'Absolutely not safe': Savannah, Chatham County leaders give update on Tropical Storm Debby flooding (2024)

Breaking news right now. We're going to take you live to the Chatham County press conference on the OG river flooding where city officials are going to address the public on some questions they may have about the flooding. So let's listen in raw milk razor that what's up? Good morning. We find it necessary to call together uh this press conference uh to after we receive information from the National Weather Service and uh after we receive uh information from Fema and Jima as well as S ***, uh we find it necessary for us to come and talk to the citizens of Chatham County about what is here and what is to come. We are uh in the posture of preparing you so that you will be on higher grounds. Um And that having said that let me call the mayor from Savannah who will make remarks and then we will have the managers follow him. Thank you, Mr Chairman. Uh Your priority continues to be, I mean, your safety continues to be our priority and part of that priority is ensuring that roads are secure uh before we could allow traffic to resume. Now, I realize that's *** headache. Um, but we do not necessarily have the ability to ascertain the conditions of the roads that are underneath the water. And so we don't want to have one issue create, uh, *** tragedy. I cannot stress this enough. Um, please, please, please do not attempt to drive on the roads that we have closed. You might think that you're doing yourself *** favor, but you might be putting yourself in danger, even if the water seemed to be shallow, the roads underneath it might have been compromised. And I am saying right now, it is absolutely not safe. Uh We saw people walking through water that's not safe. We've seen uh, various signs of wildlife in and around these waters. Uh We've also, uh, recognized that this is not clean water. And so there are health effects that are, um, associated with that if you're in an impacted area and you need assistance, whether that's getting out or you need essential resources. Uh, for us, 311 is the number to call 311 has been up all night. Uh Folks are standing by, our emergency personnel is standing by, uh, to connect you with the help that you need. We have our fire station up that has been our command post. Uh We have been in every single neighborhood, uh surrounding this. Uh, we're here to support you and we're gonna be here as long as this, um, this issue is here and we're going to support you with access to food, water and evacuation assistance. If you want to leave, feel the need to leave. We're going to help you uh to leave the Salvation Army. I mean, and has been out here as well. Uh Our fire department, Police Department, uh team Savannah, they've been working tirelessly in many hours in these conditions. We owe them *** great debt of gratitude for their dedication. I wanna remind you of that, which matters the most. Uh Savannah strong is not only *** moniker, it is the way that we act. It's the way we behave. We are *** resilient city and strength. We will get through this together, supporting one another as we always have. Uh, we want you to stay safe, stay informed, take care of your neighbors. 311 is the number to call and we'll, we'll be in touch m chairman. Thank you. Mmk, good morning. And to all the citizens of Chatham County, particularly citizens on the western part of Chatham County. We want really want to remind you to stay safe. Uh I want to make sure that uh we be mindful of our public safety personnel. They've been working on the storm, uh, since last Wednesday and it's uh *** lot of overtime, *** lot of man hours. So please don't make the situation worse if you've got, they've got barricades up, please don't go around the barricades. And I would really want to emphasize what the mayor said, uh, you don't know what the condition of that road is no matter how deep the water. So please, let's not drive the water. Let's not make the situation worse. We've done *** lot of, uh, rescues with, with our police and fire and we're gonna continue to do that, but don't put yourself in harm's way. We wanna make sure that all of our citizens stay safe, uh, stay vigilant. Uh, the water is starting to recede but we're gonna have more rain. Uh, the weather service is predicting more rain, uh, this next week. So I suspect that it will be Thursday, Friday of next week before we see any improvement. So, let's stay safe. Let's stay vigilant. Uh, don't put yourself in harm's way. Uh, s *** website and the county's public information channel, we're gonna be running, uh, information pieces on that, uh, this week. Uh, if you need any information, you can call Se ma, uh, you can call the county manager's office and we'll get you the information that you need, uh, police citizens, particularly ones on the west side. We're not out of the storm yet. We're not out of, we're still gonna have some, some issues that we're gonna have to address. So please stay safe and stay vigilant. You wanna come on, put your mic up here. Come on the one with AM consultation. Yeah, no problem. I want you to get it done. Thank you. He can hide my face. That'd be better. I think. Probably uh good morning Jay Melder, city manager, City of Savannah. I wanna echo um all of the comments that the mayor and the chairman uh manager Kagler um has said also want to provide um *** few situational updates. Uh but first, uh more thanks and *** acknowledgment uh to go around. Of course, we're joined here with team Savannah by um our police chief, um, chief s kitchen. Um our, our fire chief, chief, chief s kitchen, our police chief, Lenny