Floodplain Management Plan Public Meeting #2 - August 13, 2026 | City of Fort Worth

Okay, good evening everyone. We're going to start at 6:03. We appreciate everyone who came tonight and your time. We know you could be many other places than here. So, thank you. Uh my name is Jennifer Dyke. I'm the assistant director of the transportation public works stormwater management program. Um so, we are here today for our second flood plan management plan update. Um so, we're going to go through this agenda. We've got a lot of slides and information and so if you could hold your questions and feedback until the end. Um we would appreciate that and then what we'll do is we will take the microphone around to you because we are recording this meeting and as you can see there's not very many people here. So we had really really good turnout at the um first public meeting. So, we would really appreciate y'all's help, too. And we'll be sharing the recording and we'll have it on our website so we can hopefully get other people to um see it and provide feedback after the meeting. So, with that, see, so can stand this way so I can actually see. So, uh we'll go through introductions for our team. I'm going to provide a very brief overview of the storm water program and then uh the team will talk about the specifics of our flood plan management plan really focusing on the feedback and the results that we've seen over the past several months from our public and stakeholder meetings and just a reminder of the schedule and where we're going and then we'll have Q&A at the end. So again, um the whole purpose and why y'all are here today is really to learn about the flood plan management plan and most importantly to give us your feedback and your thoughts and then help us to share the word about this to others that might be interested and really uh provide your feedback so we have um good understanding of what the community is really interested and what you would like to see and what your concerns are. So, in terms of introduction, we've got Lisa Biggs who is our flood plane administrator. So, she is leading this effort for the city of Fort Worth. Very official. And then we've got Linda Stern. She is our storm water communication specialist. So, sometimes um you get emails and they're oftentimes from Linda. She um and the communications team did all the work to get this meeting scheduled. So, I want to thank her and all the communication people in this room today. Um, Hammuda Hammuda and he is on Lisa's team. So, helps support our flood plane management program here at the city of Fort Worth. And then our consultant that is helping us with this effort is Fa Nichols. So, we've got Bethany and Gavin here today, too. So, [clears throat] and then I will say we've got other city staff in the room as well. Um, I'm just not going to introduce all of them because [laughter] I know y'all want to go home. So just a background uh the storm water program was created by city council in 2006 in response to some pretty significant flooding in 2004. So in 2004 we had significant flooding to homes and businesses and unfortunately we had several fatalities all due to flooding. Um and so at that point in time u the city didn't have a storm water utility and because of the concern city council did form the stormwater utility. So, our mission is to protect people and property from harmful storm water runoff and we are dedicated uh our fee comes from a dedicated line on people's water bills. Um so the funding and it's all based off the amount of hard surface um impervious [clears throat] surface on the property which really impacts then the amount of runoff going into the drainage system. And so that money from the storm water utility fee can only be used for storm water purposes. So, it can't go uh towards a park project or building a road or something like that. It's got to be a storm water purpose. Um and so the fee is just some information um on the slide about that. I won't go into details. So, what we do with that money, we kind of categorize our program into four main things. So, we maintain our infrastructure. So, we've got all of the existing, we've got over a,000 miles of drainage pipe. We've got over 30,000 storm water inlets associated with that pipe. We've got um I think around 90 miles of engineered channels and we've got detention basins. So maintaining all of that to make sure that it is ready to convey that water when it rains. Um and then we mitigate our hazards through putting in new infrastructure. So enlarging our pipes, putting in new pipes, um building new channels or enlarging our channels. Um, so improving the existing infrastructure and then because that's costly as you might expect it to be, we have a pretty uh strong flood warning program through flood risk mapping. We're working on erosion risk mapping and then we've got our high water warning system, the flashers that you might see throughout the community and other warning mechanisms. We want people to understand that that risk is out there until we can mitigate it. And then lastly, we reviewed development for compliance with city standards. >> [clears throat] >> Oh, and and just backing up, I will say that the flood plan management plan touches on all aspects of the storm water program. So, it's an important part for all of these. So, [clears throat] our fiscal year 26 adopted budget was almost $70 million. Um, and we've got 140 positions across the utility. So, just kind of wanted to share so you could understand the amount of revenue that that comes in through our storm water utility fee. Um and that is really our constraint in terms of at the end of this uh the team will talk about all these different plan recommendations but essentially we can only implement what we have the resources to implement. Uh but we want to keep those ideas on there because having ideas in the plan helps us to go after funding and partnership opportunities. So they've got to have somewhere to start so then we can talk about funding needs. Um most of our positions are actually in our field operations team maintaining all of that infrastructure that I talked about. So that's the bulk. Um and we spend about um half of our budget goes towards capital investments and around half of it um to um operations. Let's see. So with that, I'm going to hand it off to Lisa. Thank you, Jennifer. All right. Okay. So, kind of an overview of the flood plane management plan and what is it? So, you know, the reality is it is a report that we're going to receive with backup data, but it is not just that. At its core, it is a tool that we're going to use to help us guide how we're going to keep doing our flood plan management program. Where are we going to put all our