunteers you have today? Deputy Chair Philomine, she has some numbers on our CERT training that can build that foundation for going forward. good afternoon merlinda philomene deputy director of hr labor relations right now vitima does keep a dashboard of volunteers and we actively receive applications for our cert program we currently have 40 certified volunteers and it's a mix of teenagers and adults we have a group scheduled for training for a training that starts next weekend and it's usually a 20-hour training and then there's an exercise at the end um that's that's fine and i i just want to make sure that we still have that volunteer component and we need to make sure that we're actually you know mentioning those volunteers as well because they help to they're the non-paid heroes that continue to support um you know vitima and their efforts uh to provide some security for this and senator we do have american red cross is always there helping volunteers as you know amateur operators also so we continue to have those those two agencies help us out quite a bit very well tracking um so what is the classification phase that we're in right now now that we're in the pandemic is there a classification phase um that we're currently sitting in in the sense we're not in a pandemic we're in the next phase for that which is the endemic and then is there a color phase is there there um actual what's the classification is there a classification that we identified this particular phase i'll ask mr malloy on the department of health is 3:51:51 there any particular name we call this uh we're in an endemic phase in endemicity so um there isn't a so we have a yellow red blue nothing we're just just in this endemic phase at this point well i'll I'll tell you, we're almost back to normal. The last epidemiology report has five positives and 258 tests were performed. So the current seven-day positivity rate is 2.78%. So the COVID-19 is on the same track as the flu. 3:53:44 So we're in the endemic phase, I'll take that. Quickly to the TAG, the Territorial Adjutant General, have we satisfied and made good of all of those National Guards individuals that work for the hurricanes, the TAD pay? we satisfied all of that uh tag oh you came in broken um standard but i'm assuming you're asking about the payment that's what you're asking about uh yes they have been paid everyone has been paid and accounted for everyone's been paid in california has been validated and the uh the the last text went out last week you're breaking up tiger i'm not hearing hearing you um yes yes everyone is paid in the account of four and the last text went out last week um we're still having some please hold the senator's time for a second uh general limb backer um we're having some difficulty there's a slight feedback in your um audio yeah can you hear me yes i'm i'm sitting on an airplane right now so uh the all personnel who are validated to be paid and adjustments have been paid the last text went out last week okay thank you i accept that i know you're a busy individual and i was gonna go no problems 9-1-1 system um how are we with our nine one system have we stabilized uh where are we with our E-9-1-1, our public safety component of the E-9-1-1? 3:54:33 I'll start off, then I'll hand it over to Deputy Kelly. We have, you know, put in the upgraded for the CAD communication dispatch, as well as record management system, CAD RMS. We're about to go into a telecom, which is the second part of this update, which is going to give us the ability to enhance features that we did not have existing prior to putting the CAD in. So, Deputy Kelly? There's not much more to add to that. Director Kelly Baitima, so we've got the CAD system in, we've got the new call work phone system that's being installed presently. We've got countless trainings going on right now, EMD, Emergency Medical Dispatch, that's on the way and going well. We've also have the quality assurance piece 3:56:12 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 26 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety so that we can pull a percentage of the calls monthly and see how our folks are performing. So that's actually online and coming along very well. Very well. And quickly, in terms of, in terms of that's like a setup in terms of though e uh i mean my emergency um mr chair belly indulgence i just want to wrap up let's proceed in terms of your um emergency service fund that that has become a target funding for some of my colleagues girl can we speak to the importance of the emergency service fund, and I took all the lashes that came with increasing that fee. I got the wealth marks to show, right, for the dollar increase. People wanted to throw me out of Senate for that. But can you speak to how that is supporting and supplementing your services there? 3:56:58 Yes, there are a couple aspects to that. The specific piece that comes to Vitima is considered for 911 only. It's basically fence dollars, and the FCC requires us every year to get some report for that. So a lot of the update to the CAD systems, that RMS systems, telecom systems, operator training, that is specifically focused on that. The rest of the monies that come in that both EMS and fire receive, those can be used for other purposes, but we are very much fenced with that. 3:57:49 And even though it may be a million dollars a year, we want to spend every single penny on that on keeping the system up to date. The telecom piece, for example, again, is all being 100 percent funded through the money for that. Very well. And if I ask, Mr. Chair, if you could just wrap up in terms of training, weapons of mass destruction, can you just speak under Mr. Chair's time to what's going on in the space of training for VITEMA and the volunteers? I know you spoke about CERT, but outside of that, weapons of mass destruction and any other training that's going on for VITEMA? The latest we've had, Senator, is back in New Mexico. We have some training that's opening up right now. They're talking about drone and counter drone training. 