Local officials addressed the community's response to Tropical Storm Debby and the subsequent Ogeechee River flooding. The county's coordinated efforts involved various departments like Emergency Management, Mosquito Control, and Public Works. They expressed gratitude to volunteers and highlighted the resource center opened by Compassion Christian Church to support those affected. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and state officials have been assessing damage to determine if the area qualifies for federal aid, though no individual assistance declaration has been made yet. Residents were urged to avoid floodwaters due to health risks like infection and mosquito-borne diseases, and to seek tetanus shots if they had been injured. The county's Mosquito Control efforts are ongoing, and the public was advised on precautions to avoid mosquito bites and mold-related issues.

Health officials also emphasized the importance of staying out of floodwaters, which can be contaminated with harmful bacteria and other hazards. They warned against playing in or wading through the water and advised using insect repellent and wearing protective clothing to prevent mosquito bites. The Chatham County Health Department is offering tetanus vaccines at various locations, including at the Compassion Christian resource center, to help prevent flood-related illnesses. Additionally, residents relying on well water were advised to disinfect their wells if flooded. Environmental health teams are available to assist with septic system issues and water testing, and residents were encouraged to take precautions when cleaning mold in their homes.

 

 

Full transcipt of press conference:

Good morning. The health and safety of those affected by tropical storm Debby and the Ogeechee River flooding are our top priority. Please listen to those here today who are experts the response to this storm and the following flood. That followed was an effort on the part of Chatham County, across many departments, including CEMA, Mosquito Control, Animal Control, Chatham fire, Chatham police, Public Works, Engineering, the Department of Public Health, and countless others throughout the county and Our employees and to that, we say thank you, and we appreciate what you have done over the course of this storm. I have seen the resiliency of the residents of Chatham County, and I want to make special notice to those who volunteered in their time to help immediately after the storm and throughout the flooding, I'm also I also want to make special notice that compassion Christian Church has opened a resource center for those affected by the storm. If you need help, we can help you there. And so now I'm going to call on director Dennis Jones, who will tell you more about that response, and then he will introduce all the others.

Good morning, everyone. So our situational update. Water levels are receding throughout the county. We should be able to bear witness to that. There are some areas throughout the county that are still have some flooding impacts, though, and we are monitoring those areas and those communities. Highway 17 at the Ogeechee River is still closed. It will remain closed until the Department of Transportation can get in and do a bridge inspection and determine that it is safe to travel across. So yesterday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Georgie Emergency Management agency, as well as the Small Business Administration, they were in the area doing damage assessments based on individual assistance. So we spent the day with them yesterday, taking them to various areas throughout the county, and ensuring that they had good situational awareness of what our damages for individual assistance look like at this time, there is not a FEMA individual assistance declaration. Okay. So they were here doing that damage assessment yesterday to determine if the state as a whole would meet the thresholds in order to qualify for an IA or an individual assistance declaration. So we're starting the process to work through those numbers and that data collection, and they'll be doing that through all of the counties that have been affected by Debby. And hopefully we should hear something back from FEMA by the middle of next week. At this time again, there is no federal declaration for individual assistance. Mosquito Control has done some assessment overflights for us just about daily. So we're very thankful for the efforts that that they've been able to do. It gives us really good situational awareness of what the flooding looks like, what the flooding looks like from day to day, and also from hour to hour as needed. And they've also started doing some competitive measures, which I'm sure director Carlson will talk about, we are entering into recovery, and as we enter into recovery, the Chairman did mention the resource center that has opened up at Compassion Christian it is, it is in their adult Ministry Center. It's at five zero Al, Henderson Boulevard, they are offering food, water, cleaning supplies, personal hygiene products and other resources. They will be open this Saturday, from 4pm to 8pm and then next week, they will expand their hours. They'll be open Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, from 7am to 9am and again, from 4pm to 8pm we also have a company that's that's in the area, called crisis cleanup. And if you need some assistance through crisis cleanup, that number is 1-844-965-1386,