efforts into? What are the new projects we want to do? And so it it really is very important for us to have this plan updated so that we know where we're going over the next five years and beyond even. So again, why it matters? Well, it as part of this program, we're figuring out where are our flood risks, what are those impacts on the city itself throughout the city. um how where do we need to be looking to more that we didn't realize we needed to be looking so that we can figure out what do we need to do to mitigate that or protect people. It also allows us to interact with the other departments and other residents and community uh engagement through uh with like our DAC, our development advisory committee, our real estate committees and all these different people to try to get to figure out what is important to y'all as well so that we make sure those priorities are included also. Um and really it it's it all started back 10 years ago. So, this is our our second update and this is a very big update because there have been a lot of changes over the last 10 years. Um, anywhere from the technology to just where the program has gone, where FEMA has gone, what the city is prioritizing. And so, we did want to do a big update this time. So, but it did start when we joined the FEMA's community rating system. So, this is a big portion of that program, too. and it helps us to provide and show all the good work that we're doing through the city to help reduce the flood risk and protect everybody. Um, and that all that work currently has us at a class 7 with FEMA and so we get a 15% flood insurance discount and that goes to everybody that gets flood insurance. You don't have to be in a FEMA flood plane to get that discount. You can be anywhere. Uh, we do know across the city that a lot of our flooding does occur outside of those FEMA flood planes. So that's very important that everybody gets that benefit. So all right. So now we're going to kind of go into the actual steps for this plan in this update and Bethany will talk about it. >> Thanks Lisa. So yeah, I wanted Lisa to provide an overview for y'all so you can hear from, you know, what this plan is used for. And now I'm going to go into how we're developing that plan and supporting the city. Um, so like like Jennifer and Lisa said, I'm Bethany Flightman. I'm with Frieza Nichols. Um and so here's what the plan looks like in terms of development. Um first we organize a stakeholder group. Uh we want very specific people helping and providing uh input ideas um helping develop that action plan. Uh we also want public involvement. So we've done a lot of of things that I'll talk about here in a second to involve the public, get feedback, let you guys hear and see what we're doing. Um and then coordinating which is like coordinating with adjacent um uh cities u municipalities agencies. Um and then we go into assessing the hazards and the problems like what does that mean financially um for when things flood and then we want to set goals. So we're going to talk about all of these in detail but just very high level um we want to set goals we want to review the activities that could possibly be done but then we want to refine that and then into a action plan. So developing that action plan with support of the stakeholders the public and then ultimately we want to adopt this plan and then implement it. Um, and on the right side of the screen, you can see this like cycle, right? Like we're not just developing it and it's going to sit there. The city is going to use that to allocate their resources um to to to prioritize what they're doing. Um, and so it's looked at very very frequently. Um, okay. So stakeholder groups. Um we put together a stakeholder group and Nick here is on on it. Thank you Nick. Um we met with them three times and so these stakeholders I'll show you the list here. We have internal stakeholders which is internal to the city of Fort Worth and then external stakeholders. Um so those external stakeholders um are representing different interest groups such as um you know real estate or um development advisory committee. So different interests. Um so we get a variety of of like I said opinions and thoughts and contributions. Um so I'll go back a slide real quick. So we met three times. We met once a month for three months. Um and they were all very productive. Step two, public involvement, what we're doing here. Um, so we want to engage um and educate you guys on what what it is that the city's doing and what this is. Um, and we want to gather your input so we can implement that into the plan. These are different things that we're doing as part of this. So, we've got some, you know, nice infographics there. Um, we've got, um, things on social media. there's a survey. So, if you've not taken the survey, please do um because we use that and we put that into the plan and that helps prioritize the actions that the city's considering. So, um it does impact what's happening. So, please take that survey. Um and then, well, before I go to that real quick, we've also got this website. So, if if you guys want to see more information, this video is going to be posted on the website. Um just go to the city of Fort Worth. Um, and there's a flood plane management section with a lot of good [snorts] info. Um, okay. So, the first public meeting we had a few months ago, we had a lot of it was education of what the plan is. Um, but we did have a lot of good discussion with the public um at the end. So uh a big piece of that was what we heard was we the city needs to improve outreach and education specifically to the the flood risks um within the city. So educating the public on how to like when you see technical data or a flood plane like what does that mean? So continuing to educate the public um on how to understand that flood risk. Um, another takeaway was that, you know, improving communication that kind of goes with the, um, outreach, but improving communication specifically to projects that are ongoing. Um, so making sure that the people that are impacted by the projects and the infrastructure um, improvements are are very up to date on what's going on. Um, and then they're aware of the schedule and what's, you know, completion of all of that. Um, we did hear we had discussion about flood insurance. So, uh, several of the public was just unclear on what how the rates were determined. And so, that's going to be something that we'll talk about here in a little bit. Um, and then, yeah, we had some discussion on storm water regulations and how we can strengthen and improve those. So, the takeaways, what we what we took away from that meeting, we're going to talk about it here when we talk about the action plan and how that feeds