Gunther, our assistant city manager, um Heath Lloyd, of course, our sixth district alderman, uh Curtis Pee and all of Team Savannah that have been out to work, um uh really for the whole week. Um And certainly right now focused on our areas and communities that are adjacent to the Geechee River also really want to thank um our partners at Se Ma I really couldn't do this response without their leadership and coordinations. Um And, and all of our partners at the county. It's been really wonderful um to, to be able to partner with them as our residents are experiencing um some inconvenience at best and some really, really scary times. Um at worse. Also, we have our state and federal partners who are engaged with us. Really want to thank our homeowners as associations, especially at Bradley Point who have been tremendously um helpful in partnering with us to make sure that we have resources provided to those neighbors um in our nonprofits at the Salvation Army and at the Red Cross, um the Oge River is still rising uh right now um in our communities um like Bradley Point and Tal Lake that are adjacent to the Ogee river, we see *** river height of about 10.1 feet. Um Our latest models indicate that we can expect the river to continue to rise to at least 10.5 ft and maybe some inches before that. Um We are seeing some indications that the river may crest today versus tomorrow and Monday, which would be *** really good sign, but we'll keep everybody informed as our models continue to work out where the where and when that river is going to crest, but the sooner it crests, the sooner the water is going to recede. Um And of course, if we're only um ex expecting another six inches of rise, um that would be *** much more positive update than what our model showed yesterday with another foot, foot and *** half. Um But we could see additional inches. So we're asking people to remain vigilant. Um um Our first responders um at the city of Savannah um led by our chiefs here, um rescued 100 and 50 individuals um from neighborhoods and communities yesterday and throughout the night, um and brought them um to safety. These were folks who called into 311 or called into 911 or called into fire station 12 wanting to be brought out of their homes because they felt unsafe and wanted to get to, to higher ground and we were able to um to assist in those situations. We continue to assist in those situations today again. Um For, for neighbors in the city of Savannah 311 is the number to call if it's not an emergency, if it is an emergency, of course, 911, is the emergency uh number to call again. We are going to be um out again today and tomorrow and for every day until the water um succeeds, uh, recedes. Um We have um blocked roads. We've set up command post at fire station 12. We also have um some outposts within the isolated areas at Bradley Point and we are in constant communication um and traveling back and forth between our Tal Lake community, which is also isolated, but we do have um our public safety chiefs who can answer any questions when we get to that portion. Thank you, Greg Jones. Thank you everyone. And, uh, I want to provide you *** little bit more information about what is going on throughout the community. Uh I do wanna recognize Commissioner Whiteley. Uh, he has been in the area throughout his district, uh, all day yesterday, uh, and the day prior and he and I have communicated quite frequently about his constituents as well as the, the issues that are affecting his community. Also like to recognized chief, uh, Chief Julie Talbert behind me, uh, with Chatham County Police Department and also Chief James Vickers, you know, the, the law enforcement and the firefighters ems personnel who are out on the street, they are the true heroes of this. Um, they're out doing the work that, uh, that we're all reporting on, they're out rescuing the people, they're providing that community service. Uh, They're making sure that roadways are, are safe. We got our public works entities throughout the jurisdictions providing uh barricades and also making sure that roads are closed as we uh as we deem necessary as public safety deems necessary. Um I do want to uh to emphasize that this, we are making history. We are making history with this event at the King's Ferry Bridge. The historic flood record at that particular location was 7.2 ft set in 2020. Um That's the highest ever recorded at King's Ferry. Uh We are currently right now before I came here at 10.19. So we are setting history. This is *** historic flooding event for our community. Uh So it is something that we all need to be very, very vigilant in the public safety efforts as well as your personal safety and making sure that we are respecting that the uh the floods that are impacting us now and that are continuing to rise. We want to make sure that we are respecting what that threat level looks like for our community and also making sure that we are being vigilant in our own personal safety, the GEHA River at the Eden gauge further up, uh It crested at 17.9 ft yesterday. Um Thankfully, it is starting to recede up river. Uh But all of that water has to go somewhere, so it all makes its way to the ocean. So that's why we're seeing these uh these increases at highway 17 right now. Um So because that water is making its way to the coast. So again, uh this morning, 10.19 ft before I came here, it is low tide. So King's ferry is influenced by tidal sequence. So as the tide comes in, that level is going to go up as it goes out, then it'll draw more water out. So we do see some, we are going to see some fluctuations in that level as the tide sequence goes up