FMPC Minutes 05/03/2024 May 3, 2024
MINUTES OF THE COLLIER COUNTY
FLOODPLAIN MANAGEMENT PLANNING COMMITTEE MEETING
Naples, Florida,
May 3, 2024
LET IT BE REMEMBERED, the Collier County Floodplain Management Planning
Committee (FMPC) in and for the County of Collier, having conducted business
herein, met on this date at 9 A.M. in REGULAR SESSION at the Collier County
Growth Management Community Development Department, Conference Room
#609/610, 2800 N. Horseshoe Drive, Naples, Florida, with the following members
present:
Chair: Eric Johnson (excused)
Jibey Asthappan, Emergency Management (alternate)
Kenneth Bills, public
Stan Chrzanowski, public
Deborah Curry, county staff(excused)
Kelli DeFedericis, City of Marco Island (excused)
Robert Dorta, City of Naples (excused)
Amy Ernst, public (excused)
Lisa Koehler, public (excused)
Ned Miller, public
Linda Orlich, public
Terry Smallwood, Everglades City
Jennifer Schmidt, County Emergency Mgt. (excused)
Planning Commissioner Paul Shea, public
Duke Vasey, public
William Lang, Community Planning & Resiliency (staff
liaison/Interim Vice-Chair)
ALSO PRESENT:
Chris Mason, Director, Community Planning & Resiliency
Amy Howard, Emergency Management
Derek Perry, Assistant County Attorney
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Any persons in need of the verbatim record of the meeting may request a copy of the audio
recording from the Collier County Growth Management Department.
Call to Order and Roll Call
Mr. Lang called the meeting to order at 9:05 a.m. and conducted roll call.A quorum of seven,
including an alternate, was present; an eighth joined later.Amy Howard, who represents the public,
is an Emergency Management employee,planning coordinator and Local Mitigation Strategy
coordinator, and may be an alternate. She can participate but not as an official member. He's the
chairman for the LMS committee and Amy is the staff liaison.
1. Approval of Minutes
February 2,2024
Mr. Vasey made a motion to approve the February 2, 2024, meeting minutes. Second by Mr.
Miller. The motion passed unanimously, 8-1;Mr. Vasey voted nay.
2. Membership Discussion
Mr. Lang told the committee:
• We want to discuss Emergency Management and the potential vote that we need for an
Emergency Management representative.
• Richard Zyvoloski,the primary planning coordinator for Emergency Management for
many years, retired a few years ago and was on this committee.
• After his retirement, a planning coordinator, Jennifer Schmidt, was voted on as an
alternate for the director of Emergency Management, Dan Summer, but she resigned a
few weeks ago due to her daily commute from Cape Coral. She went to the City of Fort
Myers Beach.
• In her absence, we need to vote in a new member. We hope Jibey Asthappan is going to
be that new member.
[Mr. Smallwood joined the meeting at 9:10 a.m.]
• Jibey is an Air Force veteran with experience in hazard mitigation, improvised explosive
devices (IEDs), biological, chemical and nuclear threats.
• After his service, he received his master's degree from Penn State University and a PhD
from American University in Washington, D.C., and then taught Homeland Security
network security research methods and statistics.
• His publications include analysis of Homeland Security and emergency response issues.
• He began with Collier County Public Utilities in 2018 and his focus has been information
technology, database management and data analysis. He brings technical expertise and
real-world response experience to the Bureau of Emergency Services in his role as an
emergency management coordinator.
• We'd like to vote Jibey in as an alternate for Emergency Management.
• He (Lang)made a recommendation to Dan Summers to identify a primary and alternate.
Amy Howard may serve in that capacity, but we're not there yet.
Planning Commissioner Shea made a motion to add Jibey Asthappan to the FPMC,
representing Emergency Management. Second by Mr. Bills. The motion passed unanimously,
8-0.
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Mr. Chrzanowski said that when this committee was first set up by Jim Mudd, Dan Summers
was supposed to be the primary. He attended the first meeting and then started sending Rick
Zyvoloski. He never attended a meeting after that. He should still be the primary. The way it was
set up, certain people had to be primaries.
Mr. Lang said he's following the updated 2016 resolution,which doesn't explicitly state the
director of Emergency Management. It states that we need an Emergency Management
representative, but your comments are duly noted. We're not there yet for replacing Dan so he
could discuss that with him and voice the concern that it was the intent when initially conceived.
He thanked him for bringing it up.
3. CRS Program Status Update
2024 Annual Certification Submittal
Mr. Lang detailed a PowerPoint presentation and told the committee:
• The Community Rating System has been in place in Collier County since 1992.
• We go above and beyond the minimum National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP)minimum
standards and do additional actions to receive communitywide flood insurance discounts.
• Since 1992,we've become a Class 5 community, which provides a 25%discount for the
majority of flood insurance policies in the community. We have rigorous auditing
requirements associated with that.
• His director, Christopher Mason,was the floodplain coordinator for many years and did a
great job. He's now the CRS coordinator.
• One of our two primary requirements is annual recertifications.After we became a Class-5
Community,we've had a three-year verification cycle.
• We're doing many actions annually and then every three years,we do all the actions that we
participate in so we can certify our Class-5 rating.
• We generally get a deadline from FEMA every January.
• We got our notification from the FEMA auditor, Insurance Services Office (ISO), a longtime
FEMA contractor. They're now known as Verisk(ISO is a subsidiary).
• Since January, we worked diligently to ensure we met the May 1st deadline to submit many of
the actions and completed that on April 15th. We worked hard and fast to make sure we were
ahead of that deadline. He and Chris had a state conference to attend last week.
• When we send the recertification, one of the biggest items is a review of elevation certificates
we've issued in the floodplain.Elevation certificates are survey documents that are highly
scrutinized and audited by ISO for accuracy. They're a regulatory document to ensure
buildings are built in compliance in the special Flood Hazard area or in our floodplain.
• They're also an insurance document for insurance ratings, so they have multiple purposes and
it's important that it's accurate. We process many.
• When we returned from the state conference,we were ready to submit because we hadn't
heard anything back. We had an April 29th FEMA deadline and were notified when we
attempted to e-mail ISO that the contract bid had met its lifespan and they'd gone back out to
bid.
• It's similar to when the county does direct select, if we have a particular contractor with a
particular set of skills,we can go through that procurement option. He believes FEMA
attempted to do this.
• What occurred is that a contractor that bid on the contract filed a formal protest, asking to see
the validity of ISO continuing as the vendor instead of them.