into it. Okay, I'm going to pass it off to Gavin to talk about some of these other steps and what we've done since we've last spoken with y'all. >> Thank you. All right. Thank you, Bethany. So, my name is Gavin Waldrup. I also work for FEA Nichols. I work with Bethany over here. And so I helped out a lot on the technical piece of things. And so really kind of where that starts is in this third step. Um we had a lot of coordination with other agencies and other communities. And so this step was really important just to make sure that the city of Flood Fort Worth understood any flood risk or any potential flood problems outside of the city limits. Um if another city nearby us were to potentially build a project that might impact flood risk in the city of Fort Worth, that's something that we want to know. Um, on top of that, we also were communicating with the agencies, whether it be the US Army Corps of Engineers or it be FEMA or the Tarrant Regional Water District, um, because they're the ones that are really in charge of these really big regional projects. And so, we need to know what the regional projects are and how they're affecting the city of Fort Worth and their potential flood risk. Um, so there's a really big step in coordination. We reached out to 30 different agencies and communities. We received feedback from 10 of them. the NCT COG, the TRWD, there's a bunch of acronyms here, city of Grand Prairie, City of Benbrook. Um, and we really were trying to see what were the available studies that they knew of that the city of Fort Worth might not have, what were the available models that they might have had that the city of Fort Worth isn't aware of. Um, and just really any other impacts. And so the whole reason or the whole point for this is to make sure the city of Fort Worth is aware of what's going on around them and that they're taking all of that into account as they're updating their flood plane management plan. And so this is really where kind of the technical stuff starts to happen. And so step four is assessing the hazard and then step five here in a second is assessing the problem. But so step four really the first question you ask yourself is where is the flooding? And so this is a very very loaded question. Um, as you can see, there's a bunch of dots on the map that tell you FEMA flood planes, flood insurance policies, repetitive loss areas. Um, and there's a lot kind of going on here. And so, taking a step back, trying to understand what is a hazard and what is flooding really. Um, so a lot of our storm water work and a lot of our flooding work is really based on flood risk. And so, understanding the potential risk that a flood could have to a resident or a property. Um, and so whenever we talk about risk, we typically talk about we'll throw around the hundred-year flood plane a lot. And so the 100red-year flood plane, um, really what that technically means is that there's a 1% chance of that storm happening in any given year. And so it's a one in 100 chance. It's essentially what that means. And so we throw that around a lot because FEMA's flood planes are all typically based on the 100red-year flood plane. And we have our city flood risk areas which are also a 100red-year flood plane as well. And so that sets a baseline and that really defines the level of risk that we're looking at for this hazard. And so when we are working and trying to understand the hazard that could impact the city, what the technical people were doing was we were taking the FEMA flood planes and saying spatially here's where the flooding is and we're saying spatially this is potentially where the 100red-year flooding could be. And then we were finding the depth associated with that. So we said, how deep is that water when it floods because how deep that water is impacts how much damage could be done to a property. If you have 6 in in your house versus 24 in in your house, that's a much different um amount of damage that could impact you. And so assessing the hazard was figuring out first where is that flooding and then assessing the problems is saying that we know that hazard, but then what is the impact to the people? And so this is where you can see there's a description of the impact, the life, safety, health procedures for warning and evacuation. Um really focusing on the public's health. Um critical facilities such as police stations, fire stations, hospitals. Um we're looking at all of these things and seeing how the flood risk we determined in step four impacts the people and how are we able to quantify that impact. And so we're reviewing all the damaged buildings, all the flood insurance claims. We're reviewing the repetitive loss areas and we're quantifying all that and saying to the city of Fort Worth, this is where the problems are. And so looking at some of these results from our um all of the work we've been doing. So we've been working on this for the past few months. Um really getting together all that flood risk from both the FEMA flood planes and then the city flood risk areas that the city has modeled. And so we said we took all of that, we put it into this program that FEMA has called Hazis. And Hazis tells us where is the loss or where's the damages um given your flood depth that we had created. And so from that we found the impact that was 43.2 square miles of a 100red-year flood risk. We got that from step 4. That's 12% of the city of Fort Worth. And then we also found that there's approximately 3,400 buildings at 100-year flood risk. Um 2,200 residential and 1100 non-residential. And all of that tabulated to be a 2.2 billion total economic loss. If a 100red-year event were to happen and it were to cover the entire city of Fort Worth, that could cost upwards of $2.2 billion. And so understanding these impacts is really important for this plan because a lot of this feeds into the future projects that are happening, the future studies that are happening. Um, and so looking a little bit closer, um, we know that it's also impacting very local people and it's impacting residents. Um, such as in the first public meeting, we had a lot of, um, residents came to us and would tell us about their known flood risk. And so we wanted to be able to document and show that the flood risk that we're seeing from the whether it be the FEMA flood planes or whether it be the modeled flood planes from the city in their city flood risk areas, we're seeing the damages that the people are telling us. And so we're taking into account all that feedback along with our technical results that we've come up with to say to the city, this is where your impacts are. And so just looking at a couple of these numbers, whether it be Garden of Eden, Lynwood, Scenic Shores, the West 7th