3:58:16 That's not really an I-1-1 perspective, but we do have agencies that are going out and saving up for the first time. This is new training that's coming out more than just watching things get blown up. But we do have drones that are coming to the territory. Not all of them are used for good purposes, but a lot of it is just observation about what happens in the community. see a drone if you happen to be on a physical security side for waiko for example you're at the airport um the responders is what happens when you see that that counter joint activity so that's the biggest thing we have going on right now sir thank you senator francis and concerning your territorial plan uh i was happy to see that the pandemic was included And I'm sure that was a most recent development, of course. 3:58:58 Could you tell us, you know, how frequently is that plan revisited or updated so that we understand, and if we can also get a copy of it if one is available? Yes, sir. A copy is available for anybody. If you go to the VITEMA website, VITEMA.vi.gov, you go down documents, you can bring down historical plans. Our current plan, I made it to the point, is about one and a half megabytes. It's word searchable. It's something that everybody should take a look at, no matter whether you're a responder to come here from outside of the Kentucky. We share it with them also, if you're here in the community. 3:59:47 It talks about the annexes and concerns we do have. We do have a process, actually every three years we get together, and this is a FEMA product, to go through our threats, risks, and analysis in our territory, as well as our capabilities. It's called a Thyra. We do also something that calls a gap analysis of that. With our accreditation process, we have at least six plans we put together. And those six plans have a life cycle of about six years. Okay, every year we have a review of those plans, but ultimately we will update those plans by requirement at least every six years. Now, if I have six plans, I'm not gonna wait till six years to do all six of those plans. So I have to phase that, do a couple plans each year. 4:00:17 And a lot of it has to do with training going through that, with exercises go along with it. But the base document is the territory, emergency operations plan, and annexes that we put in there. Pandemic was there before, but we didn't really have it ingrained in the actual document. So now that we have those areas, we have the cybersecurity that's very, very much involving each day. We have drills with both BIT as well as with our BEOC group. We have the hurricanes, earthquakes, terrorism, tsunamis, and the pandemic, like you mentioned. 4:00:58 Thank you, Director Joshin. Senator Giovanni James Sr., you're recognized for your five minutes yes thank you mr. chair and I want to say you're doing a great job on your first hearing and I look forward to seeing more of these hearings you know we had a little setback there but you're doing a great job as far as web EOC was referencing a testimony on director Josh and can you speak to me ever since web EOC has been implemented what are the pros and cons and at a later time if you can invite the senators of this committee to experience what web EOC is about thank you senator the web EOC is a software tool which is it's housed in a server and basically you can access it from the internet that's the key thing for us deputy Kelly to my left basically is the manager of that and we take each Each agency is required to identify at least two to three individuals per island to be part of the emergency support coordinators. Those coordinators are given access and trained in how to use WebEOC. 4:01:29 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 27 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety Ultimately, it is tracking a common operating picture. The key thing, though, it also tracks our requests for assistance. So if you have, say, for a shelter, the shelter is needing food or water, something to help out, the Department of Human Services who manages shelters would submit on that WebEOC the request for assistance through what's called ICS Form 213, which is a generic form, and put that request in. It goes into WebVOC, and we can track that. If you happen to be in operations, like Dr. Kelly is, he has to review that and approve that logistics-wise. Dr. Blase reviews that. If we can solve the problem locally, it's all well and good. 4:02:37 We do that. We track it. We also get reimbursed for that from FEMA if we need to, but ultimately, if we exhaust our resources and I have to go to the federal side, like after an emergency, then that's document that basically is approved and then forwarded on to fema through interchange with them to then officially request the assistance so is much training needed for web eoc or is it something that is simple i will ask dr kelly to address that one so good good afternoon senator deputy dr kelly by tema depends on the position there's there are multiple positions um of accessibility into web eoc so it depends on your position role uh it may require some more training some less training if you're if you're um a person on the web eoc that's just for visibility in that much training okay so my question then would be how many individuals are trained we are with web eoc the list of individuals that you mentioned a while ago director jason that's the minimum requirement we have each person who's assigned by their agencies that