• The first bullet point(in the PowerPoint) is a FEMA stop-order for the CRS contract. We
were ready for submittal with many communities in our rotation that were ready to deal with
Region 4 FEMA out of Atlanta. When ISO replied,they said they cannot communicate with
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the county until this is resolved. We contacted our regional representatives in Atlanta and
they told us verbally that we would not be penalized for any submittals after May 1st because
the ISO contract is not in place.
• We told them a verbal statement wasn't good enough, asked for a deadline and didn't hear
back. He called them a few days ago and they sent a verification via e-mail so we have it in
writing that we won't be penalized for a late submission, a delayed submission.
Mr. Lang went over items the county was required to submit:
• Activity 310 is our elevation certificate reviews within the CRS program. We had 920
Community Rating System elevation certificates. We have many more, but only a certain
number qualify for CRS auditing purposes.
• They're primarily in the Special Flood Hazard Area, a zone that starts with A or V and there
are certain structures they don't really look at, such as detached structures.
Mr. Mason explained that they're looking for structures that exceed the uses of storage,parking
or access, like a commercial or residential structure, or multifamily. It's where people are
working or habituating.
Mr. Lang continued with the PowerPoint presentation:
• There are 920 elevation certificates for the year.Non-CRS elevation certificates that we
reviewed totaled 1,791, so it's well over 2,700.
• If you compare that to any other community, it's a lot of elevation certificates. For the
associated line items, we need to meet a lot of accuracy.
• We send those to ISO and they'll send back about 200 elevation certificates from that list.
Then we have to score 90% or better to pass the audit. They give us an opportunity to
validate them,to check for any inaccuracies and provide the opportunity to correct them.
• [Mr. Mason noted that Collier County has been above 93%now for the last six years for
8,000-9,0000 elevation certificates.]
• We have a staff of about seven floodplain reviewers in the building department. That's
not considered a discipline under the Florida Building Code, so it's impressive that we've
been able to build that out over the years.
• Activity 310-120, Map Information Service. One of our primary responsibilities is to
send annual letters to three categories of individuals or entities, including insurers,
Realtors and lenders. We have a comprehensive distribution list for Repetitive-Loss
Properties, those that received a certain number of claims in 10 years from FEMA.
• Part of the FPMC's role is to have a Floodplain Management Plan due to the number of
Repetitive-Loss Properties we have in our community, which is very common for
communities. Our primary role is to manage and update the Flood Plain Management
Plan and associated quarterly mitigation actions to meet the objectives of future
mitigation for those properties.
• We had a selected vendor we were able to procure. We went out to bid with three vendors
and Direct Impressions won the bid. We've worked with them a lot in the past.
• They sent him the proofs yesterday, and he approved them, so they'll be sending those
out shortly.
• Activity 330, Outreach Projects. We do a lot of community outreach. In addition to what
we submitted for the 2023-2024 annual recertification, there was a July 9 outreach event
conducted by Mr. Mason,just before he returned here from Emergency Management.
We've already met this requirement for the 2025 reverification.
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• He did an outreach event yesterday morning with Acrisure LLC, formerly Gulf Shore
Insurance (Acrisure dba Gulf Shore Insurance). He was joined by a flood specialist from
Wright Flood and Acrisure employees. It was primarily for Realtors and we had a good
turnout. We went over several regulation and insurance topics.
• We received a lot of good feedback and good questions from highly qualified Realtors.
Planning Commissioner Shea asked if there was a map showing all the Repetitive-Loss Properties.
Mr. Lang said we have an internal map but can't provide it to the general public, including the
FPMC. We have a FEMA Information Sharing Access Agreement (ISAA), which is required to
access that information. There was a lot of push and pull with FEMA to get the information, but
they've streamlined the process over the years. In the past, he'd ask for the Repetitive-Loss
Properties information from FEMA and it would take three to six months. Last December,he got
it the same day, so they improved that process. That information is protected as personal
identifiable information.
Mr. Chrzanowski said one of the goals on this committee is to reduce Repetitive-Loss
Properties, but we can't know where they are?
Mr. Lang we can show you what we generally call a heat map, a cluster map. As part of our
Flood Plain Management Plan we also have a Repetitive-Loss Area Analysis. We use the address
point and FEMA guides us in the methodology of looking at a centroid from the address point
and then creating a buffer zone through Geographical Information Systems (GIS). We identify
properties in the immediate vicinity of the Repetitive-Loss Properties, and those contribute to our
Repetitive-Loss Area Analysis (RLAA). That RLAA is incorporated into our Flood Plain
Management Plan for mitigation purposes.
Mr. Vasey asked if Collier had 24-25 Repetitive-Loss Properties before the last surge.
Mr. Mason said prior to Hurricane Ian, we had about 60 Repetitive Loss Properties. After
Hurricane Ian—there's still ongoing vetting of this data—we increased to about 279 properties.
But there are some anomalies and we're still working with FEMA to mete that out, but there's a
significant increase.
Mr. Vasey said at the last meeting, Lisa Koehler said Big Cypress Basin has stilling wells and
may have more than six to 10 in areas that would give us a better view of the actual surge, which
could help the property trade for the Repetitive-Loss Analysis.
Mr. Lang said absolutely, noted.
Mr. Mason told the committee:
• We are currently engaging with a consultant to produce this Repetitive-Loss Area
Analysis,which is a CRS requirement. After X amount of Repetitive-Loss Properties,
they require you to do a Repetitive-Loss Area Analysis, so we'll be working with a
consultant.
• We have Repetitive-Loss Areas established,but we'll probably be adding to that and
we'll have a living document.
• We'll have to have a steering committee through our LMS (Local Mitigation Strategy)
Working Group for the FDEP Vulnerability Analysis (VA). The steering committee for
the RLAA will be here. The FPMC can be part of that steering committee and we'll
probably have a kickoff data meeting, a mid-meeting, and a third wrap-up meeting.
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• The living document will be given to the Board of County Commissioners. It will be
interesting to see what we learn from that analysis.
During questioning by Mr. Bills and Mr. Mason, the following points were made:
• Repetitive-Loss Properties are properties that have filed two or more NFIP claims
within a 10-year period.
• The dollar amount is pretty low, only $1,000, so anyone who filed two or more NFIP
flood claims within 10 years,that's declared as a Repetitive-Loss Property.
• Collier reviews the data yearly. Prior to Hurricane Ian,there were several with one
claim and several waiting to exceed that.
• Collier went from 60 total Repetitive-Loss Properties to 270, which isn't a static
number. We're working with FEMA to validate that.
• Unfortunately, claims data comes from numerous different sources, and you're meshing
one set of data with another set of data and it sometimes gets messy, so the county has
to conduct forensic research to come up with a correct address, legal description, etc.