again, 1844, 9651386, and also, finally, the United Way has set up a rapid response disaster fund. If you need some, some immediate funds for some immediate recovery issues, you can get in touch with the United Way through calling 211, okay, so that's all I have. I would like to bring up Dr Bonzo Reddick to talk about public

health. Thank you. So my name is Dr Bonzo Reddick. I'm the health director for the Costal Health District, which is the eight counties in the Department of Public Health in Southeast Georgia. And Chairman Ellis already kind of mentioned all the folks that are involved in this. And so I'm not going to rehash that, but I do want to thank everyone, county and city officials, all the different staff, all the different agencies that have been involved in this, in this response, which is obviously a collective, concerted response. I did want to talk about three specific things, Dr Ruston, who's our Administrative Director of the Chatham County health department's going to go into more detail about the public health response, but I want to talk about three things from the standpoint of the position. So number one is that obviously, with the flood waters that are there, there's a lot of temptation for people to go and play in them. So my son's basketball practice this weekend is right next to an area that flooded right off of Highway 17, and I saw some little kids playing in the water during that time. And the problem with flood water is that it contains a lot of animal and human waste. There's a big risk for infection if you wade into it. And also there's there may be sharp objects that you can't see in the water that can poke you, that can they can injure you that way. So we strongly recommend that no one go into the flood waters unless they have no other option, and really, definitely avoid having children or anyone else play in the flood waters. That's kind of the first big point. And with that being said, you have just heard about the great volunteers that are involved in some of the rescue efforts and going in to help people. So for some people, it's not avoidable, or you might be stuck in your home and have no option but to go into the water. So that leads to my second two points is that if you have to go into the water, making sure that you protect yourself as much as possible. So one way of doing that is to avoid the risk of mosquitoes, mosquito bites and mosquito borne illnesses, which I'm sure we'll hear about a second so and you'll probably hear some more details, but the main things are using evidence based insect repellents, DEET or or something like that. Lemon oil, eucalyptus works pretty well doing something to prevent yourself from getting mosquito bites in the first place. That's the best thing you can do. Now, I know some people have asked questions about West Nile virus, and there's some mosquitoes that have West Nile virus. There's no specific medication you can take to prevent it, other than not get bit in the first place. So there's not any medical treatment you should seek to prevent a mosquito bite other than the repellents that I mentioned. In addition, if you are bit, there's not a medicine you can take afterwards that will prevent you from prevent you from developing West Nile virus or some other types of mosquitos going on. This is so the best thing to do is try to avoid it. Try to stay out during the hours where mosquitos are more prevalent, during those early morning, late night kind of dusk and dawn hours wear light, lightweight, long sleeve clothing, you can just do all the things you can to prevent from getting bit. And again, the best thing to do is stay away from those flood waters. Mosquitos love water, essentially. So again, the big things are not wading the water if you don't have to, try to avoid mosquito bites. And then last but not least is that if you are, if you do have a skin injury, you get a nick or a scratch in the water, which has been very, very frequent among our volunteers is that being sure you get a tetanus shot within 48 hours of that exposure. So so that is available at the health departments. A lot of people's primary care physicians or primary care providers carry tetanus shots as well urgent care to have them, but within 48 hours of the exposure, the best time. Now, if you, for some reason, go past that 48 hours, you can still come in absolutely so still come in and but the goal is really to get it within that 48 hour period, because the incubation period for tetanus can be as short as three days or 72 hours. So just try to stay out of the water. If you can try and avoid mosquito bites and mosquito born illnesses, and if you do get mix or cuts, go ahead and get your tetanus shot. If you know you're able to be in the water and are at high risk and you have a access, go in and get your tetanus shot ahead of time. Just to be safe, tetanus shots will build for about 10 years. So if it's been more than ten years, then go ahead and get your tetanus shot again available in the Health Department. Doctor Rustin will tell you some more details about as well. So again, thanks to everybody in the community who's been a part of this effort, and everybody out there, please stay