area, um you can see graphically and from the colors that there are areas at risk within the city. Um and so being able to document that risk and being able to understand the problems is a um really big step for the city. Um and so also to say that this is the second flood plane management plan update. So this is done every 5 years. And so this is using the most recent data. Those city flood risk areas that had come out a few years ago and were adopted um these are now implemented into this. Whereas the previous update had only had potentially the FEMA flood planes. And so every 5 years this being adopted or this being updated is really important for the city to be able to continuously update and understand their problems. Just going to show they're really trying to look deep at where are the issues, where is the hazard, where's the problem. And so I'll talk about the goals super quick. Um, so all of the things I've kind of been talking about are very technical. Um, but the goals, even though this is step six, it really kind of overarches and it tells us the context for everything that we've been doing for this flood plane management plan. We set these up during the uh we had them at the first public meeting and we had them confirmed by the stakeholders at the first stakeholder meeting and it really kind of put us in the direction to say all of our actions and all of our work is going to be focused on these items. We want to make sure we're aligned with other community goals or other um different strategic plans, whether it be the storm water strategic plan, the comp plan for the city. We want to make sure we're understanding all of these and taking all these into account as we're setting up our potential action plan. And so taking a look at those goals really quick. So the first goal is to improve the safety of people, property, and infrastructure by reducing flood risk and impacts. As you can see, the little dots are supposed to correspond with the uh different sources that these correspond from. Um whether it be city council, the old FMP updates, or the comp plan. Um but just to reiterate on that first goal, that is the underlying goal for everything that we do with our flood plan work. um it's really safety of people is first and foremost in everything that we do. And so making that our first goal was um top priority and that was in the back of our heads as we're doing all of these hazard and problem assessments is focusing on the safety of people and their property. Um so secondary to that is guiding future development and investment to promote sustainable flood resilient growth while protecting natural flood plane functions. And so just making sure that future development in the city um is being regulated and we're making sure that people aren't causing adverse impacts to their neighbors um and making sure that we're monitoring that. And then the third goal strengthen emergency preparedness and response. So this is all focused on that kind of warn section that Jennifer had brought up earlier and just making sure that we are prepared for an emergency to happen. Um, fourth, increasing public awareness. And this one came up a lot during the first public meeting. It came up a lot during all of our stakeholder meetings was that communication and awareness to the public is key, which is why we're doing this tonight, why we're posting this um to our website um so that the public is aware of what the city is doing and um they're aware of all the good work that the storm water program here is doing as well. And finally, the last goal that we had was to support the city's efforts to lower the public's insurance rates. As Lisa had brought up earlier, the city of Fort Worth right now is a class 7 in the community rating system through FEMA, and that gives a 15% discount. But the more we do, um, the more that the city kind of works on their flood plane or flood plan goals, um, they can potentially reach higher CRS classifications. And I know I don't, we didn't bring it up earlier, but I think the end goal is to eventually be a class six. Um I think we're basically already there for the points that the city has and I believe this 20% discount if I'm not wrong. So um that's the eventual goal and so we wanted to make sure that that was reflected on here that our all of our higher standards that the city is employing are being documented here and they're getting the credit that they deserve from FEMA so that you guys can get the flood insurance discounts that y'all deserve. So I'll pass this off to Lisa now to talk about our activities. All right. Thank you. That came fast. All right. So, the actual activities that we're showing. So, this is coming from our mitigation action plan. These are these tasks that we're listing that we say we want to do or continue doing. So, you can see here we've got several different kind of topics that these fall under. preventative activities, property protection, natural flood plane protection, emergency service activities, structural projects, and public information. All right. So, we we took our existing plan that we have and we took that to the Oops, I'm hitting the wrong button. I apologize. We took that to our stakeholder meetings and we worked through those those actions um through every through all three meetings and so that we could really refine remove what we weren't doing anymore add what we needed to add and and just have a much better action plan that reflects where we want to be going. So coming out of those meetings some of the things that we heard and I'll just do a couple um that are on here um flooded vehicles that's something we heard quite a bit. It's not something that FEMA worries about necessarily or I shouldn't say they don't worry about it, but it's not a part of their insurance program. So, it's not a part of what they're thinking about when they're looking at the flood risk, but we do because we do know that our roads do flood, too, and people have expensive cars that are going to flood and you know, what do we do to help protect them? So, that came up as something that we need to be thinking about as well and how do we do that? There's different ways we can do that. Now, we we have flood warning systems out there like Haw, which is H AAS. I don't remember what it stands for. Um, but it it provides like on-site realtime information to drivers as they're driving around a spot to let them know if an upcoming location is flooded and they need to turn around and find another route. So, things like that, that that's one way we can help protect people from driving into water that they shouldn't be. Um, so [clears throat] that they don't get flooded. Um, other ones were looking at our annual flood risk communication