• The data has been scrubbed but if you don't get good data in, you don't really get good
data out (GIGO), so it's often a struggle, but we're used to it.
Ms. Orlich asked if the claims only involved FEMA or included private flood insurance.
Mr. Mason said just the National Flood Insurance Program.
Mr. Lang said they don't currently have metrics on the private industry or with homeowners and
private flood insurance. We'd like to have that data but can't obtain it under existing legislation.
Mr. Chrzanowski asked if the logic behind keeping addresses secret is that we don't want to
offend people.
Mr. Lang said he didn't think it's a matter of not wanting to offend people. Addresses cannot be
disclosed due to federal privacy act laws.
Mr. Chrzanowski said so the logic is that we don't want to offend people.
Mr. Lang said he believes it has more to do with potentially affecting a property sale.
Mr. Mason said if you were to come in and ask me about a piece of property, and ask me if it's a
Repetitive-Loss Property, he couldn't tell you either way.
Mr. Lang said he's on Stan's side but he needs to clam:
• We cannot disclose Repetitive-Loss Properties.
• It's different if we say we have records that a structure flooded from our own data or
our own collection standards locally. We can divulge that.
• We can't officially inform a potential buyer or anyone that a property is a Repetitive-
Loss Property, a specific category under the National Flood Insurance Program.
• If he has empirical data, specifically if we conduct a Rapid-Damage Assessment after
an event, we may have evidence from collection efforts showing a watermark or other
evidence. We can disclose that, but cannot disclose the Repetitive-Loss category.
Mr. Vasey said that years ago, we tried to get the Property Appraiser to put the flood zone on the
property certificate. Do you remember the problem we had from local Realtors?
Mr. Lang said he did but he doesn't want to go down that rabbit hole. Flood zones and base
elevations change. The intent would be that it's most likely doing some type of geospatial auto
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pull and that information gets updated. That's a challenging thing to do in Collier County due to
the flood map's complexities. That's where we are currently.
Mr. Lang continued with his PowerPoint presentation:
• Activity 360, Flood Protection Assistance. We often get a call from a homeowner and
they're trying directly or indirectly to obtain a permit related to construction in the
flood plain or they're sometimes contacting us for mitigation options for their structure.
• We get credit under the CRS program for providing different types of information,
specifically property protection advice after a site visit, and flood-insurance guidance
advice. Within Activity 360,we've accomplished that through multiple phone calls or
interactions with the public.
• For the annual recertification, we don't have to submit a lot. We just need three
examples. We often do it daily, so he picked unique cases. For example, we have a
homeowner elevating her Isles of Capri home and he showed FEMA that his
communication with her was immediately after Hurricane Ian and we got her up to the
point where she'll get a FEMA grant. She's pursuing that and is almost there. The state
is reviewing her application. That's one example from start to finish, and it took several
months to get to that point.
• Activity 502, Repetitive Loss Properties. This is related to Activity 330 because we
have to prove the particular outreach that we're providing in the mailers we talked
about earlier. We provide an example of a letter we provided to Repetitive-Loss Area
Analysis Property Owners.
• Activity 540, System Drainage Maintenance. We communicate and coordinate this
through the Transportation Management Services Department (MSD). The MSD used
to be North Management South next door,the Stormwater Division, in coordination
with what was traditionally known as the Road Maintenance Division. We rely heavily
on Road Maintenance for this information and it's their debris clearing within certain
water systems. There aren't many reports that we have to provide.
• Activity 610, Flood Warning and Response. He was previously the alert warning
coordinator in Emergency Management and we were blessed to have Jibey come along
so he'll be working with him on that. Jibey streamlined many things. We talked
frequently and he's really advanced the program from the basics, so kudos to him.
• A lot of the activities Emergency Management conducts involve activity and we rely on
them, so it's a mutually beneficial partnership. For the annual recertification,we had to
prove we did a proper after-action review, either as an exercise or post-disaster.
Emergency Management still provides an annual hurricane exercise and we can do an
after-action report based on exercise activities we conducted last year. We went over
Hurricane Ian in detail in an after-action review as a part of the 2023 hurricane exercise
and provided that to ISO and the other floodplain coordinators in our community, Kelly
DeFederici on Marco Island, Bob Dorta from the City of Naples, and Terry Smallwood,
of Everglades City.
Mr. Vasey told the committee:
• The CRS manual and activities have changed significantly since he joined this
committee in January 2006. With greater awareness of our climate and longer storm
events,we've seen a lot of changes.
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• This presentation is significant. The sophistication we're now seeing from FEMA and
the demands on municipalities and county have become extraordinarily difficult to
comply with because administrations change about every 2'/2 years.
• That change costs us so much time because you can't staff the lunacy and a lot of what
we're seeing is just plain dumb. What we're doing here in the county is a change that
came from Caroline Cilek. With Mr. Mason, we're moving forward and we're making
better use of the staff's time.
• There are very complicated issues today, issues the public doesn't want to know about.
They just want things fixed but you can't fix them as fast as they get broken here. Some
you can never fix because of mistakes made in the original permitting, so we're dealing
with a lot of issues. One is that there's no place to go anymore and if it breaks,there's a
strong probability you're not going to get it fixed again.
Ms. Orlich asked if FEMA is concerned about just surge flooding or also sheet flooding?
Mr. Lang asked if she's referring to flood mapping or claims.
Ms. Orlich said both, warning and response, all of the above.
Mr. Lang explained:
• Warning and response would be multi-hazard, not necessarily just flood but they would
look at all of those factors, precipitation or riverine flooding,which we can refer to as
shallow flooding in Collier County—either ponding or sheet flood, and storm surge.
• Since 1979, the county's flood maps historically showed you were either in a Coastal
Flood Zone with storm-surge risk or you were in an X Zone or D Zone, a low to
moderate risk.
• The big flood-mapping change was the addition of the AH Zones and approximate A
Zones in the eastern portions of the county for the 2012 flood map.
• What you're referring to is compound flooding and the mixture of both.
• FEMA acknowledges and includes those.
• Part of the work that Jibey, Amy and the Emergency Management team does is update
the county's various plans associated with identifiable hazards, either man-made or
natural. FEMA acknowledges that.
Ms. Orlich said when new structures are put in, such as a new Vanderbilt Beach Road
Extension(VBRE)that's going to be about four feet higher than the current area,that sort of
acts like a dam because it's south of many areas. Do they come in to reassess that or is it taken
into account with the planning?
Mr. Lang responded:
• That would be more on the regional or local side with any map, but specifically with
flood maps, it's a snapshot in time and is never real-time data because you're using
many factors.