safe. So first of all, I want to thank all of you for being here to help us carry this public health message that we're talking about today. My team that's here today, in addition to myself as the Director of the Health Department, I've got our nurse manager here, Dr Sarah Peebles, as well as our environmental health manager here, Lauren Baker Newton, and they're both available to answer questions about some of the things that we'll talk about. As Dr Reddick had mentioned, we're very concerned if you receive cuts or scrapes or step on the nail about getting tetanus. I. Um, one of the things that we do the health department is we offer the tetanus vaccine on a routine basis, but specific to this event and for individuals that may have been injured or cut or scraped as it relates to the flood that's happened on the Ogeechee River. We are partnering with Compassion Christian at the recovery site on out here to offer on site tetanus vaccines. Our team will be available on Tuesdays and Thursdays next week from four to 8pm we'll have nurses on site. Don't have to have an appointment, and there's no out of pocket calls for folks who need to get this vaccine. And so again, that will be a Compassion Christian Tuesdays and Thursdays from four to 8pm in addition to that, we're also offering walk in services at both of our health department locations. And so you can walk in let them know you need a tetanus, and we'll work you into the schedule to get that vaccine here at the health department, in addition to the health department locations, you have urgent care facilities, your private physicians offices, as well as some pharmacies offer that vaccine as well. And so we just want to encourage people who may have received an injury that they consider getting that inspected. As Doctor Reddick mentioned, obviously, anytime there's a flood event, there's going to be mosquitoes. We have a very great, very fantastic mosquito control program in Chatham County, and they're certainly doing everything they can to reduce the number of mosquitoes, but there will be some standing water around even as the flood waters recede. In addition to protecting yourself wearing those evident evidence based repellents, we recommend that if you have any anything around your home that's holding water, something as small as a bucket, tires, anything that holds water, a lot of those species of mosquitoes that bite you around your homes are breeding those little, small containers. And so we we can certainly help ourselves by dumping those containers, and that will reduce at least some water that those mosquitoes can thrive in. And so as you walk around your house, as you start assessing the damage, if you see things holding water that you can dump out and recommend that you do that. Another thing that comes up quite often during a flood event is what happens with molds and mildews. All mold needs is water. And so if your home was flooded, most likely, you're going to have mold in the home. There's a lot of education, from CDC and from the EPA on what you can do about mold. If you have materials that are porous and they've been flooded, those can't be clean, they're going to have to be torn out, and they're going to be in place. But most importantly is you work in your home, protect yourself. We don't want people inhaling mold spores in their lungs. Wear personal protective equipment. Wear a mask, wear goggles, wear gloves, and most importantly, we use a lot of bleach when we're cleaning up. Don't mix chemicals. Don't mix bleach with ammonia. Don't mix bleach with some other chemical that can create another problem for you. Well water is another concern that we have after a flood, especially in those areas of the county where you get your drinking water from a well on the property. If your well is flooded, because it's in that low area, you need to assume that the well is compromised and it's been contaminated. We strongly recommend, once you get power back, that you flush the well, meaning you run water until it's clear, and then that you disinfect the well. Usually we recommend a non set of household bleach. We have instructions on our website. We're going to be providing flyers on how to do that. But our environmental health team here in the health department is educated and trained on how to disinfect the well, and we can provide assistance on that. Once you disinfect the well, we recommend that you have it sampled. The health department will be offering free water samples once you get to that point, if you call our office, our team will make an appointment to go out on your property and sample your well. We'll get results back to you pretty quickly on quality of your waters. Our samples will test for general covid form bacteria as well as E coli bacteria, which is an indicator of potential problem. The last thing I want to mention is septic tank systems. We're starting to get calls about septic tank systems failing. Septic Tanks obviously don't work underwater. They don't work well when they're flooded. And with septic system, it's a wait gain because the septic system has got to dry out. And so what we recommend with septic systems is trying to conserve as much water as possible to limit the amount of water going in your septic system once the flood waters receive if you can get a pumper in to pump the tank that can give you some relief, but it just has to dry out, and limiting the amount of work of that septic system is one way that it can dry out. If you continue to have problems, our environmental health team can help with that as well. We can provide assessment of your septic system and make recommendations on what needs to be done to that to prepare that second system. As echoed by the chairman, by Dennis Jones, by Doctor Reddick, I want to thank all the partners that are that are that work with us and continue to respond, especially to Compassion Christian for allowing us to be on site and offering our tetanus vaccines. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Ture Carlson, the director of mosquito

