PACIFIC ADA CENTER PRESENTS

ADA NATIONAL NETWORK/FEMA WEBINAR SERIES:
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AND PREPAREDNESS-INCLUSION OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

ADA NATIONAL NETWORK LEARNING SESSION
“LOOKING AT POWER ISSUES FROM 2 PERSPECTIVES:
A UTILITY AND THE AMERICAN RED CROSS”

Thursday, April 9, 2015

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This transcript is being provided in rough-draft format.

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Lewis Kraus: Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the emergency management and preparedness inclusion of persons with disabilities webinar. I'm Lewis Kraus from the Pacific ADA Center, your moderator for this series. This series of webinars is brought to you by the Pacific ADA Center as a collaborative effort between the ADA National Network and FEMA's Office of Disability Integration and Coordination.

	The ADA National Network is made up of 10 centers federally funded to provide training, technical assistance, and other information as needed on the Americans with Disabilities Act. You can reach your regional ADA Center by dialing 1‑800‑949‑4232. I'm going to put that number in the chat window for you.

	FEMA's ODIC covers the same 10 regions with regional disability integration specialists. More information about FEMA can be found at www.fema.gov and then type ODIC into the FEMA website search.

	This webinar series will share issues and promising practices in emergency management inclusive of people with disabilities and others with access and functional needs. The webinars will provide an exciting opportunity for emergency managers, people with disabilities, and others with access and functional needs, first responders, planners, community organizations, and other community partners to exchange knowledge and information on promising practices in inclusive emergency preparedness and management for the whole community. 

	This year's topics will cover emergency preparedness and disaster response, recovery and mitigation as well as accessibility and reasonable accommodation issues under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the ADA, and other relevant laws. The series will alternate monthly between ADA National Network Learning Sessions and FEMA Promising Practices. 

	We encourage you to review the series website and familiarize yourself with the full array of sessions available in the series at www.adapresentations.org/schedules. The webinars occur on the second Thursday of the month at 2:30 Eastern, 1:30 Central, 12:30 Mountain and 11:30 Pacific time. By being here you are on the list to receive notices for future webinars in the series. Notices go out two to three weeks before the next webinar and open that webinar to registration.

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	Note that this webinar is being recorded and will be able to be accessed on the ADA presentations website within three days after the conclusion of this session. You can follow along on the webinar platform with the slides. If you're not using the webinar platform you can download a copy of the today's PowerPoint presentation at http://adapresentations.org/schedule.php. This session is being recorded. And the archives will be available as I mentioned. 

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	At the conclusion of today's presentation, there will be an opportunity for everyone to ask questions. You may submit your questions in the chat area within the webinar platform. And the speakers and I will address them at the end of the session. So feel free to submit them as they come to your mind during the presentation. You can submit those by going to the chat box area or by pressing Control M and enter the text in the chat area. If you are listening by phone and not logged into the webinar, you may ask questions by e‑mailing them to adatech@adapacific.org.

	If you're experiencing any technical difficulties during the webinar, send us a private chat message by double clicking Pacific ADA Center in the participant list; a tab titled Pacific ADA Center will appear in your chat panel. Type your comment in the text box and enter. If you're using keyboard equivalence, keyboard to F6, arrow up and down to locate Pacific ADA Center and select to send the message. You can also send an e‑mail to adatech@adapacific.org or call 510‑285‑5600. 

	Today's ADA National Network Learning Session is titled "Looking at Power Issues From 2 Perspectives: A Utility and the American Red Cross." Loss of power remains an acute and complex emergency threat for people with disabilities and others with access and functional needs whose margin of resilience is dependent on power and thus they are unfortunately impacted. This webinar covers existing, new, and emerging protective practices, misconceptions, ongoing challenges, and preparedness issues from two perspectives: the American Red Cross and a public utility.

	Our first speaker today is Michael Edwards, the Regional Mass Care Manager for the American Red Cross in the Los Angeles Region which covers Los Angeles, Inyo, and Mono Counties and the eastern portion of Kern County. He leads and provides guidance to a primarily all-volunteer workforce in supporting local, county, and state governments in the delivery and support of mass care services, including emergency sheltering, emergency feeding, the distribution of disaster relief supplies, and the emergency notification during and after disasters. He's also a subject matter expert in planning, exercising and drilling on these topics and is a member of numerous taskforces and workgroups in the region addressing these vital areas.

	So, Michael, I will turn it over to you now. 

Michael Edwards: Thank you, Lewis. Thank you to all of those of you joining this very important conversation and topic.

	What I would like to advise all of you to take away from this is that this conversation doesn't begin today. It's been going on for quite a while, even before the jurisdictions and folks like the ADA and the Department of Justice came onboard. We're going to continue the dialogue after this. My hope from my portion of the presentation and Paul and Enrique's is that we all spur new conversation with new partners, undisclosed resources to solve this because we are all in a battle to solve the problem of power as it relates to blue skies, gray skies, and black‑sky days is something we're all very dependent on. And our clientele depends on us solving the problem; not to argue and bicker over who is responsible. That's for another time and another place.

Lewis, if I could get my program up on the screen, we'll go through the material. There we go. 

	Ok. When I was approached about doing this, I was very enthusiastic about it because here in the Los Angeles market we do sheltering a lot. Not for the same reasons a lot of you on the Golf, East Coast and even beautiful Midwest get tasked with doing it but we do get it for a lot of different reasons: law enforcement issues, transportation‑related things, and the occasional significant multi‑family fire. What we have looming out here is the no‑knock event that will bring Anderson Cooper and all the morning talk shows out here, which is an earthquake. And while we're preparing for all of that, we are still looking at solving all the other riddles out there in this power as June and many other consultants and supporters of very community groups tell me is going to be critical. So I leapt at the chance to talk and share what I've been able to research and bring to the table.

	The focus, I believe, is this simple. Electric power in today's society for most people is as critical as clean drinking water. For those folks that have various devices or appliance that are dependent on an electrical power source by sustaining and maintaining independence is an absolute.