the commissioner to be part of emergency for coordinators that could be at the eoc on st croix and thomas and john would be required to be trained on that and when we have an incident stand up you log in you sign on and we can see who's on there which is which is a total of what how many how many individuals because what i'm trying to get at is i want to make sure we have continuity in government have an idea of who is trained have an individual's car strain whether is that in a change in administration where is the next four years next eight years I just want to find out continuity what individuals are trained and how long does it take to train individuals using web EOC well we've had about two to three training sessions and I think it didn't even blocks in about four hours but then also we have the activations we also get in there and have more conversations I would say Bruce what would you say as as far as number of train, between 60 to 80? 4:03:12 We've had approximately minimum of two emergency service coordinators from each agency and some liaisons also from the private sector. We've had trainings for approximately six months, about three weeks out of the month, anywhere from about 20 individuals each class or training iteration. Okay, and I know, I think the Adjutant General is on a flight, but as far as your coordination with National Guard, I know you do have a lot of training and sessions, and I know during a state of emergency or any disaster, we count on them heavily, but as far as their involvement, let's say for the past, since January, what has been the collaboration with them to make sure that we are ready for any disaster? 4:05:10 up but we definitely again they are not a lead agency so they're supporting our our lead agencies so part of the capsule and exercise was identification for where they support an easy example is a virgin islands police department when we activate the national guard they support and augment the police specifically for traffic control points additionally we did this for tropical storm fiona national guard activated to go into saint john and we have what's called immediate response teams we had in coral bay in cruise bay to have chainsaws to go out and do a marine response after the storm and also for help and accountability with both fire and police okay mr chair with your indulgence i would like to ask one more question please proceed you also reference urban search and rescue um explain to me as far as the training that have been had and the resources that you have or any additional funding you will need to carry out any urban search and rescue activities uh vi fire service is a lead agency for urban search and rescue last year we had a category four storm heading this way i believe it was sam i believe fema actually mobilized a heavy urban search and rescue team they put about 80 people in puerto rico when i heard that after the event i said well what did they bring what did they what did they have and we have had discussions with the urban search and rescue on the fema side who are volunteers also not just just FEMA employees as well as with fire to figure out again we have the local knowledge in the territory but they will bring equipment in we don't need swift water boats that was one of the conversations we don't have the swift 4:06:05 water need but we have the need to bring specifically I would say dog canine teams canine teams a big dog dog handlers and they go about from search and rescue we identify between probably eight to ten teams would come down here part of the urban search and rescue plan. We don't have any canines here. So that was one of the keys to our discussion going forward is how do we merge in that capability that we don't have but we know we're going to need from an event. And my question when I asked about funding, how is this funded? Would you tap in on a local level or a federal level? 4:07:57 From a training exercise, we'd have to work with, you know, that group to have them support us. Right now, there's not something in the works for that. locally we'd have to have some team come down and assist us with that but we've not run into a funding challenge yet for that i really have to go back to director george from fire and see what he has on the plan next step for that that's one of the exciting things i think going forward is developing that but i don't i haven't heard a funding challenge yet for urban search and rescue thank you mr chair for your leniency you know from day one i had 4:08:34 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 28 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety supported you and you're doing a great job and i hope we have more director justins in the future Thank you for the time, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Senator James. Vice Chair Duane M. DeGraff, you are now recognized for your five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Director Joshin is a TTY system operational for the hearing impaired. Good afternoon, Senator DeGraff. THE TTY SYSTEM IS A SYSTEM BY WHICH INDIVIDUALS ARE ABLE TO RECEIVE TEXT MESSAGING IN LIEU OF AN AUDIO CALL WORKING WITH OUR 88-QUARTER MR. HENLEY WITH I-PAUS IN PARTICULAR WHICH IS THE INTEGRATED PUBLIC ALERT WARNING SYSTEM WE TESTED THAT IT IS CURRENTLY OPERATIONAL OF COURSE IT DEPENDS UPON THE INDIVIDUAL HAVING A TTY SYSTEM AT THEIR LOCATION AT HOME OR BUSINESS WHEREVER THEY are. And that's one of the things we do want to test when we do our integrated testing with IPAWS is to make sure we can test a TTY. I can tell you, Senator, I have not tested it this season, though, as I can tell you for sure, but the reports are heard back from the IPAWS system that capabilities still exist. Thank you. Thank you, Director. Curfew passes, how