Alright, like everybody has said, it is flood water. So there are a lot of mosquitoes out there. We notice the big nuisance hatch of mosquitoes. And these are the mosquitoes that don't necessarily transmit disease. There's a very large number of them that hatched on Monday. So of course, our response, we only have one response to adult mosquitoes, and that's to do treatments, space treatments for those mosquitoes. So the helicopters are running, the trucks are running. We're six to seven days a week. Helicopters generally in the evenings. We're at sunset when most mosquitoes fly, so we get our best kill at that time. That's why our helicopters are flying right around sunset, and then the trucks are generally running in the mornings, right before sunrise, which is our other optimal window to reduce some mosquito numbers. It was a West Nile season before the storm hit, and it's going to continue to be a West Nile season after the storm. Whether or not we kind of stay leveled off with the virus is yet to be determined. So we're a couple weeks out from really knowing those answers. But as the flood waters start to recede, we switch from nuisance mosquitoes to vectors mosquitoes, those that will transmit disease or are able to transmit disease. This is historic levels, from my understanding that along the Ogeechee. So where those water sites are are kind of unknown to us. That's where our helicopters are coming in with assessment flights as well. So we're trying to figure out where water is standing now, once we hit the two week mark on the receding end, we really start to worry about the southern house mosquito and they love just standing stagnant, smelly water. We talk about septic tanks and septic systems failing, but there's sewage in the water. These mosquitoes love it. So our preemptive response going forward is we're going to knock down the nuisance mosquitoes, and we're going to start monitoring for those vector mosquitoes. We're going to try to figure out where they're at and how we can control them and really limit the transmission of disease. So other than that, it's like everybody else has said, it's time to break out the EPA registered insect repellent, long sleeves, long pants, light colored clothes. And by all means, you can get in your yard, start tipping out anything. We know the bulk of the mosquitoes might not be coming from your yard right now, but if you leave that standing water there, that will change very quickly. So get out in your yard and tip all those things out. And let's try to clean up this mosquito mess as soon as we can. So we're trying to make it possible for the responders to get out the sites and not be bothered along the Ogeechee River and our missions will continue for the foreseeable

future. And good morning. My name is

Lauren, and I am the Environmental Health Manager here with Chatham County Health Department, just echoing with our new trader. Doctors has said, if there are any specific questions that you have related to your property, please give us a call in environmental health so that we can assist with regards to septic systems, as I said, just hopefully allowing it to dry out before we can examine there and really assess whether or not it is a situation that will require the system. With regards to the low water sampling, we are here to assist, whether that is with the work, the sample collection, or if that is assistance with coordination as well, as well. So again, if assistance is needed, please do not hesitate to reach out to me and my team. Good

morning again. Dr Sierra Peebles, I'm the nurse manager here at the clinical services for the Chatham County Health Department, again, echoing Dr Rustin and Dr Reddick. If you have been in the flood waters, if you've got any injuries, please let us know. Please come into our clinic and we can provide that tetanus vaccine to you. If you're unsure if you've had a tetanus booster in the past 10 years, no problem. Give us a call. We can look up your records to kind of see when that last one was, and to give you some advisement on how to proceed. And as well, we will be at Compassion Christian next tuesday and thursday from the four to 8pm please come out. We do that vaccination. If you have any other questions related to help during this flood again, just give us a call, and we can help,

let me just say, on the day before yesterday, on Wednesday, the health board met in the same room, and we felt it necessary that we bring these things to you, because we are. In the point of recovery, and a lot of times we want to focus on really realize what they need to do alright. And having witnessed folks wading in the waters, children playing in the water, there's a need for us to bring an awareness of the aftermath, of what the cleanup is. Alright. It's just not opening the roads. It's just not the water going away. But as you can see, we have gathered those who know experts in the field, who can tell our citizens and our residents what they need to be doing now and what they need to be cautious of. Alright, so the more information we get out, the more the public lets us know just how their area is affected, because they live there. We visit there. We are there to see what went on, what's going on, but we need them to tell us, because they are there on a 24 hour basis. Alright, so let that out. Take any question for anyone in the panelists that you want. Yes, sir.