	When I mention the word fabric of their independent living, that cannot be underestimated. And to that point, it's not even an estimation. It is a blatant fact. Their not being inconvenienced or put without. They need electrical power in the role of the temporary shelters that the Red Cross will provide, in their congregate sheltering program, we are working daily on various solutions to that electrical power issue: again, mobility devices, ventilators, suctioning devices, refridgerators for medicines and communication devices at the core of it. 

	This is by no means an all-inclusive list. Every day various partners and people we interact with bring to our attention things we need to support. And the Red Cross within our city, county, and state partners [No Audio]. It's a learning experience every day in and every day out. It's best to take it all in when you can and benefit from it so that you are not scrambling at the last minute.

	This is probably the number one area where people find it difficult to take on. You have to have serious discussions with all responsible parties. And one of the things I have found consistently is that not everybody wants to talk about the difficult. My feeling is if you don't talk about the difficult, you are in the wrong task or in the wrong position because emergency management and emergency planning is going to be difficult. There have to be serious discussions. Once you're done discussing things, which actually never ends, you need to then get out there and road test your plans. This is not anything new for planners that take their role seriously. There's just an understanding that you're out there to do good for the greatest number, so stay at it. 

	Big objectives. Number three on this one. I'm continually reminded that over communication is critical. Just when you think you've reached everybody through every means necessary someone will bring another point or method that you need to use. Social media helps a lot. But, again, there's a certain segment of society that's not big on social media, so you can't ignore them. You have to use more traditional media. You may have to use word of mouth or even the United States Postal Service. I have volunteers that are very active and very experienced in mass care that absolutely believe that the U.S. postal service and a landline phone line is the only two communication methods they need and that's how I reach them in all but critical times.

	In the bottom bullet, don't sugar coat the results. You're not going to solve everything the first time out or the fifth time out or even the 100th time out but you have to stay at it. You have to be brutally honest with yourself and your stakeholders as you work through this.

	In putting together the folks in the organization that need to talk about it, again, this is not designed to be an all‑inclusive list by any means but you need to get these critical partners at the table engaged and involved. Elected officials like to insert themselves in various locations throughout the process. Use them to your advantage. They are a value‑added asset in messaging and with shaping policy. Many times they also affect your budget. That's more true in the public sector than the private sector but that can be useful. So use them. 

	Again, additional partners that have to come to the table and be engaged. In a lot of jurisdictions there's a little bit of uncertainty even today about who in the event of a disaster is in charge of your care and shelter. That's a critical resource to know whether it be a Parks and Rec group or the Health and Human Services or public social services because those are the folks that that jurisdiction is going to lean on the most to solve the problem. So making sure who is in the mix and who is in that lead role is critical. 

	The stakes. Well, when we're talking about power to keep people alive, that's number one on everybody's list. You have medical dependencies, life quality issues. They have to be solved.

	In the cases where it's not a life‑threatening issue to properly care for people under your care, you may have to assign additional limited human resources to assist them. 

	Along with that there is liability and reputation. Those obviously are deep in a lot of people's minds. They have to be part of the conversation, not to be minimized or understated.

While you're talking through the issues, understand the limitations. There will be a time when you have to prioritize limited resources. When you do that, it's best to have as many opinions and many perspectives available to you.

	Public opinion will always be a factor. Don't minimize it. Don't discount it. But don't make it one of your driving forces for decision making. There's always a cost. Usually financial but you never want it to be a human life as one of the stakes. 

	The photo here shows a portable generator that has been connected to a building, a church, in this case providing supplemental power. This is not done on the fly. A lot of planning and research and preparation went into this but this is a group that clearly knew what they needed to do, when they needed to do it, what needed to be done and they planned for it. My guess is that they also drilled and exercised on a day when they didn't need it so that they could depend on it. That's one of the goals. That's your final point. When you can get a resource to a site where it's needed, connect it and provide that vital service when it's needed ‑‑ I won't say seamlessly but with a lot more ease than the scramble could be. 

	Here's some work that was done in result or in response to events. This is in the great state of Massachusetts where an elected official and a administrator at a site became very resourceful and went after government funds and were lucky ‑‑ I won't say lucky but the unique recipient of funding to provide the vital resource they needed: standby generator at a site where sheltering is done to provide those critical resources. Now, they only list here heat, hot water and food. But looking at the size of the generator, I'm guessing that they were able to provide quite a bit more power to the facility than just what's listed there. 

	Here's a good example of what is commonly found in a lot of buildings in newer construction. They make the determination that standby power needs to be more than for emergency lighting, elevators and emergency safety systems, all which are mandated by either city, county, state, or federal jurisdiction. Building occupancy is dependent on electrical power. In many cases people just don't want to do without. And when you're planning a building, especially new construction, everybody should be fine.

	So what does this mean? It means the jurisdictions, the people responsible for sheltering and their sheltering partners need to work to identify shelter sites that have backup power on site or that can bring the required equipment in to provide power.

	Why is that critical? Well, we're going to go through why it's critical shortly. What I'm asking and suggesting here is the following: It is difficult. It may not be possible. It takes a lot of time. It's too expensive. It's not my job. We have too many potential shelter sites. It is too much to manage. The buildings that we possibly would use as shelters are too old. The buildings are too far away. I have a large footprint of area I have to cover the building owners won't let us. We don't know where to start. 

	To that I say all of those are possible answers following a disaster; however, none of them may be acceptable to your clients of your shelter or the folks that you all answer to that we all answer to which is the public at large. So the way to address it is to start working at it now and chip away at a priority list ‑‑ a list of priority sites and see what it takes. You may find by asking around some solutions to this may be easy to come by.

	In talking with folks along the Gulf Coast and the East Coast, primarily -- I do need to respect my friends and colleagues in the Midwest and get their buy‑in -- but no jurisdiction has come up with all the answers to getting power to shelters post landfall, post incident, or even during the incident. It is one of those things that is so critical in the thought process that it's pretty hard to put your hands around it or your arms around it in a timely manner. It is a limited resource in many jurisdictions. And in some it's not existent at all. But not attempting to get answers and solving the problem will leave you in a much worse place than not taking a run at it. 