and down. Um Many of you have recognized that roadways are impassable. Some roadways are impassable. Um That's going to continue to be the case for the next several days. Uh So uh be very, very mindful of that homes and properties have been flooded. So we, we are very vigilant in making sure that we understand what those impacted areas are. And uh there may be additional roadways that may need to be closed, there may be additional communities that may have isolation issues. So we want to be sure that we're vigilant in making sure we understand what those areas are as uh as mentioned before me. Um It could take upwards of 4 to 6 days for the water to fully recede out uh before we can actually see what the conditions uh currently are to mirror what we saw *** week ago. So it could take 4 to 6 days for those for the water to recede. And we want all of our community to maintain that vigilance and be prepared. Uh Since last week, this time, last week, public safety has conducted 48 Swiftwater rescues. Uh Mr Manager, Miss, uh the camp city manager mentioned they've done over 100 and 50 rescues overnight. We find we uh throughout the community, there's been hundreds of people, hundreds of people that have been rescued. Um Over that 48 Swiftwater rescue count. Um Many of the roads are closed. Uh And we mentioned impassable, many of them are also closed and will be closed for some time. Uh The barricades are out, please don't drive around those barricades. Um, crews from the city of Savannah and Chatham County, they'll continue to be out throughout the event. Uh We also want to make sure that we're paying particular attention to those communities that are even further east of uh highway 17. So as the water makes its way to the coast, uh or to the ocean, we want to make sure we're paying particular attention to not only the areas around highway 17, but those that are *** little bit further east, we do have *** shelter that continues to be staffed. Um It is in Cynthia Street in the city of Savannah. As of this morning, there are 1010 of our citizens who are in that shelter. We are accepting pets at that shelter. So if there's any citizen who has pets and they want to shelter there, we have accommodations for that and we can also provide crates at that location if need be. So, uh you know, *** *** response takes *** lot of people. Um It takes hundreds of people, it takes hundreds of different agencies and the, the level of thanks that goes out to everyone who has supported Chatham County, city of Savannah and all the other municipalities is just unprecedented. Um There's no way that we can list everybody because we will inevitably miss somebody. Uh But there are hundreds of organizations, hundreds of people who are engaged in this response effort and it truly takes *** community to uh to ensure that we're maximizing our response and recovery efforts moving into recovery. Um We are starting to look at what that could look like. Uh We're probably gonna have some long term sheltering operations for our citizens. And we've also started working with *** company called Crisis Clean Up. So, uh anyone who needs clean up resources Um They, if they have already been able to get back into their community, back into their home, the number for crisis cleanup is one 801 8449651386. Again 8449651386. And that is uh again, crisis clean up. If you need clean up resources for your property, you can get in touch with them and they can provide you some resources. Thank you. Let me, let me also say now as we come, uh I want all the citizens to know now that your aldermen and your uh commissioners for the 5th, 6th and 7th districts have all been *** part of this as the command center puts together in the com. Um The command policy group put together *** plan for keeping us safe. But citizens of Chatham County, you have to help us. All right. Uh Yesterday, I was able to see where someone drove their truck around *** barricade and the truck wound up in the ditch head first. All right. Now we have to go and rescue that person out of that truck. That is something that we should not have because it takes away from those who are calling us to have things in place as well as, as the mayor said. And as all of us have been saying, we want you to stop, do not wade the water. All I do not walk the water. I was in the neighborhood yesterday and believe it or not just sitting watching at the edge of the, uh, the flooded waters. Here's *** catfish that's, that's, um, going down the street and, you know, catfish don't go down the streets. They are mostly in the creeks and in the rivers. So now they have possession of water that's in the street. And so they're there. And so we can't say that about any of the wildlife that normally would not be. All right, they may be. And so we want everyone to please, ma'am. Please, sir, stay, uh, uh, careful and stay cautious, stay alert and let us know if there's something that's going on in your neighborhood that we don't know because this water will be moving from the west side to the east side eventually to the ocean. All right. And so we want to make sure that we have everybody prepared. It's better to be prepared than not prepared because we don't know exactly what's coming, but we do have forecasts and things that we make decisions about. All right with that. I'll open it up for any questions. Yes, sir. Anywhere from team Savanna would like to respond. Um, I talked to *** lot of residents in the Bradley Point area and they kind of applauded your commitment to them and being there to support them and, you know, um, I was only direct about, you know, you married and, uh, one day they said he