do we go about obtaining curfew passes for government and the private sector? Curfew passes are available from 1 January to pretty much 1 June. The availability is to go on the Vitema website. You can go to the document section, you download the curfew pass process, you submit the application online to operations, and they basically go through and vet that and make sure if you're asking if you have to say, these are for businesses, they're not for individuals first of all, so you have to be a licensed business in a territory um if you have 100 employees you submit 100 requests for us we'll probably have a conversation with you and have you ask why you need to have all 100 individuals of your agency have a career if you pass we're going to ask you to probably bring that down to about 10. again the key thing is this you are authorizing individuals in your business to be out and about when we consider to be unsafe to go out again that's the process that we use from 4:09:11 one january to one june okay thank you um we have contracts in place for different things during the storm uh are all those contracts still current or they have to be renewed ever so often uh the most of compact contracts i'm aware of senator are with property and procurement um some of those are multi-year contracts such as debris removal um some will have to be uh reviewed every year uh the goal i have with commissioner thomas is they have those all reviewed prior to going to hurricane season which is one june okay and and uh two things uh finally uh you have companies off island that deal with off island shipping private companies do you have any type of collaboration where after storms families try to send goods in for their families here do we have any type of collaboration with them to try expedite in this situation or is it totally out of your hands we have a couple approaches this uh senator one if there are donations that come in um property procurement is identified to be the coordinator for any donations that come through the territory, and this is really a challenge of donations and making sure the right donations are brought in. 4:11:19 Also, the American Red Cross, while working with donations, they would prefer a cash donation so they can direct that as opposed to sending diapers and sending perishable goods to look at distribution for that. The other group you're working with I mentioned earlier is our Business Emergency Operations Center, known as the BEOC. These are volunteers from private sector that support all seven community lifelines that can help bring in, through transportation, those needs. And one of the issues that's come up early on has been if FEMA's bringing in aircraft, FEMA's bringing in boats, let's not make it 100% FEMA. 4:12:41 Let's leave at least some of it to the private sector so they can, again, get restoration back to the community, back to the businesses. So that's a good way we can do it also. those are three mechanisms we have in place to help support those individuals okay that's great information thank you for that uh in your testimony you have uh funding vitima government budget meets essential needs but should be expanded to support additional training services and equipment enhancements okay can can you give me a breakdown of what training what services of what equipment enhances enhancements well you know the funding aspect of this a lot of it goes back to to sending individuals we already talked about off to training events that may not be here in the territory so we need funding for that a lot of times we try to use our federal contracts for that um the grants sometimes that we can support it sometimes we can't uh we've mentioned obviously the generators we'd like to get additional light sets in to support that dr kelly next to me we want to get some more mobile emergency operations center so dividing funding for that is very very important to then refresh and rebuild our our capabilities to both be stationary as well as mobile and and finally one final question and again i know it's out of your hands uh during all weather situations we listen to vitima but there's a large portion of people myself included would turn on the weather channel the weather channel never mentions the virgin islands do we have any kind of collaboration with them to let them know that hey the vernells exists not just the puerto rico end uh have you had any conversations with the weather channel senator with noaa uh we do have the ability for the noaa weather radio alerts to come out and and that's that's basically been up about nine months i think it's uh 164.25 is the frequency you can buy a weather radio and that will have a channel on that with a band that would then the 4:13:20 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 29 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety weather service up there what you're referring to at the national level um all i can do is reach out we did have the hurricane hunters come down here last year in april we did have them have the head of the national hurricane center with us and he definitely understands the importance of the the territory. MR. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. MR. Thank you, Senator DeGraff. Point of inquiry by Senator Novell E. Francis, Jr. SEN. SEN. 4:15:31 SEN. SEN. SEN. SEN. SEN. SEN. SEN. SEN. SEN. SEN. SEN. SEN. SEN. SEN. SEN. synergy the interaction that's occurring between by Tima as well as through by 9-1-1 as well as the Virgin Islands Police Department BIT and BIPD BIT and by Tima that's the shot spotters fusion center and surveillance cameras I speak on the shot spotter shot spotter that's a system that we have in the 9-1-1 I don't really want to get into too much detail openly, but a system we have in 911 that's monitored by the operators slash dispatchers, and they relay that information to the VIPD. The interconnection between the fusion center, some of that information also makes it with the fusion center to include in their products for their analysis, and that's at that higher level. cameras currently i cannot speak on that currently thank you senator francis senator marvin a blight and you're now recognized for your five minutes thank you thank you so much mr chair and good afternoon again to all um director josh and let me ask you um in respect to your plans let me ask you what is your plans for the agency when it come to um enforcement when it comes to training the different agencies and assurance that after those trainings are completed that the persons that were trained are the ones reporting to the eoc 4:15:58 um doing um hurricanes etc what plans we have to assure that that happens thank you senator a lot has to do the coordination with commissioners directors executive directors we do have training opportunities you know again they assign the individuals to be our coordinators so we track those i require letters to come in each each year before hurricane season we track those and i go back and remind them to still have come through based upon that that kicks off the training requirements whether it's web eoc we mentioned already or the all-important ics 300 400 courses that are put on by fema or a company called tex out of texas that come in that's a 40-hour course that gives you the foundation to basically sit in one of my EOCs and understand their responsibilities when we come together to represent your agency and those are tracked very very closely and we do have you know individuals that do rotate out and you know and that's understandable but we do try to have at least two sessions a year on the ICS 300 400 courses. Okay very well let me ask you in respect to your testimony is what analysis um your strengths weaknesses opportunities um let me ask you in respect to your staff and you spoke to the inability to keep staff because of funding salaries are not competitive there is talent out there but keeping it is hard what are you doing to address that that um that portion of your swat analysis okay because that's a weakness for sure all right i'm gonna ask deputy philamine to answer that because she's been very much involved with this good afternoon senator merlinda philamine deputy director of hr and labor relations as the director indicated in his um testimony it is difficult to keep staff um when they come on 4:17:54 board we interview we select we train um provide them with all the fema trainings they get certified and unfortunately um some of the other government agencies you know offer them positions that may pay more they also transition out and go over to fema this is a challenge for us and it's something that we have conversations about on a regular basis in leadership we're still trying to figure out the best ways to maintain the staff that we currently have especially after we've invested in them but a lot of bulk of the issue or not the bulk of the issue but one of the main issue issues is the funding so that's conversations that we're having internally conversations that we have with OMB to try to see how we can resolve this situation to maintain and keep the staff that we invest in. Thank you for that response and in respect also to your analysis when it comes to your federal partners and the reputation you spoke to building confidence with federal partners and ability as emergency managers on a scale from one to ten where would you say you're at um at the agency and what are you doing to um to build those partnerships and relationships senator from my perspective i think we're about an eight out of ten i would say um again we've seen vitima and the agencies um come together more and more not just because of the pandemic but become the exercises that we've done um the last tropical storm we had fiona i had close to 80 federal responders already down here. A lot of the joint meetings were done with VITEMA leading these meetings with support from FEMA and that's how we want to make it happen. Again I got to hand it to Deputy Director Regina Brown from planning preparedness. She's really stepped up to 4:19:43 be able to provide that leadership within the agency and then even be recognized by FEMA for that. I think building the confidence is again I go like the logistics, I go to operations, I go to admin finance. Building that team and developing that coordination with the federal responders as well as locally is so, so important for doing that. So each year, because of that capstone exercise, we get better and better. We just don't have training to put people in classrooms. We want to put them in situations that make them uncomfortable to force them to use the tools that are at hand, whether it's web EOC, whether it's a satellite phone or radio to be able to do the job they have to do uh in a real emergency and finally closing um you spoke to the capstone exercise that you had and you stated that one of the gaps identified during the exercise is the limited number of individuals available in vitema with the lead emergency support functions agencies the two operate two 12-hour shifts. That's a challenge. And I know based on your SWOT analysis, that's your weakness also in terms of 4:21:35 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 30 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety staffing and maintaining staff. So I know you have your work colorful in terms of assuring that you can board staff and basically having the resources is to train on the individual and assure that they are there to assist with your D2D operation, especially during emergencies. So I wish you the best, and I thank you guys so much for your responses. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the time, and I think you have done a very good job for your first hearing. Thank you so much. Thank you, Senator Blyden. I appreciate that. And in reference to what my colleague just mentioned concerning retention, I believe it was during the last hearing that you were here before us you had concerns regarding filling positions in the agency and I'm curious to know have you had any new hires recently since that time until now and how many vacancies are there to date all right deputy filming you want to answer that one I can tell you the new hires I have that sheet here, we've had approximately 25 new hires in the last 11 months. So we are attending the Division of Personnel conferences with VITEMA opportunities out there for hiring. 4:23:13 We are attending or did attend the workforce summits and will continue to outreach to fill those positions. And how many separations have you had? I'm going to say about, if I add it up here about 15 or 20, we basically overall, we have a turnover rate of about 7% for the last 12 months. So I see that one is posted on your website, but I don't see any posted on the Department of Personnel's website. 4:24:03 We recently had, I think it was three positions posted on the Division of Personnel's website that has since expired. 9-1-1 call center operators emergency operations center supervisor we do have a federal programs monitor position that's still on the division of personnel's website that's ongoing because we're having challenges filling that position and finding qualified candidates for that but the 9-1-1 call center operator positions they expired and we just yesterday I believe we had a series of interviews we have an EOC supervisor position that the vacancy announcement just closed as well and we're scheduled to interview for that that position next week okay I only ask those questions because of course the nature of your agency and how important it is in this process so I appreciate that and I hope that you make as many efforts as possible to try to get some employees in those much-needed positions senator Frankie Johnson you're now recognized for your five minutes thank you very much mr. chair good afternoon again to all. There's a building that I think Vytema used to own in Cuesta Vauda. And I think there was investing some money. What's the status on this piece of property? Senator, you're referring to what we call Herman Hill. I have a hazard mitigation recovery fund of $22.5 million to go into that. It's been funds have been obligated. We're at 30% in the design. Monday, I have a hearing for rezoning. We're zoning it from R3 to the public hearing. 4:24:39 The intent is it's going to be a four-story building with two wings to it. We're going to have to build in the same footprint, if you will. We really have a lot of heart into that building, developing it for a state of art. We're going to have a facility that is going to be fantastic. It's going to also include 911. It's going to be a new EOC or business offices. Plus, I had the ability to put in multiple agencies to come to respond to us and to be safe in that environment. 4:26:13 But as we speak here, I saw sometime maybe a year ago, two probably, they did a lot of cleanup around the area. Is work going on as we speak here on that property? We did the bushwhacking in order to do drone survey, in order to come up with the dimensions for that. We will have to do a demolition on that and we will have to do the complete construction on that again and we have to do the rezoning first we have to do a federal consistency hearing and then the intent we get to 30 percent and 60 percent and 90 percent and we can right go into our our construction phase yes in your statement you say you had a meeting with some private sector partnership in june what's the outcome of that meeting with those uh private partner uh the ultimate outcome is we've gotten stronger and stronger with our private sector the Business Emergency Operations Center. I want to thank Commissioner Emilista from DLCA, as well as Director Wilma Francis, as well as Mr. Director Horace Graham, for their leadership on that. They've taken that on, and Governor Bryan's watching this very, very closely. We cannot do it, we're realizing all just the federal or the government agencies. It requires the private sector to be successful. As you know, again, the transportation, I don't own any ships, neither does the government but we have to have that relationship built and i can really tell you it's gotten stronger and stronger we've built it around that these seven uh community lifelines and we're modeling a lot of that out of what puerto rico's been doing on their recovery efforts and we're getting stronger and stronger every time we meet so i think it's a fantastic opportunity for us in the private sector as volunteers to help and support the territory overall with anticipating with those needs and again recovering quicker all right thank you very much and i i need to ask a question to human service i'd like to find out do you guys have an updating listing of the vitran people who utilize vitran for special service and if you do what what's the number 4:26:42 uh michael rima brown assistant commissioner we would not have that number for all of the vitran we only have would know you know our usage for our individual programs clients so we would not have that number said that's what I'm speaking about your listing what what kind of number are we talking about for your folks that rely on you to move them back and forth especially during this this time of crisis if we were supposed to be in a hurricane well most of our 4:28:43 