	In some cases, the solution may be within your grasp. An example that's commonly seen from that first slide at the church was that a portable generator can be brought in and properly set up in a parking lot or other safe access point to provide some power to a facility.

	On the small scale, on a limited scale, many jurisdictions and a lot of sheltering partners have recreational‑level generators. The kind that you can get at a rental yard or many homeowners have and farms have. They may not be the kind that can run the whole facility or allow you to run heating systems or cooking but we have found and have demonstrated that you may be able to use that generator to create a charging station or a series of charging stations to allow mobility device users, power chair users to charge their units. You may be able to set up charging stations safely to allow smartphone, cell phone, and other communication device users to charge their devices to allow them to continue to be in communication. Again, those are simple solutions or they may sound simple. And they may be within your grasp today without any new expense or any real creative thinking. 

	On a larger‑scale event the Federal Emergency Management Association, FEMA, is and has been working with the United States Army Corps of Engineers to assist jurisdictions with site surveys for backup emergency power. This was something that was highly visible in the post‑Katrina landfall and the result of flooding in the Gulf Coast. Again, a lot of lessons learned from that event and also in the post‑Sandy environment. And many people are now taking advantage of that today to get out ahead of this. And what they're going to find is that planning for it and just getting the document ‑‑ getting it documented will help them in their planning and budgeting abilities going forward.

	The next few slides that I have in the presentation will plant some seeds and help spur that communication and conversation. 

	Here's what FEMA and the United States Army Corps of Engineers has. They have a taskforce that is to support jurisdictions both local, city, county, operational areas, regions with emergency power. They have the ability to bring it in and support you in the installation and hookup but what they ask of you is to do some work and work with them ahead of time.

They will deploy all the technical assistants that is required but what you need to do is you need to communicate that desire to work with them now during your non‑disaster time so they can bring in their teams, work with your utility providers, your power generation groups and find out what is needed by site to provide you their standby or backup or emergency power to that site by assessing the needs of that facility and getting it documented so that you have a record of it and they have a record of it and that both parties can use it to your advantage.

	Here what they talk about is they assess the conditions and capabilities of any emergency power generation on the site today. Again, because their abilities are extreme but their timing can be troublesome. They will assist you in troubleshooting, repair and operation of that equipment, safety inspections, before, during and after an incident, assessing the damage to electrical distribution and equipment and assessing the capabilities of bringing in emergency power generation and planning for how it will be used.

	This, again, is all stuff that you want to do ahead of time, whenever possible. The Corps works very hard at getting ahead of the curve but not always do they have every resource for every need and every request. 

	The execution of the plan does require that plan. It needs to be documented. They need to understand what you want to do and what you want to accomplish. That's why I mentioned earlier on picking your priority list of critical sheltering facilities.

	We're usually talking about solid brick‑and‑mortar facilities. If you find in your jurisdiction that you need to open what is known as a mega shelter or an open‑air shelter, those are a little bit more challenging in location because you are bringing to bear not only the need for electrical power but you have to bring in security, site identification, sanitation, food service, medical and so on. 

	So most of their priority is to deal with already existing brick‑and‑mortar facilities; however, I have had limited conversation with the local Army Corps representative helping Los Angeles and she has mentioned that if the jurisdiction did need to open a mega shelter at a sports stadium or other facility of that type, they would be able to assist the jurisdiction in that power setup. Again, lots of before‑the‑event planning required. 

	With running anything that depends on fuel, refueling and upkeep is critical. They do have that ability through various contracts that the Corps has. Again, making contact with the Army Corps of Engineers locally in your jurisdiction can put you on the road to finding out who those vendors are.

	For those that have gone through this kind of thing on a regular basis, they have got a lot of deep and existing contracts going three deep, maybe even five deep in some jurisdictions. My feeling is that you can never have enough contracts with potential critical vendors that you need. So don't be afraid to expand your reach. Continue to find vendors to support your critical operational services and add them to your rolodex or your contacts. 

	Here is some information that talks about when the United States Army Corps of Engineers talks about purchasing generators. They recommend not doing so to use preexisting contracts and working with leasing and rentals of generators if the FEMA inventory can't solve the problem. Because you don't want to make it a one‑time purchase or find out what you've purchased isn't really useable for your situation. That can be frustrating, expensive, and avoidable. So get out ahead of it. Think about what your needs are. Identify your needs. Make sure you're ready to work with them to solve your problem before the problem rears its ugly head.

	None of this has to be done in a vacuum. There are plenty of online resources to help you find out what needs to be done at all levels of government. So use your jurisdiction. Use your network. Reach out through your disability community contacts and make this go.

	Part of working with the ADA is that they talk about when people are evacuated into a temporary safe refuge of a shelter, that they can't quite often bring everything they need or that they would want to. And on a lot of people's minds, electrical power isn't thought of as one of those first things yet it needs to be because we have plenty of documented proof that electrical power is very critical not just in the life sustained realm but also in the quality of life and the maintenance of independence.

	Here this slide talks about life saving facilities that the United States Army Corps of Engineers and other groups target: 911 centers, police and fire stations, critical medical facilities, life‑sustaining facilities which are water and waste water treatment and pumping facilities, and other municipal facilities needed to reinstitute local command and control and post‑event recovery. 

	For those of you in the public sector, if you think about this, many times would love to have redundant sites for your EOC or your 911 centers. And in a lot of cases those are not sites that are dedicated for that full‑time. So those are things to think about.

	If you go to a mobile command coast when your primary EOC goes, down when your primary or healthcare providers are not ‑‑ you know, you have to rely on mutual aid and other types of agreements to solve it. Electrical power is a little bit more challenging in that regard because you can't pick up and move a power substation or your primary electrical distribution point. So you need to have a plan and practice that plan on bringing power into those places to maintain your municipal control and improve your post‑recovery chances. 

	Information can be found about the FEMA United States Army Corps of Engineers on their website. I will make that information available here on this last slide.

	I will also put a separate bit of information available to Lewis at the Pacific ADA Center so that those of you who reach out for additional information can get it, who aren't going through the slides to try to capture the information.

