Chief's Chat #41: How CCPD is already prepared for Hurricane Season

In this episode of the Cape CopCast 'Chief's Chat,' we sit down with Chief Sizemore to get real about hurricane preparedness in Cape Coral, from the anxiety many of us feel on June 1 to the hard-earned lessons from storms like Ian. El Nino, La Nina, projected storm counts... none of that changes the bottom line: it only takes one, and readiness beats optimism every time.

We break down what our police department actually does as a storm approaches, and the moment we have to stop responding for safety. We discuss how we stage personnel before conditions deteriorate, what happens inside the building when sustained winds hit 45 mph, and the personal prep basics we expect from our own staff: a real family plan, cash on hand, prescriptions, uniforms, food, and the items that matter when you are working around the clock.

After the storm, we explain “first push,” the initial damage assessment that guides everything that comes next, and how alpha/bravo scheduling helps us handle both regular calls for service and hurricane recovery missions. That includes welfare checks, traffic control, generator deployments, protecting limited fuel resources, supporting points of distribution, and keeping the city moving toward normal as fast as possible.

Transcript

Hurricane Season Anxiety And Reality

0:04

Welcome back to another episode of the Cape Copcast Chief Chat Edition. I'm one of your hosts, Lisa Greenberg, and I'm Officer Mercedes Simons. Together we make up the public affairs office, and we have Chief. We'll be talking a little bit about hurricane preparedness. Um this week, we hit June 1, and that's the start date of a potential hurricane that's coming this season. So good morning. I hate this topic. I have a little bit of heightened anxiety. I know that uh this season things are projected to be a little calmer. I'm gonna knock it. Yeah. But um, you know, just given everything we've been through over the last five years, it's been a busy five years for our area. It does make me a little anxious to talk about this. But I think it would help not just me, but everyone who feels the same way feel at ease to know all the things that we have in place to help if we do, God forbid, have a hurricane this season. Little real talk on uh the kickoff of hurricane season. And you were alluding to the the lower projected numbers, right? We're in an El Nino year. It's taken me a long time to understand the difference between La Nina and El Nino in weather terms, but this is the good one for us. It means um warmer temperatures in the Pacific, cooler temperatures in the Atlantic with stronger wind shear. And wind shear is what cuts off the top of hurricanes. But I think 1992 was an a strong El Nino, all the good things happen, and Hurricane Andrew happened. Right. So the takeaway that I have El Nino, La Nina, no problema, be ready, pay attention. It just takes one. And that was a major one that changed a lot in not only South Florida, but all of Florida with building code was rewritten after that. So be prepared. Um I wouldn't put a lot of stock into the projected numbers. They say that instead of having a busier of 12 storms, there's going to be three. Well, if you're one of the three, only takes one. That's a bad year. So let's let's be ready. And I thought it would be a good opportunity to talk kind of real about everybody has their own personal plan, or you should have a personal plan. What is the police department's plan during hurricane season, both for the agency that we perform for the public, and what are the expectations of the people who work here to carry out that plan? And it's good to be open about it and let everybody know.