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 31 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety individuals would be for the homes for the aged they are moved in our own transportation and we use able transportation. And then there are some of our clients who are independent in the community, and I wouldn't know that exact number, Senator, who use Vitran Plus to go back and forth to appointments, medical appointments, and so forth. We also have used Vitran Plus on St. Croix, on St. John. Ms. Hendricks has used that throughout the years. So we do depend on them for some of our client base, but I don't have a specific number that I could give you. So, like your seniors that depends on Vitran service, special pickup, that might be living alone, don't you have a listing of those folks? No, we wouldn't have that, Senator, because we're not, all seniors are not necessarily in our client base every single month. We have certain seniors who are in our guardianship, who are and in our homes for the age. we would know those numbers, but not for general seniors. As I said, the best source for that is VITRAN Plus themselves. 4:29:53 All right, thank you. Back to you again, Director Drashen. It was determined during a capstone exercise that the lead agency lacked the required number of individuals necessary to provide emergency support during that passage of a storm. What was the shortfall, and did we address those shortfalls? It has to go back with you know during 24-hour operations even though we're asking for two individuals by agency to be assigned a lot of times they won't be able to show up so a lot of it has to do is building that bench again for the lead agencies for that. An example Department of Human Services did a fantastic job in Tropic Zone Fiona in St. Croix. They had four individuals that were rotating through that 24 hours we set up for two days straight and they're able to manage that. So again, those lessons learned from these exercises in reality is build that bench, build that staff to support that. Again, it goes back to that training like on WebEOC, the ICS courses. So again, agencies such as Department of Human Services have come a long way to support that. 4:30:28 Thank you very much. Thank you very much for the time, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Senator Johnson. And Director Joshi and my colleague just mentioned concerning the construction. Is there a projected timeline for the completion of that construction? Yes. There is a timeline based upon the statement of work that has been provided to us. It should be in 2024. We should be finishing that up. So we have to finish up in 2023, the design piece of that, the demolition, and then the construction in 2024. 4:31:32 Okay. We are looking forward to that. And colleagues, I believe that we have exhausted the amount of time on this discussion however before we wrap it up there's one last question I'd like to ask you Director Joshin and it's sort of asking you what do you believe at this point is your greatest challenge concerning your agency when it comes to emergency management? I had some graduate students in last Saturday for two hours, and they brought that question up to me, Senator. I can tell you talk about disasters and you talk about expectations, I really try to manage expectations. When I tell the community to be prepared to be on your own for five days, please listen to me. I mean, again, we're going to have to be able to be self-sufficient for that period of time before we can, again, clear the roads, hospitals, evacuation. 4:32:05 going to be victims at the same time and really to me I just don't you know we've been through hurricanes together um we see storms we see things coming everybody seems to sort of oh it's going to be okay but please that's why we said this month of june we get ready for this prepare for this prepare your families have those plans together um our staffs are fantastic our agencies are fast at working together but I want to make sure what I'm putting out responsibilities are being listen to and the legislature fantastic to ask these questions in the community to please listen to us we know the ports are going to close seaports airports so please prepare yourselves so we can support each other in the territory from a disaster whether it's hurricanes tsunamis earthquakes pandemic cyber please please take that that home thank you for that and you know you're actually in the business of preparing for the worst so i can imagine that that comes with a level of patience and determination and focus and planning, of course. So I commend you and your team for your efforts, and I believe that today you provided us with a very in-depth testimony from all angles, culminated together from all agencies, so I appreciate the cohesive collaboration between the agencies in providing us this testimony today. 4:33:04 I'm looking forward to continuing working with every one of you, as well as I know my colleagues are as well. I would like to thank all of you, the testifiers, for attending this first committee hearing as chairman of Homeland Security, Justice, and Public Safety. I'd also like to thank the media division, the central staff, and my staff, of course, for all of their hard work and support in making this a success. I'm also looking forward to continuing with other departments in the purview of this committee. Before we wrap it up, I would like to give yourself, Director Joshin, and of course Human Services, and if hopefully the National Guard is still on, a one-minute closing before we wrap up. 4:34:27 All right. Thank you, Senator Bulkus, and thank you, the committee members. My team's mission is about saving lives and protecting property and preserving property. That's what's so important. And you've