letter. Again, communication's a big thing. We're always looking for new ways to try to reach everybody. We know different generations are reached differently and so we're trying to think about that as well. So, we're taking that into account in this plan. How are we going to reach all these different generations so that they understand it? Um, looking at a model management system. again trying to improve improve how we do things already um so that we can make that easier for us and for the people that submit their information. So uh and again everybody talks about AI right every where where is AI going so again we talked about that how can we incorporate that can we should we um and so you'll see some of that coming up as well. All right so I'll just start with the first one. So preventive activities. So really what that entails are the activities that we as a city do to try to reduce the flood risk around the community. So that includes everything from the maintaining our storm drain systems and channels out there to requiring development to go through approval processes with our drainage studies, our flood studies. Get those flood plane development permits so that we make sure everything that is being built now is being built to a higher standard and is going to be safe and not cause flooding on others as well. Um, also trying to keep up with our flood mapping data. we you know that's the first thing we need to know where's the problem where is the risk um and over the years you know this information can get older things are changing so as part of the things we're thinking about is where is the modeling going what do we need to do to change that um and how can we prioritize these different areas so also a part of this FMP update is looking at what studies we have how old are they where are we seeing the changes so that we can prioritize where we need to be updating all of that uh information, where do we need to do new evaluations out there so that we have the best data and and we can help people understand what their risk is today. Um and then it also helps us know where do we need to be doing mitigation if we see we have new flood risk uh new flood risk areas. So all of it there's a lot that goes under this uh preventative activities section. Um it's a lot of information. um wanting to one of the things that we're working on also is making sure that we're kind of keeping up with what is built out there. Um that we're tracking the the letters of map revision that are going on. Um I know that [clears throat] uh in the past we used to allow people to send out uh notifications through newspaper, but we know not everybody looks at newspapers anymore, right? Like who's who's picked up a newspaper recently? Uh I know I haven't. Um, and even digitally, it's not like you're going to go to the legal section every day and go check to see what kind of notifications are coming out. So, when there are changes to flood risk out there, people weren't necessarily being told about it. So, now what we do is we make sure that people are getting a letter so that they understand that there's a change coming. But those current letters um are just not very [clears throat] communicative. They're they're not easy to understand and we understand that that is hard for people to know what is the change at their location. So a project we're currently working on and we're including in this plan is to come up with a hub page a viewer where people will be sent directly to this viewer and they can see how the changes are impacting them at their location at their property. Um and it it makes it easier where they're not having to come to me and ask. You can go 24/7 and go and look and see what the changes are. So, it's these kinds of ideas that kind of come up through this process. And so, you'll see some of that in here. So, the next one is property protection. So, what this really entails is what do we as a city do to help y'all protect yourselves, right? So, that goes through education. So, some of this kind of overlaps with the communication that Linda does for us. Um, again, this is uh got the flood risk mapping updates hub page listed here because this is going to allow people to go directly in to go find that information. We uh want to also start providing better information about like how can you prevent your structure? Like there's a lot of information out there. So, this is on a list too. Again, it kind of ties in with the communication as well. How can we provide the information for y'all to be able to understand how to protect yourselves? Um, and then we're talking thinking about or working on I should say working on some trainings for real estate agents. Um, work with HOAs and neighborhood associations to try to help them understand what flood risk is, what they need to be looking for, how they need to protect themselves or what they need to tell the people that they're interacting with. So the third one, natural resource protection. So this is helping to make sure that what we're doing is aligns with what other departments across the city are doing as well. So parks is working on green space and open space. There's new natural land management policies that are in place. Uh so we want to make sure that we're all aligned together to kind of get the benefit of both for flood risk and that open space and green space. Um, also we are, as Jennifer I think she mentioned earlier, we're working on some erosion mapping, erosion bank mapping. So we're looking right now on a couple of phases. We're we're looking to see where are we seeing erosion, how should we be handling this, where do we need to be looking for to do restoration projects. So currently it's we're just doing a the first phase where we're looking at a couple of creeks so we can make sure we understand the methodology and make sure we're going through the right process and then we'll expand that out through the city. So but that is included in this plan as well. So and then the next one I will let Bethany. All right, number four, emergency services. Um, so this first one here on emergency services, kind of what Lisa was saying about parks is we we want really intentional um coordination and interaction between the the departments. Um, and so that was that was a focus of this change. Um, incorporating technology based enhancements. So this is nowhere in the plan does it say AI, but it's it's making sure that we're not getting lost or left behind. um as technology advances, like where can technology help us? Um and so that's just a focus is to to make sure that we're doing everything that we can in terms of um emergency services, creating a flood warning um opt-in list um or I guess advancing it, but making sure that you know anyone