High Water Vehicles And Flood Lessons

2:35

For sure. And I think um one thing that's major is we have our high water vehicles this season. Um it's going to be five when it's all said and done. And these are the vehicles that we'll be able to use to get through flooding. Um, they uh we did a story with the news about it, and they called them um mini monster. Mini monster trucks. Like that's a good way to put it. Mini monster trucks. Okay. Um, yeah, that you don't get to pick your own nickname, right? So I guess that's what they are. But high water vehicles were a plan that we had uh about a year ago, right? So we had a uh a flooding incident. Um we hadn't had a lot of we get standing water after a hurricane or after a rainstorm, but it goes away, dissipates pretty quickly. Ian, we had a lot of standing water. Milton, Helene, even a particular uh event. It was, I believe, MLK Day a couple of years ago in January, off season had a uh eight inches of rain in an hour, significant flooding incident. And what we found after Ian and after Milton is that there are certain parts of the city that are impassable. And Ian was a south of Cape Coral Parkway, east of Santa Barbara, like the old um southeast precinct was was a tough area. Milton was a completely different one that was out west uh old Burnt Store Road all the way up or all the way east to almost Burntstore Road, became very difficult to pass. So each storm has a different personality and a different entry point into the city. So just those two events showed me and showed our staff that you really can't just say the yacht club's gonna flood, or it it was all the way out west and and northwest, and you got areas in the southwest that can flood. You really just don't know where that's gonna be, and you still have emergencies that happen. So after Ian, um calls start to stack up, and we'll get into this a little bit later, but we had a uh suicide call right off the bat, and it was very difficult for us to get there. So you find yourself in a position where you're hitching a ride from a fire department vehicle, or they have a high water um apparatus that's a different mission. They're going to different things, right? And they're busy and they don't have time to beat our taxi. Um, our partners at the sheriff's office have high water vehicles. Do you really think they could have diverted from Fort Myers Beach after Ian to come help us get a lift? You know, no, it doesn't work that way. Plus, after a hurricane, a 30-minute normal car ride is about an all-day affair. And you need to have your own tools to do the jobs. That's why we decided to get um vehicles like that. So we have five of them. Why would we need five? Well, one, presumably for each one of our precincts, northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest. If we get something Ian-like or greater, you need to have the city covered. If you have something like Ian or Milton where a specific area is impacted, you can deploy multiple resources there so you can respond to many different um incidents or emergencies quickly without relying on the fire department. It could be a very serious matter that is a secondary response for the fire department, or they would never even go to something like that. But we have to get there. It could be a knockdown, drag out domestic violence battery, and it's three and a half feet of water standing, and we have to get out half a mile away and wade to it. That's just stupid. And we have to be able to send more than one officer to something like that. Right. So you gotta have the stuff. So we made an investment of time and money and planning to get that equipment. So I'm happy to say at the beginning of hurricane season, which was the goal, that as we head into the next storm season, we need to have the equipment. We have the ability to get to you, which was a very big thing. Absolutely.

Staff Expectations And Family Plans

6:42

And I mean weeks before hurricane season, we already started communicating about our plans, making sure that anyone who is new here within the last time that we've had a storm knew what we were doing. I know you're planning to go visit some of the uh patrol roll calls to have these conversations with our officers and make sure they are prepared because we have a system in place that starts before a storm comes. Correct. And you you mentioned a communication that we put out May 1st, which is a 31 days in May. 30 days half September. Yep, yep. Yeah. I would think, yeah, I think it's 31 days. So a month before hurricane season starts, we let our staff know now is the time to start making plans. And you mentioned it. We have onboarded, I want to say it's north of a hundred people who have never experienced what it's like to not only be in a hurricane as a person, but it's a whole different matter when you're a police officer or a uh emergency, uh designated emergency uh professional staff person in the building. You don't get to leave when you see on TV, heed the warning, evacuate, and go, not you, man. You're not going. You're you're gonna be here before, during, and after. And that's part of the deal. And if you have never experienced that or you don't think about that when you get hired, that could be a real eye-opener. So we remind everybody we start at the basics. You ain't leaving, number one. And then we get into make your family plan now. Our building is not a shelter, it is a bustling city within a city between food distribution, equipment distribution, people sleeping here that are working around the clock and don't get to go home. All the way to emergency operations are happening here. It there is no room for uh between almost 500 people that work here, plus one, plus two. It just won't happen. Right. So we tell people make your family plans way early. Not even in hurricane season in May. What are you gonna do with your dog? What are you gonna do with your kids? If grandma lives with you, what are you gonna do with with her? Uh, what are you gonna do with your husband? What are you gonna do with your with your wife? Because they can't come here. Uh is your home, do you believe that your home is ready? New roof, you got a generator, you're gonna ride it out. That's a that's a you decision, but you can't panic at the last minute and and be knocking on the door, there's no room at the end. So you've got to have that that family plan because if your family is taken care of, you can dedicate and lock in because we need that. If you are split between home and here, that's a dangerous place to be. So make those plans now. That way you can just execute it. Because when they say this thing's coming and it made a turn, it is too late to have those conversations in high stress. The second thing, make sure that you have uniforms washed for about a week. Oh my gosh. Make sure you got clean socks for extras. Make sure you take cash out because you may not be able to use ATMs or power. Make sure you have all your prescription medication up to date. Make sure you got enough razors, make sure you got enough deodorant, please. Right? Please. And and food. We uh pick up a feeding plan about 72 hours after the event. So you need to be an adult and have yourself self-sustaining with food, medicine, cash, uh drinks. If you gotta have a monster drink in the morning, buddy, you better go to Sam's and get some monster drinks, because uh we don't have it for you the first couple of days. We are dealing with big stuff. And if it's significant enough, after 72 hours, we have a pretty comprehensive feeding plan in place if you're gonna be working for extended periods of time. I think Ian, we were pretty much around the clock for for at least three weeks, you know, almost a month. We're gonna have it covered by then, but the first couple of days, we need you to be big boys and big girls and be ready. That's that's the expectation here. So we put all of that out in an email May 1st, and then we can go into what happens if there's an impending storm, but you're the hosts, so I'll let you host. Well, I know it's all hands on deck. I mean, if we know a storm is coming, we usually start that within the 12 hours at least before a storm is coming. Right.