• For example, ground elevations or LiDAR(Light Detection And Ranging) on a
recurring basis is very expensive so when we have a data set and engage with FEMA
for a map change or they force one upon us like they did with the February 8th version,
it's a snapshot in time. The current flood map change from February 8th began in 2014
in Collier County. It took 10 years to get it in place. We've had a lot of development
since 2014. He believes hurricane events that occurred within that time frame for that
map study are not acknowledged.
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• The Hurricane Ian data they collected is not reflected in the February 8th map because
it was in a preliminary status before Hurricane Ian. Whether they acknowledge that by
putting in variables from Hurricane Ian in the finalized version, he'd need to check but
he's pretty confident the answer is no.
• To answer the question, that's more at the local, regional side, depending on who's got
jurisdiction for the different elements, including stormwater design.
• FEMA is acknowledging at a certain point in time so it's always behind the power
curve from our perspective.
• There's a lot of movement in the insurance industry, specifically the flood-insurance
industry, that will probably take several years to implement. He's seeing a lot of things
about parametric flood insurance, which instead of meaning a flood event occurs and
you send out an adjuster, it's more about possibly installing sensors around a particular
area. They're triggered and then they're utilizing real-time satellite imagery to support
that system.
• Instead of a claim being paid out because of an adjuster's report, and the back and
forth with an insurer,the idea is that the trigger is met. Therefore, the payout is very
quick, nearly automatic but that's far in the future. Large companies in different
countries are doing that and those policies are often in the hundreds of thousands or
millions so it's high level now for businesses in different developing areas but we'll
probably see that moving forward in the industry.
Mr. Chrzanowski said to clarify,the old flood maps prior to 2001 did have storm flooding
besides surge flooding. When they redid the maps in 2001, it was the same year we got our first
LiDAR from the Property Appraiser. That was when they re-evaluated how accurate their maps
were, which is why they had to redo Golden Gate. They realized their data was very poor. But
they forced us to take ...
Mr. Lang asked if he's referring to the 2012 map.
Mr. Chrzanowski said he's talking about 2001.
Mr. Lang said that's before his time, before 2012.
Mr. Chrzanowski said you said prior to 2012,they didn't take storm flooding into account. All
the maps did.
Mr. Lang said he stands corrected.
Mr. Lang explained:
• In our flood map history, there was a flood map update in 1986 and 1992, and then we
were supposed to have map updates in 1995 and 1998. Stan's point is they realized
through LiDAR that they needed to update their information.
• If you look at our flood map history, we had a flood map change in 1992 and 2005.
That's a significant amount of time and that's Stan's point. He went through it when
he worked here. In 1998, we had a lot of back and forth from FEMA to get to that
2005 amount.
Mr. Chrzanowski said it wasn't just one change. They did part of the county, accepted part of
the county, and had us redo part of the county, then some of that was never accepted.
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4. Approved Flood Ordinance Update (2024-12)
Mr. Lang told the committee:
• The ordinance was approved by the Board of County Commissioners on March 26, 2024,
and we discussed this during prior meetings. Duke wants to put some information on
record after he details this.
• This was our attempt and requirement to consolidate duplicative language in our Land
Development Code and to put it solely in Chapter 62 of Municode, the Code of Laws and
Ordinances.
• We had duplicative language in our Land Development Code versus our Flood Ordinance
and we were directed by the state and FEMA to reduce the duplicative language so we
struck through items that were no longer applicable in the Land Development Code. Most
was just a transfer of information into our Flood Ordinance. That was the primary intent.
• The other intent was clarification to Chapter 38, Civil Emergencies of our Code of Laws
and Ordinances. It deals with various issues, including emergency permitting. Through
Mr. Mason's efforts and his experience post-Ian, he was tasked with managing the direct
housing mission post-recovery.
• Once we got out of Hurricane Ian response and went into recovery,the responsibility fell
on our new division, Community Planning &Resiliency. That had to do with the
placement of travel trailers or manufactured home units provided by FEMA or the state.
• With this flood awareness update, we needed to consolidate and clarify to state that when
a homeowner elects to get disaster housing, specifically a travel trailer or an MHU
(manufactured house unit), they're required to place it on their land for the affected
structure. The reasoning was that we would get requests from residents who would say
their cousin's house in Lee County was destroyed. Can I put a travel trailer or MHU on
my property for them to live in?Now we potentially have a long-term issue where we
have this structure that's not designed to be put on that lot long term. That was the intent.
[Mr. Lang put Mr. Vasey's email on the overhead projector and FPMC members received a
copy]
Mr. Vasey told the committee:
• He's been doing this for over 30 years and joined this committee in January 2006.
• Jim had some ideas on what it should be and an ordinance update. What Mr. Lang
explained is what they did, took pieces and put them together because that's what FEMA
wanted.
• But when you take a look at Lee County and the disaster they've got now—and FEMA
just warned that they're going to lose their CRS discounts—it's taken us since about 1990
or earlier to get our rating where it is today, a 25% discount.
• You don't just bring that back because you have meetings like this to attend. You have
issues like Mr. Lang and everyone on the staff deals with all the time. Then you have
other problems you have to deal with. The issue he's constantly seen since Hurricane
Irma has been we just can't ramp up the engineering or Code Enforcement staff to a point
where they can make things safe again for residents at the pace we need it to be to get a
permit. Building materials and people wanting to do things will always be an issue.
• We've lost the ability to react to the primary reason we're here,the safety of residents. As
we get longer storm events, and the storm events carry higher implications, we're going
to find ourselves further behind because we can't keep the level of service we need for
residents.
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• That's why he wrote this memorandum. He's not criticizing what's taking place, he just
thinks we need to get something different in place so we can respond to an emergency.
• Mr. Lang mentions the annual meeting where they call the Emergency Management team
together and everybody says what they're going to do and they may test the radios, etc.
• He spent 18 years of his career planning for contingencies where you're going to fire live
ammunition and follow him if he starts to run. The problem is that every contingency we
base things on is no longer any good, simply because the warnings don't come fast
enough and events are much harsher than we thought they would be.
• We don't have places to evacuate people to,to keep them alive while they're here or get
them resources when things happen. The way to do that starts off with something in an
ordinance that Mr. Lang and staff continuously work on.
• The Land Development Code doesn't help you much and neither does the Growth
Management Plan. What you've got is a bona fide disaster and you have to respond to it.
You can't dial 311 and get a good response, and you can't call 911 because in all
likelihood they're not going to be available.
• The primary issue is the safety of residents. Although maintaining our CRS rating is
good, we'd like it to be lower. To get lower,you have to put much more emphasis into
the work that staff does. That's what he's said in this memorandum. As Lisa Koehler in
our minutes said so famously from"The Ten Commandments": "So it is written, so it
shall be."