	Locally, here within the City of Los Angeles, one of our largest sheltering partners, the city's Emergency Management Department is currently working with the Army Corps of Engineers to survey city‑owned facilities and city‑controlled facilities to determine their current status for electrical power and what their possible needs would be when a major disaster occurs. Other members of the L.A. City that are taking part of that are the critical ones: the Department of Building and Safety and the Department of Water and Power. 

	I have reached out to Los Angeles County, which is the operational area for Los Angeles, to see if they are working with the Corps to identify county facilities that are critical. We have numerous power suppliers in the Red Cross jurisdiction here besides the L.A. City Department of Water and Power. We have Southern California Edison. There's some individual cities that are responsible for their own power. Cities like Pasadena, Burbank, and Glendale all have their own power utilities. So part of our responsibility as the Red Cross will be to reach out through our points of contact and see if these entities are interested in joining the Corps in discussing this emergency survey process so that we can help them prioritize shelters that we might choose to use or need to use post‑event to make sure that they can meet the power requirements or come up with another solution. 

	That is just most of my material. I would like to thank June for inviting me to speak on this topic. And I would also like to thank all the agencies and individuals who continue to support the American Red Cross.

	One thing I would like to make all the participants aware of is that June actually wrote a very strong paper on this topic in October of 2009 titled "Emergency Power Planning for People Who Use Electricity and Battery‑Dependent Assistive Technology Medical Devices." It is a document that helps spur conversation to not only the disability community but emergency planners. It needs a much wider distribution. So I would like to put in a plug that we revisit that document and get it updated and get it redistributed throughout the emergency management community and the disability community so that people continue to talk about this topic. 

	Lewis, that's what I've got. 

Lewis Kraus: Thank you so much, Michael. That was really informative and a great overview of this topic. And also thanks for tying it in to the needs for people with disabilities and the importance therein of how that really works for ‑‑ or can work for people with disabilities within the overall context of power. 

	We are now going to switch over to our next speakers who are from Los Angeles as well. The first speaker, Paul Hernandez, is the Emergency Management Coordinator with the Emergency Management Department for the City of Los Angeles and most recently Mr. Hernandez was the Project Officer for the city's ADA mitigation project. That multi‑year project was developed to ensure that the city's emergency preparedness programs are inclusive for all residents. He's been the Special Project Coordinator for the Korean American Federation of Los Angeles, the Economic Development Deputy for Los Angeles Council District 14, and Associate Director of Homeland Security and Public Safety for Los Angeles' last two mayors, Mayor Anthony Villaraigosa and Mayor Eric Garcetti. 

	He is joined today by Enrique Hernandez who is currently the Lead Emergency Management Coordinator for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's Office of Emergency Management. Mr. Hernandez oversees the overall coordination of the department's emergency preparedness planning, training, response and recovery efforts before and during emergency incidents. Prior to his time at the LADWP, Enrique served as an Emergency Management Coordinator at the City of Los Angeles' Emergency Management Department in the training and exercise division and as the Emergency Management Coordinator for the City of Los Angeles's Department of Recreation and Parks, responsible for coordination of city‑wide mass care operations.

	So, Paul and Enrique, I am going to turn it over to you. And I will also tell everybody before they speak, feel free to ask your questions in the chat window as you think of them and we will deal with them at the end of Paul and Enrique's speaking.

	Ok, Paul and Enrique, here you go. 

Paul Hernandez: Good afternoon, everyone. This is Paul Hernandez with the Emergency Management Department. I first want to say thank you very much for the ADA Pacific Center for allowing us to opportunity to kind of share with you, with those across the country, just one of the very unique programs that we have here in the city. 

	Michael from the Red Cross is a huge supporter and a great partner with us here in Los Angeles. He actually stole a little bit of my thunder where he spoke about the U.S. Corps of Engineers project. That is something that we as a city are currently undergoing and we should be finalizing that in the next few months here. As he stated earlier, it is one of those things that we as a city recognize as a partner from the federal side to be able to provide us those additional resources for our key facilities. And those key facilities range from, again, from our water and power, our City Hall, but more importantly our shelters. Because that, as we all know is somewhere where we are going to be supporting everyone in the community at these vital locations during the times of needs. 

	So with that I'd like to just kind of frame the conversation, at least that Enrique and myself will be presenting on. As Lewis stated, the City of Los Angeles did go through a mitigation, ADA mitigation effort. We're very proud that we've gone through that because what it did for us as a city, it just made us more aware of certain aspects in the planning, mitigation and recovery efforts that the city honestly did but didn't do as well as we should.

	I'm happy to say that we've gotten to a level where we've improved. We still need areas that we can improve in even more so but it is an ongoing process. It is something that the City of Los Angeles is committed to. We welcome the input, the information, and any comments that people might have in regards to the items that we're talking about today. We can only do so much. I think we learn more from partners such as yourselves, those that are on this webinar today, than anything else. We have a coalition of community, disability stakeholders. We just met with them this week. They've given us some vital information already in regards to some of the plans and some of the procedures that the city as a whole is doing.

	I can't express how important it is for us to receive input from you, those out in the community; those that work your constituents. Because you know what works. We as emergency managers, we have a general sense based on best practices, experience that we've gone through, but that only tells part of the story. 

	So I'd like to, again ‑‑ if Lewis can make sure that my e‑mail is provided to the rest of the group, I'll just do that quickly now. It's Paul.Hernandez@lacity. Should you need any type of additional information, resources, e‑mail me and I'd be happy to do follow‑up conversations in regards to that.

	With that, I'm going to turn this over to my colleague, Enrique Hernandez, with the Department of Water and Power. No relation but ‑‑ much better looking than myself.

Enrique Hernandez: Thank you, Paul. I'd also like to thank June and Lewis for inviting us talk about this topic. I also would like to frame my presentation. It is a program, as Paul mentioned, we're in this multi‑year project. And I work very closely with June on issues with my department, the Department of Water and Power.

	One of the programs we looked at was this Life Support Equipment Discount Program. It was an existing program. And through the process, this first phase of the process was to look at how we make our notifications and how we communicate with our customers when there's an outage, whether planned or unplanned, and making sure that those communications are accessible, in accessible formats.