Unified Command And When We Activate

11:23

So I start planning in what's called unified command. So in the incident command structure, the FEMA-based um disaster hierarchy of planning and executing and doing that. The um incident command is the city manager, the fire chief, the public works director, myself, and we have an emergency management director. That that is um uh a five-person body that is in charge. Now, when we're all activated, we take our own specialized positions, but at any given point during the emergency, any one of those five in unified command can make command level decisions across the city. So we start meeting um based on weather reports at least a week out because long-range forecasts show that something is bubbling up and it's coming across and it may impact us. Uh be aware of it, right? Start making sure that our contingencies are up to date. As we get about three days out and this thing's really looking bad for us, we start enacting plans. And the first plan or the first inside tip that that I will give, and it's not a secret, we talk about it all the time, is we shut down emergency operations when winds get sustained at 45 miles an hour or greater. So once they hit 45, not gusts, but when it hits 45, uh, it's pretty dangerous to be out there. So we cease responding. So let's use an example. Let's say Wednesday at noon is when they expect a category four hurricane to be off our coast, impacting us either directly or indirectly enough that it's gonna be significant. 12 o'clock is is the hit. Well, you need to back up and check the wind profile. When is 45 miles an hour sustained gonna hit? If it's gonna be noon on a Wednesday, it's probably gonna be three, four, five in the morning on Wednesday when we have to shut down. So all of our people have to be in place. Be in place means in this building, we have cots everywhere systematically set up for the people that are working currently. Once those winds get to that that speed, if you're working the street, then you come off. If you are the oncoming shift, you're gonna be here and ready to go because we can't count on roadway conditions, we can't count on or or be looking out in the parking lot with our fingers crossed, hoping everybody shows up to work. We need to have you here. So if the if the time is gonna hit four in the morning on Wednesday for a 12 noon landfall or or significant impact, then we have to have you in long before four in the morning. We would probably give a curfew, so to speak, of about 11 p.m. the night before. So Tuesday, 11 p.m. in here and and be accounted for. And then you need to get your rest if you're the relief shift, the other shift that's outworking, you make your last minute checks in the neighbor in the neighborhoods of the city, and then you come in, and once we hit 45 miles an hour, it's shut down. So we're we're all in this building, and that's where having your food, your comfort items, that comes into play. Cards, whatever you need, suit pap machine, so you're not snoring and waking everyone out. Destroying everybody's stuff. It's pretty interesting when you have a grown-up slumber party in here. Yeah, yeah. But that's that's what we do. And then um, I will be and and the leadership team will be in communication with the EOC about conditions and where is it and what do we expect because these things change and as technology increases year over year, we're so much more advanced now than we were even during Ian, which was seems like yesterday, but it was about four years ago. So then um we ride out the storm like everybody else, and then we wait for winds to get back to 45. Some storms fly through here like Hurricane Charlie did, and it was through in a minute, or they can linger for about 10 hours like Ian does. You have to wait for that ability or wait for that clearing of 45 miles an hour, and then we get into what's called first push.