[Applause from the public speaker, Mrs. McCabe.]
Mr. Lang said it's rare that Mr. Vasey gets a hand clap, so he gives him credit for that. He put
Mr. Vasey's memorandum on the screen to ensure his recommendations are on the record.
Mr. Vasey's recommendations:
• Revising the permitting cell structure to ensure adequate capacity for storm surge or post-
storm permitting demands.
• Implementing extended permitting hours and an expedited permitting process for storm-
related repairs.
• Evaluating staffing and resource allocation within Code Enforcement and permitting
departments to meet post-storm needs.
• Providing a clear timeline for the implementation of the Community Tracking System.
• Developing a comprehensive cross-training program to enhance departmental flexibility
and preparedness.
Mr. Lang told the committee:
• We already do a lot of these things. One of the biggest challenges we have in government
and anywhere is that we have so many plans, so things are often spread out.
• Mr. Vasey does a good job researching and consolidating these things to come up with
recommendations, so he thanks him.
• When he received Mr. Vasey's email, he immediately started thinking of the county's
plan.
• In Chapter 38, Civil Emergencies,the county has a lot of detailed information. We have
our Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan(CEMP), which is under the purview
of Collier County Emergency Management, specifically Amy Howard, who is updating
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May 3, 2024
the CEMP along with the Local Mitigation Strategy Plans. That's an arduous task, but
she has over 20 years of experience in emergency management. She's done this in other
jurisdictions, so we feel confident in her abilities to manage those expectations.
• In the CEMP, we have the Emergency Support Function 3 (ESF 3), which is Public
Works. We fall within that. Emergency Management asks us to look at the ESF 3
annually and to update it appropriately.
• A lot of Mr. Vasey's recommendations need to be considered in some of those updates.
• Taking on the Incident-Command System (ICS)methodology is not always the easiest
way or right way to do things in a community. It's a structure in the emergency-
management world. The Incident Command System was historically borne out of
firefighting activities but we utilize the methodology to accomplish our mission. We do a
lot of local training, and the state and FEMA do a lot of training on the ICS methodology.
Since he got here, we've utilized an incident action plan to incorporate a lot of these
strategic recommendations into tactical actions.
• When he came here last July, we created a response incident action plan for Growth
Management specifically related to rapid-damage assessment and Code Enforcement's
role in shelter operations. In the next two weeks, he plans to meet with all the Growth
Management directors, then sign off on that response incident action plan.
• Then he'll meet one-on-one with them about any concerns they have associated with their
plan. Within that plan, there's a work assignment for an ICS 204. We want to make sure
that tactical decisions and actions we identify out of these recommendations are in that
plan so they're implemented apart from a response incident action plan that we already
produced and utilized during Hurricane Idalia(August 2023), and it worked.
• We want to create a recovery incident action plan that covers a lot of other things related
to emergency permitting and logistics in this building and to payroll actions post-disaster
as it pertains to how we get reimbursement from FEMA for ICS 214.
• Apart from our civil emergencies ordinance and our Comprehensive Emergency
Management Plan, we have Incident Action Plans (IAP) for response and recovery in this
building. We are working diligently toward that and want to incorporate these
recommendations across-the-board in either the response IAP or the recovery IAP.
Planning Commissioner Shea said so you're saying that Lee County lost a 25% discount based
on its permitting and delays in getting permits? That's scary because somehow in your plan to
get the 25%, you have to have a plan for how you're going to be able to handle permits.
Mr. Lang said he wanted to be clear and responded:
• We have a lot of these procedures in place.
• He talked to permitting before this meeting because he wanted to make sure that if there
were specific questions, we have them on the record so we can get back with them.
• This isn't a fix-all but we do prioritize disaster permits first, over regular permits post-
disaster. It's an identified item on the building permit application.
• There are many other things done on the permitting side, exceptions and maybe new
things that have to be done. Civil Emergencies, Chapter 38, covers a lot of that. But we
want a lot of those things that work tactically to be on paper and clearer so that in Dan
Summer's words, if he dies,they can use that plan to operate efficiently without him or
anyone else being a leader.
• They could essentially give that to Duke and he could read it and he could do the job.
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May 3, 2024
Planning Commissioner Shea said it seems like there's a disconnect. You could have your
whole slate wiped clean and you'd lose a 25% discount. There needs to be wording somewhere
that says that permit processing or unpermitted work is a criteria in the rating system. He's
bringing this up because he doesn't want this to happen to Collier County, and that's why Mr.
Vasey wrote the memo.
Mr. Mason told the committee:
• In the case study going on with Lee County, one issue was lack of permitting, lack of
permitting records.
• Yesterday, Cape Coral was having code enforcement case hearings about that issue. They
heard 50 over the past two days related to storm repair and Hurricane Ian. Of those 50
cases, the code enforcement magistrate found 47 people were in the right, meaning they
had permits.
• We've dealt with that here because we've responded to three requests from FEMA for
permitting information. We did that in June and in December. In December, we provided
FEMA with a 240-page report based on 130 permits they sought information about. Of
those 130 permits here, they gave us incorrect addresses. They may see a pile of wood
from a fence and think it's work going on and ask for a permit. A lot of this is not very
clear and at some point some of this will come out in the wash in Lee County.
• FEMA has been less than stellar when it comes to these requests.
• Howard Critchfield, our resilience engineering manager, has handled most of this
reporting and FEMA asks about a condo and says Building 2, but there are 100 units in
that condo. We send it back and ask for more information.
• There's some disconnect with what's going on in Lee County and its partnering
jurisdictions. Some of it will come out in the wash in the end because if there were 50
properties reviewed over two days and 47 were dismissed as being above board,
something's wrong.
• There's always a lack of data management from time to time for FEMA, and we usually
ferret it out, and we're good at it. In Lee County, they were obviously very overwhelmed
with the amount of devastation they had, but they tried their best.
Planning Commissioner Shea asked if his feeling is that Collier isn't vulnerable to the same
situation.
Mr. Lang responded:
• It's not that we're necessarily vulnerable. We're always vulnerable. That's why
recommendations are important because you're always trying to not repair.
• We don't know much about Lee County's scenario but he many of their coordinators
called him right after that occurred—and it occurred very strangely. Many of those
coordinators' phones were blowing up in the morning. They answered the phone and
FEMA told them they would be calling within a period of time, maybe later in the
afternoon, and then FEMA called those jurisdictions and told them not to speak. They
were reading off a script. When some of those floodplain coordinators attempted to ask
questions, FEMA told them to be quiet and let them finish their spiel. Then at the end,
they were allowed to ask questions.