that wants to be in the loop on emergency services is able to do that. And so this all ties into communication and um public information and so making sure that that's shared. Uh creating a substantial damage plan um improving flood early flood warning. Um and then like Lisa was saying the has a flood alert program. Um, so expanding that, that's what we heard from the public meeting and it was like that we talked a lot about this and how we could incorporate it into the plan because that's what we heard in every single meeting that we had um is that people want more of that and so um that was a focus and that's what we added into the plan. Okay, structural projects. I feel like this is like the big one. This is what you think of when you're like how do you improve flooding? It's like well you you build something to help it. um that's not always the case, but this does obviously help um if there's an existing problems. Um so clarifying current goals and initiatives was a big one. Um a lot of what was in that action plan was a little dated and so we wanted to make sure that was updated. Um expanding actions to specify pursuit of local and regional capital improvement opportunities. Um and then creating a grant opportunity plan. So, you know, if the city had all the money in the world, they'd probably solve all these problems, but they don't, right? So, getting as any sort of um supplemented uh you know, financial assistance uh can change things and it can it can improve flood risk. And so, having a plan in order to do that um is how you is how you can start. Okay. And then the last one here, public information. Um so we say storm water team attending um town halls and public meetings to share messaging. Um all of this is just like education and messaging and communication um of what's currently out there and what the city does. Um flood insurance education. So what we talked about in the first public meeting, making sure that that's a focus now. um education on available resources such as I've got a I've got a link here in a second um but the city flood risk viewer it's a great resource to to look at flood risk um and that's out there but a lot of people don't know it is um improving resources and information and then technical assistance calls. So continuing to do those, the city already does a great job of fielding those calls um for residents to understand that flood risk and so that's definitely a focus as well. So we considered all of those actions as part of those activities. Uh you know, we we determined what the city was going to prioritize and then we put that into an action plan. Um, and so now what we're doing is we're rolling all of that up into the flood plane management plan and then putting that in front of council to get adopted. But that's not where we, you know, end the whole like cycle, right? You you continue to look at it, you evaluate it, you reevaluate your priorities, things change, and you revise and you continue to monitor it. Um and so they there is a stakeholder group just for that purpose um to continue to keep that alive um and focus on the right things. So we are here in August. This is our last public meeting. We've already had all of our stakeholder meetings. Next step is to submit this to FEMA and then put a put before council for adoption before the end of the year. I think that's all we have for you guys. Um, before Q&A, I do want to just show you guys this. I'll leave this up while we do Q&A. So, this is the city flood risk viewer. Um, if you've not visited this, please do. I like just bought a house and I was this was like the first thing I went to look at and um, it was just helpful information. >> Okay. Yes, that's the same QR code. So, um, okay. Any questions, comments? Yes, sir. >> Thank you very much. This is really good. I really appreciate it. I mean, I have several questions, but I'll I'll just give you one first. And that is there's a lot of construction going around uh the city and uh um is that uh is some of that storm drainage improvement or or is some of that or is that related to this kind of you know streets are closed and there's working streets. I don't know if that's water. I don't know if it's sewer. I don't know if it's you know I'm just curious if that's part of what's going on right now. >> So so that could be a combination of all of that. We do try to partner with the water department so when they're doing a project we can go in and make updates to our storm drain system as well so we're not tearing the road up twice when we need to do updates. So it really depends on the location um as far as what kind of project it is. Some projects are specifically just our streets department um as well. So I if you had a specific location I could probably better better tell you but there is a lot of development across the city. We all We all see it. We're It's There's a lot to repair, a lot to update, and then there's a lot of new development coming in as well. So, >> in the whole area, >> I I believe that's the water department, [laughter] if it's the one I'm thinking of, along long white. >> Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a big water department project. But that this is good to hear because this reminds us that when we do do big projects, we need to get that information out so that people understand what's going on around them. There's probably a sign somewhere or there should have been a sign that says what project it is, but there's not. Okay. Well, on our storm water projects, there are. [laughter] So, um, but yeah, thank you. >> Well, and I'll say that the information, all this flood risk information that we gather helps to inform those projects. So when they go I'm not speaking into the microphone. >> Hold on. >> Bring her a mic. [laughter] >> Yes. I'll say all of the the information collected through this and all the flood risk mapping and the updates that Lisa is talking about is is gives us that best available data that we at the city can use for all of our projects across the city as well as private development communities as well. is the developers can use that information to jumpstart and they can better plan their development as well to make sure that it's going to be safe from flood risk and it doesn't make things worse for other people. >> Yeah. So, I was wondering about the uh when you all were talking about educating the public and educating the real estate agents. Do you all have uh like some workshops already in progress for real estate agents or is that something forthcoming? >> It is forthcoming. Um it is something I had wanted to already have done this year and then uh things outside of our control just happened and so we haven't had a chance to do that yet but we're