literally went to the door and make sure everyone is OK. He just kind of walk me through those responses and those conversations you've been having with those residents and really important. Well, *** couple of things. Uh first of all, uh it's important that um in context, this is Sunday to Sunday, we've been in this for *** minute. Um Many of the professionals behind me uh and in front of us, in the neighborhoods have been at this literally for *** week. Um And I'm asking for our residents to extend folks and grace. Um You know, it's been hard on everybody. Um We certainly understand your pain. We understand what you're going through as uh director Jones said, we're navigating some uh historic waters and I think, you know, literally, uh so I just ask for people to, to have patience. Um We're as frustrated as, uh as, as everyone is, but on the other end of it, we have to keep our minds in the game. Uh For us, it's been not only Bradley Point, uh It's also Teal Lake, it's also over the, the Georgetown uh side of the city. Uh We've been there all been per T uh team Savannah. Uh The goal is just to make sure everybody's ok. Um You know, there have been *** lot of people who just said I wanna stay and we've tried to make sure that they understood very clearly. Um What that could mean, um if they change their minds, then we tried to uh try to be able to uh adjust to be able to uh get them out of the community. I think the other issue is that we have to prioritize. Um Obviously, someone who is actively experiencing *** flooding event will get *** higher priority than someone who just wants to be able to leave. But again, when you think about 100 and 50 folks uh in those communities that have been uh moved out, uh That is *** tremendous amount of resources, *** tremendous amount of effort, *** tremendous amount of coordinations. Um And, and for us, again, there is the, the psychological effect. Uh It's the personal effect. Uh and, and people feel victimized and, and I mean, we have been victimized by mother nature, but we work through it, we work through it together. Uh We know there's *** day beyond this and we're just trying to get to that. I hope I answered your question. Any other questions? Go ahead. Come on, come on, come on, Keith. I knew you would go ahead. Good morning. Everybody told him because I think that could be really uh absolutely. So, um again, to echo the remarks and sentiments of uh the team behind me uh regarding driving through the waters and walking through the waters regarding the arrest yesterday. Unfortunately, an individual um did not wanna listen to uh our instructions not to drive through the water, uh, drove through, uh, some really deep water, uh, drove into other people's yards, um, pushing water into other people's yards, um, which can be dangerous and, uh, as *** result that individual was arrested for, for, um, not listening things it's positive. Are you just for people's safety concerns? There's regular police work that needs to be done in addition to all of this. Are you guys prepared? Do you have enough boots on the ground? Everything to just you guys get *** call somewhere in *** non flood zone? Oh, absolutely. You know, we pride ourselves uh like everyone here in our preparation. Um We, we know that um in conjunction with uh the flooding um response that we're enacting now, we have *** city to protect at the same time. So the allocation of resources and staff is very important to us. So uh I wanna assure everybody that's tuning in that um we have the appropriate resources to address the flooding, but uh your city safe at the same time too, right? Thank you. Ok, let me say thank you to all the teams and, and I can tell you how this works on last Sunday. At the end of uh worship service, I had to run to the EOC building. So at the end of this game, I have to go back to church. All right. And then we ask all those who are in church, peace, pray for one another. But let's be respectful of one another. All right, because you have *** high boy and you can make it through the water yet. You cause *** wait that goes in the other folks garage or that normally wouldn't go there, but the weight goes there. And so you create problems for your neighbors. We want everybody to be neighborly and we will work through this. We will get through this and then at the end of we will have *** fine um, press conference. All right, and we'll give you what the final numbers are and where we are going from there because we know this is only the beginning of the bad weather season. All right, we're watching right now. There's um, some things going on in Atlantic that we need to be um cautious of and we need to keep track of. Hopefully, it will do what the models, um, predict it will do, but who knows? But one thing for sure. And two things for certain Chatham County, Savannah and all of the municipalities Bloomingdale, Port win worth Pula Tybee Thunderbolt. We will all be ready for what is yet to come because we don't know what that is again. Let me say thank you for joining us here and have *** blessed day. Stay safe. You just heard from Chatham County leaders regarding the river flooding, some of the main things they touched on was safety not driving through any of those flooding waters are kind of even asking *** question about an arrest made on some other things they touched on. Of course, besides uh getting out of your house calling three 11 if it's *** non emergency, of course, calling 911. If it is an emergency and praising first responders for getting 150 people out overnight. You can also stay informed by going to wjcl.com. We now return you to your regular programming.