• It was about a 15-to 30-minute call and discussion. One of the biggest questions was—
and he would have asked this—"Can you give me what you just read me?" FEMA said
we'll give it to you via snail mail, USPS. FEMA has always historically communicated
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May 3, 2024
through email so to not be willing to email that so they can get it to the County
Attorney's Office is a big issue.
• The second question was the legality. You're talking about a situation where FEMA's
National Flood Insurance Program hasn't had a long-term reauthorization from Congress
since 2012. They had a five-year reauthorization from 2012-2017, and since that time
they've had temporary reauthorizations for six months, maybe a year or month at a time.
The count is now 30-31 times since 2017.
• When you're a regional officer, you are FEMA headquarters, and you're trying to
implement rules Congress gave you. FEMA's hands are tied because you can't get a valid
reauthorization done that will last a significant period of time.
• It seems they're trying to do their best within the powers they were given. He's not
defending them but that's his perception.
Mr. Vasey said the insidious part of that is that the Community Tracking System really should
be able to do a job for you, but it's supposed to cover all the preserves. The problem we have
with the preserves is their damage often is never recorded or looked at. The problem with all of
that is that those preserves have been guaranteed on the part of the homeowner, not the
homeowner personally, but the large developments. If you don't believe that, look at the
agreement we used to have, the Deltona agreement. The commissioners are sitting in their
offices today trying to decide whether they're going to approve higher density out there and
break the Deltona agreement. His point is that in Collier, everything is temporarily permanent,
maybe shorter at times.
5. 2024 Summary of Map Action (SOMA) and Revalidation Letter
Mr. Lang told the committee:
• He showed this to the committee before we adopted our flood map change on February 8.
This is the official page: bit.ly/2024CoastalCollierCountyFloodMap. He also provided
this electronically as part of the agenda.
• This is the page Collier provides to the public. Since the map change, and after every
community map change, the letters of attempts by property owners or developers to
remove land,portions of land, or structures from the Special Flood Hazard Area are
called a Letter of Map Change process with FEMA. We deal with those often.
• One of the letters of map change specific to Collier County is called a Letter of Map
Revision-Based on Fill (LOMR-F). Homeowners can do that and developers often do
that. They'll remove an entire portion of land from the Special Flood Hazard Area before
development occurs because it's a selling feature that flood insurance is not required.
• Then you have a map change,the flood risk elevation or what's known as the Base Flood
Elevation increases. It exceeds the qualifying elevation of the land, meaning the land is
too low now to qualify for that Letter of Map Change. It's then placed back into the
Special Flood Hazard Area unbeknownst to the homeowner who buys the house under
the pretense in a flat southwest Florida swamp that they're potentially never going to
have a flood risk because they don't have flood insurance. It's a bad way to communicate
risk from our perspective, but it's an option for property owners to pursue.
• After the map change, many Collier County communities that were built in the last
several years under the previous 2012 flood map, they removed the land right at the Base-
Flood Elevation, meaning they brought fill in for slab-on-grade construction, they
removed the land.
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May 3, 2024
• This is a completely legal process. It's a process FEMA allows, and they have an entire
department dedicated to this, the Letter of Map Change Clearinghouse out of Alexandria,
Virginia. We deal with them often. We get requests and guide homeowners on how to do
this. We don't encourage this because it generally results in a non-requirement of flood
insurance through a mortgage lender, and then a disaster happens and there are a lot of
ramifications for not having insurance, so we're not advocating for Letters of Map
Change but we do have to provide information to the public on how they need to do it.
• Simultaneously, we are in the context of the challenge of natural floodplain versus urban
sprawl. We're trying to help homeowners save some money. Flood insurance is not
cheap. If you go out for a quote,unless you have an older policy grandfathered in on a
climb path,the current FEMA rating methodology, flood insurance is costing
homeowners thousands. He's received calls from homeowners who got a letter after the
map change, a 45-day notice from the lender. They have 45 days to obtain flood
insurance.
• They go out to the market to get a National Flood Insurance Program policy and at times,
premiums are $6,000-$10,000 out of pocket immediately for the homeowner.
• We have many ways to guide homeowners to mitigate that. We generally inform them
that regardless of how they purchase flood insurance,they need to purchase flood
insurance immediately to comply with their mortgage lender, but they need to get the
flood insurance escrowed so they can spread the payment over 12 months.
• In the meantime, we guide them through a Letter of Map Change process so that if they
elect voluntarily they can remove their structure because the land is no longer high
enough from the developer's efforts.
• We're going through the audit, updating ordinances and there are about 100 documents in
backlog just on helping homeowners get appropriate documentation completed to submit
to FEMA.
• FEMA's Letter of Map Change clearinghouse isn't being consistent in its rules. He'll tell
a homeowner they must get a document signed by him and they have a non-refundable
FEMA fee. That's factual. A homeowner did a congressional inquiry two days ago,
bypassed the entire process, and immediately got an approved Letter of Map Change, and
then posted it on social media to show he didn't need to go through Mr. Lang's processes.
So he (Mr. Lang) wrote a scathing email to FEMA two days ago and included our
regional office and immediately got an answer, which was that FEMA will do whatever
we need to do with you, Mr. Lang,to figure out a compromise.
• We are recommending that homeowners don't have to get the document from Mr. Lang
and don't have to pay the fee,but we need to analyze their structure at the individual
level to make a generic statement to the Letter of Map Change clearinghouse so this
doesn't happen.
• He also made an inquiry to make sure that homeowners who previously submitted and
paid the fee are addressed and that FEMA provide potential refunds to those homeowners
for the non-refundable fee they charged. We're working diligently but with everything
we're doing with this map change, we're working long hours daily to address this. That's
where we are currently.
• [He showed the committee the web page, Summary of Map Action (SOMA) letter and
Letter of Map Change Revalidation.]
• The SOMA letter shows that from FEMA's perspective in August 2023,the properties
that got revalidated Letters of Map Change no longer qualify, or are non-revalidated.
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May 3, 2024
• The revalidation letter,the bottom link, provides all the Letters of Map Change that got
revalidated and carried forward after FEMA's review.
• We've mapped this in our GIS, so that permitting can identify which ones were rescinded
or non-revalidated and which ones continued forward. It helps tremendously with
permitting.
• Island Walk originally was in a flood plain. The community was low, so they dug out
lakes, piled the dirt on the land, and houses were built on top of a pile. The community
knew they could submit these requests and word spread like wildfire. Everyone did it and
got approval for no longer being in the floodplain because now your house is three feet
higher than it was originally before the land was developed.
Ms. Orlich said communities are probably doing this via social media information.