Um. Director Jones, can you just speak more on the federal aid portion of things? Right? Because we talked about how the teams were out yesterday. They're assessing that's going to go to the governor, and the governor sends a letter to the President. We hear so much about this threshold that we have to meet what? What is that threshold? Is it a dollar amount that needs to be as far as damage is concerned? Can you just kind of talk about that aspect of the the aid part of this? Sure.

So so to meet the criteria for a presidential disaster declaration, you have to meet certain thresholds. Those thresholds are monetary thresholds based on per capita. So every year the number changes. So it's a certain dollar figure based on the population in Chatham County. That's the first threshold that has to be met. And then there's also a separate dollar figure based on the population for the state of Georgia, so that that threshold has to be met as well. So both of those thresholds have to be met before we can actually qualify for presidential disaster declaration. So for Chatham County, that threshold is right now 1.3 million for this year, and the state threshold is right at 20 minutes. And both of those have to be met before the President will even consider a disaster declaration.

And as far as the president giving us a thumbs up or a thumbs down, whether or not we need that, you said, middle of next week, we should know,

I'm anticipating that. You know, FEMA was in yesterday, they saw everything that they needed to see for the IA declaration, individual assistance. So they are doing these same things in the other counties that are affected by Debby, so just depends on what that schedule looks like. And then they have to take that information back. They have to get information from the state, compile all that data, then present it to the federal government. So I would anticipate next week. That's just my anticipation. That's my speculation. It could be the end of next week. It could be the first part of the following week, but hopefully within the week we should, we should have a good clarifying path forward. Thank you.

Video, yeah. I

mean, as far as the flood related illnesses are concerned, I mean, what specific types of illnesses, aside from tetanus, can people get from waiting in those flood waters. What are symptoms to look out for? How quickly do they develop? And have y'all seen any recorded, I guess, visits to your office, to local hospitals as a result of flood related illnesses in the past couple days and weeks?

Sure. So, so as far as the types of illnesses, there's a wide range of things. So we heard West Nile virus mentioned earlier, which a lot of times differently, non specific flu like symptoms. So people often have fevers, headaches, maybe some muscle aches, joint pains, that kind of thing. For some people, they have gastro intestinal illnesses. They might have some nausea and that type of thing, some diarrhea even. But it's very dependent on each person has different symptoms. There are other things as a while that can be spread in flood waters. We mentioned tetanus, which is a relatively rare condition thanks to the tetanus vaccine. Tetanus vaccine. There's only about 30 cases of tetanus in the United States every year, totaling the entire country, in all 50 states. So we do not want any cases in Chatham County. But there are other bacterial infections you can get as well, simple staph and strep infections you can actually get from being in the water, especially if you have an open cut or a wound it can get you can have a high rate for wound infection. Some symptoms to look out for. I mentioned fevers ache, especially high fevers, but also if you have any cuts or scrapes on you that are that look like you're getting infected. So signs of infection are things like increased redness, increased pain in the area, if you start draining fluid, especially if the fluid looks like pus, those are indications of seeking health care immediately.

And have you seen any recorded cases? So So there

have been some reported cases, but not not of the other things like West Nile virus or anything like that, but we have seen cases of a lot of wound infections, or people with cuts and scrapes and blisters and things like that, from who've been in the water. So that's probably our biggest risk, is just the skin infection that can happen and also the potential harm from being around that, that dirty water, and again, often has human waste in it, so do not favor, yeah.