	I would like to say that this program, any information I'll be sharing, is specific to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. Although many of the other utilities but not all of them have a similar program, it may not be exactly the same. So I just wanted to put that out there. This is how the program works at our agency. With that I'll move forward. 

	I wanted to share a little bit of my department's information as far as overview of the power system. For us, when we're dealing with issues of outages, the best plan to have or the best plan to implement is obviously to limit the amount of outages so that we don't have to have the issues that come with them.

	A little bit of information on the department's power system. We have 1.4 million residential and business customers. The area we serve is 465 square miles. Our power resources in the Los Angeles station and outside that we bring in are primarily coal and natural gas but we do have eligible renewals, nuclear, and large hydroelectric power. We have 3,631 total miles of transmission lines, 15,452 transmission towers, and 10,397 total miles of distribution.

	I really wanted to bring this information up because I wanted to highlight the fact that our system is very redundant. And the amount of outages we have are ‑‑ the duration of the outages are limited. I would like to give a couple of examples of major instances that have occurred that have caused us some issues. 

	We have the situation such as wind storms who have actually brought down several transmission towers for our system that brings in power into the basin. Those kinds of emergencies, though they are not frequent, do occur but they do not impact our ability to provide power to our customers.

	You can see the second power resource is natural gas. The natural gas is used to power four in-basin generation plants, inside the City of Los Angeles jurisdiction. We can create power using those power plants when needed.

	So when these wind storms occur or they bring down our transmission lines, we're able to power up these generation stations and make up the difference. 

	We also have several wildfires in the outlying area. When these fires occur, the ash and soot that gets on our transmission lines, forcing them to relay, which force us to shut down these lines. But, again, we can create our power and make up the difference so that we don't have to have any kind of outages, blackouts or brownouts. 

	Another example would be the 2000‑2001 energy crisis that occurred in the western states. Many, many of our local utilities have a very difficult time providing power to their customers. But because of our redundant system we were able to not only provide power, continuous power not just to our customers but generate enough power to support our local community or other community utilities in the area and help provide power to them.

	So, again, our goal has always been to develop, create, and build a very redundant power system to limit outages as a whole.

	Again, the program we're giving an overview on the Life Support Equipment Discount Program. The program itself during the process, a multi‑year process with June, didn't change much of the program except for the parts where we talk about communication and/or notifications to our customers. Again, this was the first phase. We know working with Paul and the community stakeholder group or the coalition, that other changes may be coming. We're definitely open to the changes.

	What I'm going to do now, go over ‑‑ give an overview of the program and highlight three of the changes that we made because of the review that we went through. One significant change I'll talk about probably towards the end of my presentation has to do with communication notification and the last is with information sharing, which I know has become a pretty big topic with utilities and community groups and government, information sharing about information that we collect from our customers. 

	To get started, our program is not an income‑based program. Anyone can apply regardless of the amount of money they make. Once they apply and are approved for the program, they receive what comes out to three rebates. First is a flat discount rate which currently as of today is $35.42 a billing cycle. Our billing cycle in Los Angeles is every two months. They also are exempt from paying the Electric Subsidy Adjustment which is a system cost fee. And they're exempt from paying the Reliability Cost Adjustment which is a fee to support feature capital investments. 

	This program is exactly what it has been marketed to be. It is Life Support Equipment Discount Program. And it was developed for those in use of essential life support equipment which is defined by us as any medically oriented object, device used to monitor or treat an individual with which ‑‑ without which life could not be maintained beyond a reasonable time. And this is basically what the program is now. 

	There is a certification that is required which is attached to the application. The certification is filled out by a medical doctor and it is required every two years. A statement of certification must include the following information: patient diagnosis, equipment to be used, a detailed description as to why that equipment is needed, needs energy and/or power to operate it. We need to know what our customer's tolerance level is as far as time without power. If something should occur, what's their tolerance time where it becomes a critical issue? That certification must also have instructions from the doctor to the patient on what to do in case of a power outage. 

	Information from the customer would be given to us on their current backup power information that they have at home. What is their backup power equipment that they have in place at home? And doctor's information, we need to verify including contact information and license number in case our doctor in our medical office at the department needs to communicate and/or speak with the certifying doctor. 

	The certification and/or application must allow access to the residence for verification of equipment and/or specification confirmation. This is rarely done but in some situations we need to verify the amount and the need for power.

	The application and/or certification clearly states to the customer that we do not at any point guarantee uninterrupted service or restoration within the tolerance time. And we strongly recommend independent backup power system. If that information is not given to us throughout the process of the application and confirmation and approval and conversations with our medical office, we make sure it's understood that we strongly recommend independent backup power system. 

	Now, this is more ‑‑ where most of the changes occurred. It's notifications. And I'll go a little more into how we do them for planned and unplanned outages. 

	Once the customer is approved, they're added to our Life Support Equipment Discount Program notification list. And currently that list stands at 5,262 residents. The customer’s meter is tagged with the Murray Seal. And that's not only for us but in Los Angeles we have a lot of apartments, multi‑unit buildings. That's also for the building's maintenance staff and/or electrician that they may use so that they notice the tag; they know that a customer within their facility is dependent on power.

	The customer's circuit and transformer is flagged. And that's also for our crews out there conducting maintenance.

	So these are all kinds of checks and balance that are put on this list. Their meter is tagged. The circuit and transformers are tagged so that no matter what is happening along the way our meter readers, maintenance and repair crews, our customer service representatives, everyone that has any access to this customer's information and/or equipment or residence or circuits or transformers know that that customer is on the Life Support Equipment Discount Program and are dependent on power.

	In addition, they receive a letter confirming their approval. That letter also contains a phone number direct to what's called our trouble board so that when an issue does occur, they can contact our trouble board whether there's a planned or unplanned outage. They can get further information, any details of an outage.

	I'll go a little bit over our planned outages. When you're on the LSEDP notification list, there are some steps that we have added. And this is one of the changes that have occurred. Usually when we have a planned outage, we send our customers a notice of a planned outage which includes a date, time, and duration of the outage. That's left on their door. 