Mr. Lang said she's right and provided an example:
• He's helped homeowners and it's taken 45-75 minutes to talk a homeowner off the ledge
and provide correct guidance so they can immediately remediate this. It takes a vast
amount of time and he's backlogged with voicemails. He's not the only employee
dealing with it. Other staff are assisting.
• The No. 1 recommendation we make when we initially got these calls was that you need
to contact your HOA to facilitate a meeting. Then we advise them they need to identify
who has mortgages. If you don't have a mortgage, you don't have a flood insurance
requirement. They need to categorize homeowners within the community—who has
mortgages, who doesn't have mortgages, who may have a pending sale listed and has a
mortgage. That's the first priority: Who doesn't have a mortgage and who doesn't have
a sale?
• The last step is anyone who is interested because maybe they want to sell their structure
in the future and don't want that negative implication that they have a flood insurance
requirement.
• We are proponents of flood insurance. We don't think that's a negative thing. We
recommend that homeowners band together because the cost of the FEMA application is
significantly reduced when you do one application for multiple structures versus one
structure. Many communities are doing that. Some are not because they're all for one
and they have their own individual mortgage lenders.
• It's been a patchwork job and we know homeowners and subdivisions are doing that, so
kudos to them.
Ms. Orlich said maybe it would help your workflow if you developed some active information.
Mr. Lang said we've already done that. He made a template and reads it verbatim to
homeowners and then emails it to them after as a summary. He usually doesn't get many
questions back after that.
Mr. Vasey said homeowners are foolish if they don't get flood insurance. There's a project
called Verona Walk at SR 951 and U.S. 41. It's designed to take 16 inches of rain in 72 hours
and not flood the houses.
Mr. Lang said that's a 72-hour, 100-year event.
Mr. Vasey said in the mid-80s,that property got 24 inches of rain overnight and was flooded for
months. Anybody who lives there now would be totally underwater. Thinking you don't need
flood insurance there is crazy. You need it everywhere.
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May 3, 2024
Mr. Lang told the committee:
• Emergency managers know that when you don't get flood insurance, homeowner's
insurance or a wind policy, if we're lucky enough to receive a presidential declaration, an
Individual Assistance Declaration, often with the Small Business Administration(SBA),
that means the cavalry rolls in—FEMA and SBA—and we set up Disaster Recovery
Centers countywide.
• He set up DRCs after Hurricane Ian. They generally use public buildings and we had no
pause in service from roll out to when they ended, which was roughly October 2022 to
January 2023, almost February 2023.
• Property owners who don't have insurance or don't have enough insurance go to the
DRCs call FEMA or go to the FEMA website and apply for disaster assistance money.
What they don't realize is that when they're taking that low amount of money versus a
potential insurance payout, if they have insurance, they're getting a very small amount of
money under FEMA's Individual And Household Programs (IHP).
• They take that money and it acts like a building and contents policy. The payout award is
structured that way, but it's a lot less money.
• If they get$20,000 from FEMA, they don't realize that when they sign on to get that
money,they're agreeing to a flood insurance in perpetuity clause for that address. What
later happens is they get a temporary three-year policy known as a Group Flood
Insurance Policy (GFIP).
• Every year they're notified that after the three years, they must go out to the market and
get their own policy. Many homeowners don't realize they have the Group Loan
Insurance Policy during the three years. They let it lapse, intentionally or not
intentionally, and then another disaster occurs. They still live in the house. They go back
to a DRC if we get an IA (Individual Assistance) Declaration, and they're told they
cannot get benefits because they didn't keep flood insurance in perpetuity for the life of
the address.
• That means even if you demo the structure and build it back to compliance, you still have
a flood insurance and perpetuity requirement for that address. That's strange isn't it?
• He held an outreach event with Realtors yesterday and this was a very good topic. You
sell the home,you don't inform the new owner of the situation,they show up at a DRC
because they didn't properly insure, or they're underinsured. You only get $250,000 in
building coverage through the NFIP, so if you're lucky enough to get that full payout, it
doesn't mean you're going to have enough money to rebuild your home.
• What mostly happens is you get an SBA low-interest loan to supplement it and with that,
the flood insurance and perpetuity costs can sometimes take effect through the SBA.
• That's the primary argument that we make when we talk to the professional development
community: A Letter of Map Change is not a form of mitigation. Flood insurance is
always preferred or recommended.
Mr. Vasey noted that your designed-for storm is regularly exceeded.
Mr. Lang said definitely. Floods know no lines.
Mr. Mason said that just because we haven't heard back from FEMA doesn't mean it's over, but
we're prepared to handle our business with the utmost urgency and precision.
6. Other Items/Committee Correspondence
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May 3, 2024
Mr. Lang told the committee:
• Simultaneously with the FEMA audit of Hurricane Ian damages, we have a recurring
audit with the State Floodplain Management Program office. That's a higher regulatory
agency that's giving us a list of properties they identified through a field/community visit.
They don't randomly pick those. They're pulling data from the private database we
discussed for Repetitive Loss Properties, looking at quit-claim data and claims data post-
event.
• They usually already know what they're looking for when they show up here and they're
still inaccurate. We met with the state, which notified us that they were auditing us by
coming through on a recurring scheduled community-assisted visit. We don't know the
schedule. It's a rotation through Florida communities.
• We met with them on April 12th at the Lee County Emergency Operations Center and we
spoke our mind. This was a post-Lee County situation. We're supposed to get back a
small amount of properties for this audit,maybe 10 is what we were told, and that's easy
for us to address and mitigate.
• But we pushed back to the state office the locality of the scenario. There are two ways to
conduct substantial damage per FEMA's guidelines. You can use the building permit
process as one option, or do what we did with Hurricane Irma as a pilot community with
FEMA, which is witch hunts, going out in the field and doing Substantial-Damage
Determinations. We made it very clear to the state office that those are the two options on
the books.
• They were trying to tell us that going out in the field was required. We said they should
show us where that is in Code of Federal Regulations.
Mr. Mason said he even brought the Substantial Damage desk reference and asked him to point
out here where it says that because it doesn't.
Mr. Lang said we were prepared for the discussion. It was a civil discussion and they walked
away with a better respect for the situation. Their response to our question about the legality was
that's what was preached to them. So it was a civil, informal, relaxed discussion and wasn't
contentious. But the point was that they seemed to acknowledge that just because someone tells
you something doesn't mean it's factual. That's where we stand currently.
Public Speaker
Pat McCabe, of Doral Circle, told the FMPC:
• She's impressed with what this group is doing and appreciates the effort and time that
you're putting into it, both Collier County employees and volunteers.
• Doral Circle is surrounded by Hibiscus Golf Course, with 66 homes in the flood zone on
FEMA's map. We're concerned that our homes are vulnerable to flooding because
Hibiscus recently changed the course's elevation.