looking into that for this next year. Um starting to get the training for real estate agents and insurance agents after that. But um recent site visits that I've done with some HOAs uh led us to understand that they need some training as well on what they're supposed to be responsible for, what the flood plane is looking like in the back and how they can help, you know, maintain those areas that they're responsible for. So, so we're looking into that as well because we know at at that level there's a lot of change over at the HOAs and so they don't always understand that they're responsible for that creek that's going in the back of their property. So, so yes, so we're working on that. It takes time to get that all together, but is definitely something that's one of our higher priorities to get out because it's been a need for a while. So, >> and I will say if you have ideas for good ways to reach them or you know like of a group or something like that, let us know and and we we'd be glad to reach out and and help get them in the loop so they understand what resources are available while we get together kind of a larger training. >> Yeah. And and any training we do, we'll record so that we can have it online so that people that can't come can then at least watch it online. So, we may start off with like a flood plane 101 just to just to get the basics down and then start doing um something that's more detailed. So, you would like that? Okay. And then I mean so are there other groups you think we should be also doing training for or >> Well I mean one of the reasons I asked is because I have different people uh that come to me and say um I would like to you know tell the public about this or that or whenever you all are having some type of a event let us know so that we can come and let them know that we exist. Mhm. >> So we have a an event coming in uh October. >> Okay. >> So we are doing like a housing um I'm trying to think of the word workshop seminar like that. >> Okay. >> So um I think this would be good a portion of the track to just keep putting something in people's minds. uh this is something that just like storm water people it doesn't exist to them unless there is an actual flood cleaning up the streets or something. So this would be a good time for somebody from this department to kind of speak to them. I think uh it could go hand in hand with that housing thing to it. Totally. Yes. if it's for housing and somebody's looking at buying housing and stuff like so like Bethany said like this website is perfect for people to go and look before they buy a house to see is that house in the flood plane or near the flood plane what's that risk so they can make a more informed decision on if they want to buy or not. Um, and so yeah, cuz I I do get a lot of calls from people that find out after the fact. Um, if if they don't have a federally backed mortgage, they may not realize when they're buying a property that it's in a flood plane because they didn't have the mandatory flood insurance requirement. Um, so if they just paid cash or whatever, then then they don't know if they just bought the land itself, they don't know. And so we can work together. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Yes. No, thank you. cuz I it it's definitely something that we need to get the the information out there because I I hear all the time from people that are upset to find out after the fact that they have a flooding issue that they weren't told previously. So, yep. We're all about getting their information out for sure. [laughter] Did you want to ask another >> I'll deliver it. >> Thank you. Um, not to trying to be punny, but uh, we we really have and it's already present and that's a perfect storm brewing and that's partly, you know, a very severe climate change event that's happening that's not changing and going to get worse. Okay, number one, the current administration in Washington has significantly cut back FEMA support, program programmatic support, etc. Um so so kind of two questions related to that. Uh with the reduced support coming from the the you know the federal government uh are do you anticipate significant increases in these fees for us to help support some of these uh efforts? I really appreciate everything you're talking about and you're proposing. The second question is really for the engineers present and that is of course we don't have you know we're not going to have FEMA input to revise these maps but uh I'm sorry these maps are going to change. I think the risk going to go up because we're going to have [snorts] like in South Texas it happened. It's happened all over the country in a lot of different places where flooding has gone way beyond the 100redyear flood planes and and it's it's coming everywhere. And uh so I don't know if the engineers are working if if we're doing anything to try to predict other future risks that are beyond the scope of the current maps. >> It's all good. >> Yes, there's a there's a lot in those questions. Um going to try to remember the first one. >> The Yeah, you can talk about the feed. >> Okay. Thank you for asking about the fees. Um, so actually, so the city right now is undergoing fiscal year 27 budget public meetings. The first one was last night, but there are nine left. And so as a part of the city manager's recommended budget, there is a 5% storm water utility fee increase. So the purpose of that funding is one, more funding that we can put towards partnerships with other groups. So when street projects go out there, we can add more some money to it to get more storm water work done as a part of their project. That's an often way that we do it or we could partner with developers. So it's it's really to get more done in an area and and and benefit the community because we're not having to go back as often because we're trying to tackle more things out of one project. So that's one part of it. Another part of it is a lot of money to jumpstart or start up um a program to re um reduce flood risk to homes and businesses. Um kind of we're calling it a midsize flood mitigation program. So it's kind of projects between 1 million and 15 million um kind of on average 5 million. So really focused on mitigating flood risk to those structures. And then the third part of the new revenue that would come with that fee increase will go towards inspection of city engineered channels as well as our storm water facility maintenance agreements. So we can't get out there and and make sure we're doing the right maintenance and mitigation unless we really understand the condition of our assets and our infrastructure. And right now we have one person that's responsible for all of our channels and one person that's responsible for all of our uh storm water facility maintenance agreements. And so with this would have one one new person who would be split and help with both. Um but really that's going to help us to make sure that these sites are being maintained and are being prioritized. So we're tackling that need first because maintenance is is one of the really important aspects of our program because we can have all that infrastructure out there but if we are not maintaining it effectively then it's not going to work when that flood comes. So we want it to work. Um, so that 5% fee increase to an average single family homeowner. Um, a tier one kind of it's a is what we call it. I don't I can't think of the square foot, but the average single family homeowner in our four tiers of residential, it would be 36 cents more a month. So, it's it's a small amount for the single family homeowner. 