	For our LSEDP customers, we also send a phone notification. But in the last two‑year process of review recently, we've identified that we need to increase or add multiple levels of notification; especially taken into consideration that the customer may need accessible formats. So what we've done is we've added for our LSEDP customers a face‑to‑face notification, prior to any work starting. And moving forward a face‑to‑face notification will be made to customers that are on that list.

	Our crews bring out additional methods of communication whether it be anything from simple as pen and paper so they can communicate to smart devices. We provide information in alternate formats if requested and required, whether that be in different languages or Braille.

	If anything is needed that we cannot perform, there's something that we need assistance that we need, we're also in the process to contact our city's Department on Disability and we can bring them out to help make sure that our customer understands clearly what is going to happen before we move forward with any kind of work or planned outage. And the Department of Disability can bring out sign language interpreters and any other resource we may need and do not have ourselves. 

	Once we're able to clearly identify the work that's going to be completed including the date, time, duration, and any hardships that the customer may face and/or deal with that situation, then we move forward with the planned outage and the repair and/or project. That does not occur until we are satisfied and until the customer is satisfied that they understand.

When the work is complete, we go through the same process in order to verify that the service has been restored to the customer before we leave the site.

	Unplanned outages are the ones that everyone's mostly interested in. They're either created by an emergency situation or someone runs into a power pole and it comes down, systems relane. Whatever it is that causes the outage, this is the one that we focus on the most because it is unplanned. No one knows what's going to happen. We need to make sure we have our process in place to make sure the appropriate notifications go out.

	Those customers that are on the LSEDP list are entered into what is known as our outage management system. That system, when an outage occurs, automatically sends out a phone call to our customers. That call gives an estimated time of restoration. Also gives them the phone number that we had given them in the letter previously when they were approved for the program. So they can call the trouble board and ask for detailed information. 

	When the restoration of services have been completed, they receive another call automatically sent out letting them know power has been restored. And we have an opportunity to speak with our representatives at that point in case they have any concerns.

	For both our planned and unplanned outages, I know many of the utilities, including us, prior to the last couple of years in this process, all we did was collect the land line phone numbers and addresses. But understanding that many of the customers now have the ability to receive alternate forms of communications such as texts and e‑mails, we've started to collect that information. We've altered our application process, our application form, to collect that material so that we can now also send this information via text and/or e‑mail.

	The last part I want to talk about for the LSEDP list is the fact that we share that information. I know this is one part that June and I were very excited about getting approval for because many utilities do not do this. We understand that during certain emergencies there's a need to evacuate and/or conduct community health checks. And that's very difficult when you're not sure as the person who is responsible for the community health checks and/or evacuations where those vulnerable customers are. 

	So what we've done is we've been able to work out a system or a process where we share the list of our LSEDP customers and give that to the fire department in a format that's useable by them. They can upload that information on to their database. So when an incident occurs, each fire station can see, looking through their system, who in their immediate jurisdiction or immediate area is on this list and can assist them if needed.

	Prior to this, the system was pretty extensive. It took a long time. The list was given to them on paper. It took many approvals. We only gave it to certain people in the fire department. What we do now is share that list on a weekly basis through a secured server. We have a significant amount of time or a certain amount of time to pull that list and then the server is closed. This is probably one of the most significant changes throughout this whole process, is being able to share that information so that when we have incidents that occur or, again, an evacuation, where checks are needed, we're able to implement that plan themselves without asking for that information or waiting for us to provide it. 

	I think that's all we have as far as this program. June asked that we highlight those three main changes. I think with the first go‑around we understand that there's going to be more changes but the ability to add the methods of communication, notifications, and the ability to share that information so that others can assist are pretty significant changes.

	With that, I'll give it back to Paul for some closing remarks and ready for questions. 

Paul Hernandez: Perfect. Thank you, Enrique. 

	I just want to also just add in regards to the sharing of information with our fire department, here in Los Angeles we have the Los Angeles City Fire Department so it is within the city's umbrella that are providing the health and medical and transportation services.

	One thing that Enrique highlighted was when the fire department gets ‑‑ they're currently right now in the process of developing ‑‑ importing that information into their mobile computers. So when they're out in the field and something were to occur, they will at least have that information readily available in very quick time right there in their computers, out in the field. So no longer do they have to rely on a paper base or rely on the dispatch center to actually share that information or convey that information out to them. 

	Those are one of the other key things. The other part, obviously, was it did take us ‑‑ have a lawsuit for us to, you know, have our attorneys, our legal teams in the city to make sure that they felt comfortable with what we were trying to do with that information. When we do share that information, we don't provide any key medical identifiers. There's no names that's provided with that list along with some other items and so forth. It's just one of those things where we're looking at still enhancing that program among other programs in the city. As Enrique stated, this is the first phase. Next phase is to look at other ways to improve not only this system but other systems throughout the city or other policies that we have. 

	So with that, we're open for questions at this point. And thank you again for giving us this opportunity to share with you just one of the various programs that the City of Los Angeles has. 

Lewis Kraus: Ok. Thanks so much, Paul and Enrique. That was great. 

	I want to remind everyone who listening now, you can write your questions in the chat window and I will be reading them out and having Michael, Paul, Enrique answer your questions that way so that everyone can participate in hearing and seeing the answers. They will be there in the closed captioning window. 

	Let me first start off by saying before we get to the questions, remind everybody, I just put into the chat window that the slides for today are there in that address, the adapreparations.org address.

	All right. Let's start with some of the questions that came up during Michael's presentation.

	Michael, one question that came up ‑‑ well, there was a mention from another Southern California power company representative, Southern California Edison, that they're piloting a mobile cell phone charging station that can be used in outage situations. So that's an interesting point there. A question for maybe all of you around this about backup power. What about alternative power sources like solar and other kinds of backup power? Any issues there or things that you can say about that? 