• In 2022, our homes barely escaped flooding during Hurricane Ian, with water within
inches of our pools and back doors. Across the lake and canal behind us, Hibiscus was
inundated with water covering several acres.
• Hibiscus' website says it decided in 2020 that its aging hydraulic irrigation system
needed to be replaced and the course needed a complete renovation. Work started last
April. As part of that renovation, Hibiscus dug large holes in the fairways beside the lake
and canal,piling soil into large mounds and filling holes with broken paving and then
refilling the holes with soil.
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May 3, 2024
• We called during construction, requesting drawings for the drainage and the elevation
changes. We were told the manager would have to get back to us and he never did. We
also sent emails with the same concerns that went unanswered.
• She couldn't find any permit on the county's website for that renovation. The course now
appears higher in many places, leaving us wondering where the new drainage system will
discharge. We're fearful of flooding into our homes from the next storm.
• We have questions for Collier County. Is the water draining into the lake? If not, where is
it going? We would like to see a topographical plan for the course's renovation.
• What oversight did the county have for Hibiscus' renovation?If there was any, we would
like to see it.
• Was a water flow analysis done to show Hibiscus' renovation would not increase flood
levels within our community?If so, we would like to see it. If not done, does this not
jeopardize our Class-5 rating and the county's 25% flood insurance discount?
• You talked about flood warnings. She's really concerned about this because we sit so
low. We are about four feet below Rattlesnake-Hammock Road in an enclosed dead-end.
• At least one resident called her to say she's worried he'd drown there so he asked a
neighbor with a big truck to pick him up and bring him to a house that was higher.
• The question she had after that was, where were the warnings?
• We also had a water main break recently and it took six to eight hours for Collier Alert to
get back to us and tell us to boil our water and don't boil your water. We need to be better
coordinated. She also remembers that with 911, people couldn't talk to each other
because they had different frequencies.
[Mr. Chrzanowski and Mr. Vasey applauded.]
Mr. Lang said the Hurricane Ian notifications and alerts were specific to certain evacuation
zones, specifically Zone A. That may have played a part in terms of your geospatial location or
location of your home in relation to that zone. Mrs. McCabe may already have done this, but he
recommends signing up for www.alertcollier.com notifications. That's important.
Mrs. McCabe said she did and that's why she's complaining about the water-main break.
Mr. Lang said the water outage situation/main break was addressed at the Board of County
Commissioners meeting. Director Dan Summers and the Department Head of Public Utilities,
Dr. Yilmaz, spoke to the board. He's confident this was brought to Emergency Management
and that they're working on these fast-breaking events, specifically water-main breaks.
Mr. Asthappan said we were contacted by PUD on that. It was a cautionary boil water, not a
mandatory boil. It wasn't a disaster, but with the flood it could be a disaster.
Mrs. McCabe said that's why we need to get these alerts working properly.
Mr. Asthappan said we're forging that relationship. He's drawing that up now and formalizing
it, but we already have an informal one with the Utilities Department. If something were to
happen, our office would send that alert out more quickly. We didn't foresee anything. We had
two events in a couple of months that caused widespread precautionary well-water notices.
Mr. Lang said it was kind of a perfect storm so we said to forge that relationship and we're
going to get alerts out more quickly. Hopefully that alleviates some of your concerns.
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May 3, 2024
Planning Commissioner Shea said the only way we found out about a boil-water notice is that
somebody happened to be watching the news. Is there a plan to send it out to HOA
communication networks or any groups that can get it to groups?
Mr. Lang said he can elaborate historically because it's not fair to Jibey to put him on the spot
for actions before his time.
Mr. Lang told the committee:
• Your complaint is more than justified.
• Public Utilities has a traditional way of doing this. As Emergency Management, we
engage with them and provided the framework for notifying them. We got caught up
historically because we were talking about the over-inundation of notifying the public
through Alert Collier. That was one of our big concerns but that's not an excuse. That
was just a part of the discussion.
• We were trying to come up with a reasonable threshold at a larger number to use Alert
Collier versus the traditional Public Utilities approach, going door-to-door, because it
was usually a smaller type of event, not such a large scale.
• The large scale event and those ramifications set off and reignited the discussion about
thresholds where Alert Collier needs to be utilized. Kudos to Jibey because they're
addressing that and he's got a lot of expertise. Public Utilities is now acknowledging
that threshold and addressing it with Emergency Management so that it's hopefully
mitigated in the future.
Mr.Asthappan explained:
• That's accurate. This was a large-scale one, something that hasn't been seen before. We
had 30,000 homes on the last main break and they couldn't go door-to-door, so they
needed something.
• Now they're working on a plan that meets with their Impassa System that will
automatically generate those, but until then, we're on a band-aid solution to send out
Alert Collier.
• Any time you send an alert, it's a double-edged sword because we don't want to upset
anyone. We have mothers putting their babies down,people trying to sleep, even late in
the morning, so we don't like to interrupt.
• We got a complaint about an Alert Collier call at 9:30 p.m., saying he woke them up and
they have a hard time going to sleep.
Planning Commissioner Shea said they can turn off their phones if they want to sleep.
Mr. Asthappan said we try to cause the least amount of disruption to your life while still
providing valuable information. That's the MOA that we're writing with the Utilities
Department that needs to strike that balance. It's a good warning system. He doesn't mind being
inundated. You can narrow the search down to certain communities. We may initially have
some information that'll let you know there's something going on. As we have the exact,
affected location, then we'd send a message to those on the list.
Mr. Lang said he spoke with Pat McCabe at great lengthy and provided a lot of information
and she had a lot of good questions about flood insurance issues and the rating methodology
that we talked about so we went over that. He located a Planning Application number for Mrs.
McCabe, but it was closed out.
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May 3, 2024
Mrs. McCabe said that was before Hurricane Irma and seemed to be obsolete.
Mr. Lang said he provided Mrs. McCabe with contact information for one of the county
engineers, Jack McKenna,to follow up on this.
Mrs. McCabe said county commissioners need to be concerned about this.
7. Adjourn—Future Meeting Dates
9 a.m. August 2,2024
9 a.m. November 1,2024
Ms. Orlich made a motion to adjourn the meeting. Second by Mr. Shea. The motion passed
unanimously. 8-0.
There being no further business for the good of the county, the meeting was adjourned by
order of the vice chairperson at 10:48 a.m.
COLLIER COUNTY FLOODPLAIN
MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE
I /
Eric Jotit
n, Chairperson
These minutes were approved by the board/Chairperson on 08/02/2024 , (select one) as presented
, or as amended X .
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