36 cents a month. It's a little bit less if you have a smaller home. It's a little bit more if you have a larger home. Um and then um the like larger rate payers such as like commercial or industrial if they've got a lot of hard surface of course they're going to have bigger fees because they've got more impact on the storm water system because they've got more impervious surface and more runoff. U but that is um part of the city manager's recommended budget. So if you want more information be glad to talk to you about it. Um and again there's those nine opportunities uh to come and then council will vote. I think September 15th is actually the date of the vote. So, I'm going to let you talk about the engineering on risk mapping. >> Okay. And and I'll just say also that that that fee increases for that. There are still needs that we have. So, that comes into play where we start looking where in our budget do we have additional capacity or or that the prioritization really takes you know a lot of uh what's the word I'm looking for here? uh I don't want to say priority but it's very important very important that we we have good prioritization so we we can put our funds to good use and use it all efficiently. Um but then we also have to start looking like where can we partner, where can we get grants, things like that. And that's where coming up with that grant opportunity plan will help so that we can better get prepared because sometimes they pop up really quick and there's a really quick turnaround and it's hard to get that all that information ready and submitted in time to to be able to take opportunities like that. Um so the engineering side of it, yes, things are changing and I know they're changing. So part of this process also is that study prioritization where we're going to look at what do we have right now? Where are our studies? How old are they? What's been going on through there? Where do we need to be doing updates and thinking about how do we want to update that because there are new kind of new uh FEMA regulations or not regulations, guidance coming for changes on what they want to see as well. And so, how how are we going to do that? How are we going to roll that out to everybody? It's going to be a long process probably um because it will be us plus developers and and the type of modeling that they need to submit to us when they're doing their development. um that they don't have to do right now. So, it it's it there's a lot going on, but we are all thinking about it. We're talking with the other engineers. Um we, you know, I'm a part of the Texas Flood Plane Administrators, Floodplane Management Association. I can't even get it straight. Sorry. Um so, I'm I'm a member of that and I'm on the board of that and we have a ton of discussions when we get together about how are we going to move forward with this. Um because we know that there are changes that happen. Um but it it's also watching to see what is going to be required. Um because we don't have the funding to go out and just remodel everything. So that's where that prioritization is going to be very handy so that we can figure out what can we afford to do now, pick those top ones, and then make a plan for over several years for updating where we can. Um so it it's there's a lot there's a lot coming and this is kind of the start. this this update here has been a very good update. We've been able to talk to a lot of different people. Um and I I think we're moving forward you're going to see a lot of changes and a lot of improvements. So I hope that answered kind of it's changing I know. So there's there's pro probabistic um modeling coming too or uh ASCE has updated for the international building code to start they they're recommending that people regulate to the 500y year and not just the hundredyear. So those there's those kind of things that are going on throughout the nation that we'll see how that what really is going to be required. So we'll see >> about our higher standards too just so people know. >> Yes. So, so we do have higher standards here above FEMA. So, we do regulate to the fully developed conditions hydrarology and not just the 100red-year hydraology that you're going to see. So, we want to see what what is the whole basin like. Now, there are times where that can be lower due to detention that they have planned and things like that. So, I have in my regulations that finished floor elevations are based on the FEMA base flood elevation or the fully developed conditions base flood elevation depending on whichever's higher. So, we're always trying to be conservative. We want to make sure people are always going to be up above. So, and that that twoft of freeboard that gets added, it kind of helps to take into account potential for additions or those higher storms. Just just that little bit of extra protection, just a little safety factor in there. So, and then we also this year I'll add this too. So, this year we also added a new regulation for compensatory valley storage. So that's where if you dig out a cup or you put in a cup, you got to dig out a cup so that we make sure we keep the same amount of valley storage within our flood planes and we don't cause rises that are unintentional because it we realize like over time like all those little small increases added up. And so we see that everywhere across the city and so we we've put that regulation in place. I believe it was February is when that went effective. So, so we are working to improve our regulations too. We're working on it. It takes time and we need support. So, please keep coming. So, anything else? No. We are here for you. I really appreciate y'all coming. This this has been kind of a whirlwind project this year. We've done it very fast, but it's very very important, and I'm really excited to see that final product come out. So, >> all right. Thank you.