Michael Edwards: I'll take the first run at it. From the sheltering partner perspective, the Red Cross' direction is to sign agreements and partnerships with facility owners and managers to use their facility within our guidance. In other words, we take our ADA guidance‑driven survey form, we send out a team to survey the facility, look for things like backup power, a number of stalls, accessibility, and so on. So if the facility has already onsite and accessible to us alternate power, we do note it in our survey. We always ask for a facility representative to be with us during the hours of operation. So if they have the ability and authority to use that source, that's great. But independently, the Red Cross doesn't have ‑‑ we have limited resources in that regard. We don't control any of the facilities that we're able to shelter. Those are controlled by our partners. 

Lewis Kraus: Paul, Enrique, do you want to add anything to that? 

Enrique Hernandez: I think for us, solar power as a backup, as backup power, is great but solar in a whole is restrictive in a sense that it's operational during the day. Some of the biggest issues we have is how do we capture and/or store the power generated by solar. And, again, solar is such a new ‑‑ it's something that's growing rapid pace. It's growing for us. It's growing for our customers. But, again, it's an option but I don't think it's an option that can solve the needs of persons, especially with the amount of power that's required based on what we've seen from our LSEDP customers to run their equipment. 

Lewis Kraus: Ok. That's great. 

	Let's go to another related question about when you were talking about the meters. Somebody had a question about whether you have smart meters and if you do have the smart meters, why are you using a meter tag? 

Enrique Hernandez: Again, it's a method of checks and balances. We do have smart meters. We're focusing not so much on our representatives but, again, we're looking at multiple unit facilities where all the meters are together, where there may be maintenance work that's being done to those facilities. It may not be someone from our agency. It may be a contract electrician or someone else. So we tag it as a method of identifying the fact that someone in that building is on life support ‑‑ not on life support but requires power. So, again, it's just another way to check and balance when we tag the meter and the transformer and circuit.

Lewis Kraus: Ok. The next one is a comment from one of the listeners which I think is totally appropriate to say here and isn't necessarily connected with what you guys are saying but she does point out that it's individual's, person's, responsibility to make sure they have a power backup plan and that others are notified of what their plan is and in use. And I think for those of you who have listened to our series throughout, there is a continuing theme of you as an individual do need to make sure that you have your house in order, house -- you know, in a general sense not specifically the house; that you are doing your personal plan as well. And the discussion here is really the general power issue as opposed to somebody's specific one. 

	Ok. Next question. Are there ‑‑ sorry. Are the criteria for the LSEDP eligibility available on your website? 

Enrique Hernandez: Yes. All the information that can be found on LADWP.com. You hit residential. There's a discount tab. Once you get there, it will show the discount programs. You'll find the Life Support Equipment Discount Program. It will give you all the information you need, the application, what's required. You can see the certification that's required. And it can all be found on our website. 

	Also, I'd like to mention ‑‑ with technology the way it is and is moving ‑‑ when we first started this program, we used to just collect, again, phone numbers and be able to contact those residents and customers that were on a list. But now all of our outage information and additional information on outages are available just on our website. Anyone can see them. The same ‑‑ actually the exact same information that's available to our LSEDP customers is now available on our front page, hit the outage button. 

	So technology has helped us. With this review, we wanted to make sure that we stayed connected to this personal, the face‑to‑face, the being able to communicate properly with our customers. Our website also went through a 508 compliance review and it is [Inaudible].

Lewis Kraus: All right. Next question. She's been working with a power customer who has not had power since August. Does your program have means to expedite the reconnection of power for people with disabilities? And connected with that question is: How is power restoration addressed for people with disabilities who shelter in place? 

Enrique Hernandez: Lewis, can you repeat the question?

Lewis Kraus: Sure. First one is: Does your program have means to expedite the reconnection of power for people with disabilities after emergency? And how is power restoration addressed for people with disabilities who shelter in place? 

Enrique Hernandez: Well, I think ‑‑ well, the answer is the department has a way to expedite restoration for those that are on the Life Support Equipment Discount Program not necessarily just the person with the disability as a functional needs but you have to be on this program. There is a process to expedite. And, again, to conduct those community health checks ‑‑ to assist them in either evacuating and/or getting to a source of power if restoration is not done within the tolerance time, which is why we share that information with the fire department. 

	If someone shelters in place and they need assistance, we can get that assistance to them. We don't guarantee the restoration within the tolerance time which is why we share this information. And if you're on the list, we can definitely expedite the reconnection. But, again, it's part of the program. 

Paul Hernandez: To follow up, if you're not on the list and if somebody has chosen to stay and shelter at place, we're hoping that that individual is doing that basically at the request of the public safety officers, you know, police or fire. And if that is the case, we also do provide contact information for those individuals that need assistance, either help assistance with evacuating from their building even if it's on a second story and they live on the second story and there's no elevator. 

	The police and fire department, specifically the fire department, has policies in place now where we would help and assist that individual, you know, transport them to a shelter. Most likely we would have something open in that type of scenario most likely.

	The reality is, if it's just a handful of individuals, we would most likely just support those individuals on a case‑by‑case basis. But we also have to think that we live in the city of four million people. It would be very difficult for us to support individuals individually on a case ‑‑ on a home‑to‑home basis. That's why it's easier for us given the resources and the people that might need assistance, whether they have disabilities or not, to help and support alternative locations such as a shelter or other location that we can identify that would have power and so forth. 

Lewis Kraus: Great. Thank you.

	Next question is ‑‑ I'm not sure, Michael, if this is for you or not. Either one of you all. Do you have an example of a power plan for evacuation shelters that you can share? 

Michael Edwards: In the normal Red Cross footprint of activities, an evacuation shelter is usually a temporary respite center for what is deemed a short‑term event, a law enforcement event at an apartment complex or in the neighborhood where the residents or the displaced population will be there three, four, five, possibly six hours with no anticipation of bedding down for the night.

In those cases, again, we use similar facilities that we use for shelters that we were going to possibly use for overnight stays. Quite often we like to use L.A. City Park and Rec sites, community centers or senior centers to provide those basic services. 

	In the case of larger scale evacuations where we're actually moving residents out of the significant part of our footprint, an evacuation plan like that would be in conjunction with law enforcement and the public health groups to see who are moving and how far we're moving. 