And just while I have you, I mean, yesterday, the city of Savannah announced that there was a massive sewage spill, about 500,000 I think gallons of of sewage was spilled. You know, between, I think it was August, 5 and seventh. I. I mean, does that raise concern in your mind? Given how populated that area was, where it happened, one

thing we do is really just make sure we educate people and not to have people panic, per se, because a lot of times when something like that happens, people say, I need to go to the doctor to get some kind of treatment to prevent an infection. There's not a specific thing you can do in that situation. If you haven't been in flood water. There's no specific medication you should take to prevent infections. It's just knowing what things to look out for, and if you do have any symptoms of it, just seeking care immediately. So we tell people not to panic, but also still be vigilant as well. Thank you.

Alright, anything else? Yes, sir,

yeah. Sorry. Just while I have y'all um for mosquito control, okay, um, I mean, you mentioned that this was a very intense season, as far as West Nile is concerned, prior to the storm coming. So, I mean, we know that the helicopter and treatment efforts were hampered because of the storm. So how, I guess, much did it set you all back? And how much is the concern level now, given all of that standing water, I mean, like you said, it doesn't take a lot of standing water. Can just be a little puddle in a bucket somewhere. So our

concern level stays about the same so far. I'll put it that way. We're monitoring. We're running our traps. We're collecting mosquitoes. We're still testing. We're doing everything we do that we've been doing, so we haven't had to increase, I guess, our concern about West Nile, the nuisance mosquitoes, are our biggest thing out front that's putting us behind probably a little bit on West Nile control, because the nuisance mosquitoes are county wide. West Nile was really focal in the Midtown downtown. It was everybody should take precautions against it, don't get me wrong, because especially after visit, it's going to bubble out probably just about county wide. So we're trying to get everywhere we can. But right now we're it's just we're trying to cover 237,000 acres, and we're doing it in chunks. So we're coming and we're going to try to keep those West Nile mosquitoes down, along with knocking down the nuisance mosquitoes. So right now, it's kind of our efforts are adding on to each other, which might be a little bit helpful. It might not blow up our concern in the next couple weeks, so at least that's what we're looking for. So monitoring continues. Thank you.

Okay. Hello, everyone. Everyone questions. Let me say that our main reason for having this press conference is to bring awareness of where we are alright. We are continuously gathering the data in our environment and in our living area, in our living space, and we continue to have the ability to meet the needs alright. I think Director Jones asked me every day, do I have any needs, alright? And so I look to the residents if there is a need to get in touch with us. We it will be on on our channels, it will be on our websites. We hope that you will put the information on there. But we are asking the public not to panic, alright, this is not time for panic, but this is time to be educated about what happens after the storm. Alright, the storm has passed. We're into recovery. And it takes time, because we have to gather the data, alright, and send the data to the state, and then the state to the federal. Alright, the Federal have been here. They've done their evaluation. The local CEMA continue to do evaluation, I want to say, hour by hour. And so things will change, and if things change, we will let you know. We will keep you abreast of what's going on. But we ask you to please one of the things that all of our departments who are at work, all of our volunteers who at work. They need your cooperation, alright? So be compassionate one to another, alright, and don't go off. But there is a solution that we're working on. And so you can tell from those who gather here how we're doing, especially those folks on the west side who have wells, and if your well was compromised, you know that there are certain things we need to do and certain things you need to do, and we have people here who can get to the answer to your questions and answer to your concern, if we all work together again, let me thank you, And let me say to our general public that we're continuously working alright, to meet your needs and to to return us back to normal, if there's such a thing as normal, right? And so we hope those things will take part in the next few days, but there is a process that everything must go through. And so we've got everybody still on standby, doing their part, from the health department to seeing to the Public Works, to all of the departments of the county, gathering that information, even to you all and PIO, who helps us to get this information out. And so information is the key, because knowledge has power, and the more knowledge they have about what's happening around them, the stronger we are together. And so again, I say to all municipalities and all residents, there's still one Chatham County, and we're working to improve the life and the health of everyone in Chatham County again, thank you for coming to us and please help us spread the word. Alright, thank you all you.