heard a couple of my support agencies here. Again, I'm by law, I'm the coordinating agency for territory. You heard Department of Health, Human Services, National Guard is not a lead agency. They support all the agencies as we need to. So it's that combined effort that we do that. We heard today about, you know, let's get the word out to the community. We want to do that. We want to have opportunities to do that. 4:35:14 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 32 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety PARTICIPATE WITH US WHEN WE HAVE THE GREAT SHAKEOUT NEXT WEEK. BE PART OF THE SOLUTION, NOT PART OF THE PROBLEM BECAUSE TOGETHER WE'RE GOING TO BE THE BEST SUCCESSES TOGETHER. SO THANK YOU FOR THE OPPORTUNITY. OKAY. AND IF THERE'S A REPRESENTATIVE FROM HUMAN SERVICES? YES. GOOD AFTERNOON, SENATOR MIKEL RIMA BROWN, ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER, HUMAN SERVICES. AND ON BEHALF OF OUR COMMISSIONER, KIMBERLY KAZI-GOMEZ, WHO COULD NOT BE HERE TODAY, SHE is very occupied with hosting the women's conference up at the castle today but she wanted us to be here so we can lend our support uh to vitima we're here and i i want to use the slogan that we use at human services working together to make a difference and indeed in our disaster preparedness and looking at just responding to disasters and prevention and looking to educate our community it indeed takes a coordinated community response so human services we will continue to stand ready 365 days 366 on leap year to assist all of our emergency support entities as coordinated and led by vitima thank you for the opportunity to be here today thank you so much and thank you all for being here today the committee on homeland security justice and Public Safety is hereby... Department of Health? Okay, Department of Health? 4:35:48 Thank you for the opportunity to... Assistant Commissioner Ruben Malloy, thank you for the opportunity to provide information to you today in support of of Director Joshin, Commissioner Kimberly Cozzi-Gomez, and General Knox Limbacher, on behalf of Commissioner Incanus-Yung. It's always a pleasure to be able to provide this information and let the public know the hard work that we do um and and the complexity of the work um and the different facets of the work um so um on behalf of the people of the virgin island so it's thank you very much for the opportunity thank you thank you let me try this one more time the committee on homeland security Justice and Public Safety is now hereby adjourned. 4:37:30 We'll see you next time. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you. Let's get started. We'll be right back. Thank you. Thank you. 4:38:53 People named in this transcript SUSPECTED, and a finding aid only. Names were matched by machine against the spellings used across all 426 of our transcripts, and the title is the one used in the room. Being named here is NOT evidence that a person attended or spoke · only that the name was said. Speech recognition mishears names, so a spelling may be wrong even where no alternative is offered. 14x Senator Novelle Francis heard in this transcript as: Alma Frances, Francis, Novell E. Francis, Novell E. Francis Jr, Novell E. Francis Jr., Novell Frances 12x Senator Kenneth L. Gittens heard in this transcript as: Giddens, Gittins, Kenneth L. Giddens, Kenneth L. Gittins, Kenny L. Giddens 10x Senator Marvin Blyden heard in this transcript as: Blyden, Marvin A. Blyden 8x Governor Albert Bryan Jr heard in this transcript as: Bryan 7x Senator Alma Francis-Heyliger heard in this transcript as: Alma Frances Heiliger, Alma Francis Heiliger, Alma Francis-Hyleger, Francis Heiliger 7x Senator Dwayne DeGraff heard in this transcript as: DeGraff, Duane M. DeGraff, Duane M. de Graaff, Dwayne M. DeGraff 7x Senator Franklin D. Johnson heard in this transcript as: Johnson 6x Senator Marise C. James the surname alone also matches: Javan James; Giovanni James Sr heard in this transcript as: James 5x Senator Javan James heard in this transcript as: Javan E. James Sr, Javon E. James Sr., Jovan James Sr 4x Senator Angel L. Bocas Jr heard in this transcript as: Angel L. Ocas Jr 4x Commissioner Ruben Malloy heard in this transcript as: Reuben Molloy 3x Senator Alma Francis Heidegger Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 33 of 34 Legislature USVI · | Cmte on Homeland Security, Justice and Public Safety heard in this transcript as: Alma Francis Heilegger 3x Senator Angel L. Bolkis Jr heard in this transcript as: Angel Bolkus Jr., Volkis 3x Senator Angel L. Bolques, Jr. heard in this transcript as: Angel L. Bolques Jr., Bolquez, Volquez 3x Senator Angel L. Bulkes Jr heard in this transcript as: Bulkus 2x Senator Francis Heidegger heard in this transcript as: Francis Heilegger 2x Commissioner Gary Malloy the surname alone also matches: Ruben Malloy heard in this transcript as: Malloy 2x Senator Giovanni James Sr the surname alone also matches: Javan James; Marise C. James; Neville James 2x Lieutenant Governor Tregenza Roach heard in this transcript as: Roach Bills and acts referred to Matched by number against our own acts corpus. The number is what the recognition heard, so it may be wrong; where it resolved, the title is the one the Legislature gave the act. Act 8151 Act 8151 · An Act amending title 23 Virgin Islands Code, chapter 10, sections 1006 and 1007, relating to the Virgin Islands Emergency Management Plan and the Virgin Islands Territorial Management and Homeland Security Council Act 8058 Act 8058 · July 2018 · An Act amending title 34 Virgin Islands Code, chapter 16, adding subchapter II, providing for the establishment of a registry for persons 60 years and older with disabilities living alone Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 34 of 34