	So I don't have a plan on paper or even really vetted because an evacuation site is really a temporary respite site. Usually within their neighborhood or community, if we're moving people, similar to the means that folks in the Gulf Coast or the East Coast or even the Midwest have to literally move people out of harm’s way. It isn't something that the Red Cross Los Angeles has put into motion yet. We plan ‑‑ we're working with the county on a mass evacuation but the power plan for that would be the same where we would have for shelters. If we're taking people someplace where there's a possibility of an overnight stay, we would look at the facility as needing potentially backup power.

	Does that sort of cover where the questioner was asking? 

Lewis Kraus: I think we'll have to take that as yes. 

	So next question was: What is the rate of the people who sign up ‑‑ they call it your registry but I believe they're talking about your priority power list ‑‑ and how often is the data updated? If I recall, you said something about every two years you require them to reregister ‑‑ reconnect. Is that right? 

Enrique Hernandez: Yeah. The certification is required every two years. 

Lewis Kraus: Ok. Next question. Have you looked at different ways to conserve oxygen during a power outage? 

Michael Edwards: We would not address that because that would be a specific care need and that would need to be done in conjunction with an individual's healthcare provider or Emergency Medical Services that would not fall within the scope of the basic first aid in care that the Red Cross offers under our normal sheltering en masse care services. 

Lewis Kraus: Ok. Let's go on to the next question. Was the Department of Water and Power information‑sharing system with the fire department, the L.A. Fire Department, developed internally or commercially sourced? 

Enrique Hernandez: It was developed internally.

Lewis Kraus: Ok. Maybe you can answer ‑‑ you may have already answered this one but let's try this one. This is directed to Enrique. Can you comment on the urban myth that people on your list can get priority power return when the power goes down without warning? 

Enrique Hernandez: Well, I think that's kind of one of those issues that is true in the sense that we have a priority of power restoration. We talked about it ‑‑ actually, Mike talked about it a little earlier. We're ‑‑ our main priority is to restore power. And once we start to restore power, we're looking at the circuits and areas that power facilities that we feel are critical to the continuance of operations and continuance of government such as our 911 centers, police department, fire department, our medical facilities including dialysis centers and clinics. We want to get power back to our water filtration, chlorination stations, waste water treatment plants and other facilities. 

	I think beyond that we look at circuits that may be connected to the LSEDP list. But once you look at it, we have so much to prioritize that it becomes a little bit difficult to focus on the individual customer. Because this list is city‑wide. We cannot focus on one resident. But if that resident is part of a circuit that is part of our priority list, the operation that I listed, then in that sense they would be assisted. 

Lewis Kraus: Ok. Next question for Michael. How are auxiliary power issues being specifically integrated into the current shelter process? Is the backup power information tiered or stratified in any way in terms of capability in the shelter survey process? 

Michael Edwards: When the surveyors go out with our eight‑page form, that is uploaded electronically after the survey into the national shelter system which we share with FEMA ‑‑ which FEMA has access to. The information that they gather, which comes from the facility point of contact, is their emergency generator onsite. And we are very specific, separate from emergency and life safety systems. In other words, if they have ‑‑ quite often they'll answer yes, we have an emergency generator. The second question is: Is it for life safety equipment or is it to run the facility either partially or completely? That's where we get our first bit of clarity. 

	Quite often a lot of sites will have a small standby generator for emergency lighting, maybe their phone systems, certain servers, elevators and so on. It's not a full facility or a partial facility generator. On those rare occasions where we get a full facility backup generator, we then have a supplemental conversation separate from the survey where we do ask is it automatic. You know, do you have an automatic transfer system? Are there certain circuits identified? Are those circuits the one that we would most likely use in the sheltering situation? So we ask questions following the initial survey that are specific and apply to sheltering or where the Red Cross potentially would shelter at a site.

	A majority of our sites, again, are in those public spectrum, park and rec sites, senior centers, community centers, high school gyms and other facilities. So most of those that do have generators really only have them for emergency services type of equipment. They don't have them for the full facility.

	I can honestly say in the L.A. region of the sites that we have surveyed that are in our system, I believe no more than three have full facility backup generators in areas that we would use a shelter. So I don't have to worry about tiers or knowing how to use it. It would basically be whatever event triggered us to go there, most likely they're on emergency power and we would use the facility accordingly.

Lewis Kraus: Ok. We are getting very close to the end. Let's do one last question here. Also aimed at Michael. Maybe have a short answer for this one. How robust is the vendor list of backup power providers? Not counting FEMA, in a large area like Los Angeles and the region. 

Michael Edwards: Very robust. One of the benefits of Los Angeles and its corps industry is the entertainment industry. So we have numerous rental and lease power suppliers within the L.A. basin and surrounding communities, from manufacturers like Caterpillar, Onan, Cummings which are all commercial generator builders for RVs and commercial lots. They have facilities not only in Los Angeles but Orange County, Riverside and Ventura. And then we are building relationships with the Hollywood Studio groups from Universal, Sony and so on which have generators mounted on trailers and trucks that they use on location; that we are building relationships to access when appropriate on those bad days when they won't make movies, TVs and commercial but would like to do some community good and make power available to us. 

Lewis Kraus: All right. Well, we're right at the top of the hour. We realize many of these still have questions. Apologize if you didn't get a chance to have your question asked or answered. If you want, you can contact your regional ADA Center. That is on the chat window now. 

	Don't forget. You will receive an e‑mail with a link to an online session evaluation. Please complete the evaluation for today's program. We want your input to make this a better system for you all. 

	Thank you so much Michael, Paul, Enrique for today's presentation, sharing your time and your knowledge with us and all the preparation that went into getting yourselves together for this presentation. 

	I do want to remind everybody that the session was recorded and it's available within 48 hours at that ADApresentations.org website under the archive  link.

	Thank you for attending today's session. We look forward to seeing you on May 14 for our next webinar “FEMA Promising Practices: Closing Gaps in Local Emergency Plans and Grass Roots Emergency Planning.”

	Have a great day, everyone. Bye‑bye.