First Push Damage Assessment Explained

15:55

So I will pause for any input here where we get into what first push means. First push. I remember uh it was my first hurricane season, and you were telling me about first push and what we do, and we get to kind of go out there and follow with the cameras and get all the pictures and videos, but that's essentially where we go out, we kind of get a first look at what has happened, what kind of damage we're dealing with, and we're responding to the calls that I've built up since the storm, since we were able to stop responding. Right. So first push is exactly that. It's a team of public works personnel and vehicles, fire personnel and vehicles, and police personnel and vehicles. Um, oftentimes the city manager will jump, shotgun with somebody, uh, a lot of the directors will jump in, you guys will go out, and and you're not doing it for cool content. It's right, it's a windshield assessment. And you look for significant damage, impacts to infrastructure that are going to be beyond moving trees and limbs. Are there power lines down? Is there significant structural damage throughout the city with buildings? Um, how bad is it, so to speak? That's what first push is. And then we start, we, the city, through public works and their vehicles, will start clearing major roadways push off the road. We're not cleaning it up and getting it postcard ready. Get that junk off the street so we can start responding to calls. We don't want people out on the roadways yet, but in the time that we shut down at 45 miles an hour, all the way till we release and go back out for first push, there are people locally calling for help, calling for for non-emergencies, emergencies, and then you have all over the country, all over the world calling. Can you check welfares? Yeah. I don't want to know how many check welfares. Um, so when I'm a thousand. When I first got here, I had went through pre-deployment, and then I don't know, two weeks later, I was still in phase one of FTO and we got Hurricane Ian. I I didn't live here, I never had been through a hurricane before. I had no idea what to expect. And Ian was no joke at all. So we were out. I was uh my poor FTO, we were riding together for three weeks straight responding to calls, and we went to just probably a thousand Chuck welfares all over the city. We have about that. So we we still receive and log all of that information, and it is held in in like a tab. So

Alpha Bravo Scheduling After The Storm

18:37

when we release, we we enact what is called alpha bravo scheduling, and that's pretty universal in police you know, deployment response when it comes to emergency response. So when we order everybody in, we order everybody in. This is before alpha bravo. Alpha is one side of the week, days and nights, and bravo is the other side of the week, days and nights. So if normally in blue skies, you'd be working this day, you guys will be off. Okay, and then when it's your day off, you're working. Well, alpha bravo, everybody's in. So the working men and women are still working, the days off people do Bravo side stuff, and we'll talk about what that means. So after first push, the alpha group, so everything has happened, but now it's 5 p.m. on Wednesday. Being optimistic that it went through and the winds are down, and we're doing first push at 5 p.m. on Wednesday. It's as if nothing ever happened when it comes to the alpha crew. You were working anyway, you're the cops, you're split up into your districts and precincts, and you're going and you're responding to calls. That is normal in an abnormal time. It's at its normal operations. Then you have Bravo. The guys and gals who would be off, except now they're in. So regular cops stuff is being done by alpha. Bravo does everything else that comes. And you don't know what that's gonna be because each storm is different. But an example that I know is gonna be there. Directing traffic. Well, that, but the the welfare checks. Yeah. Number one. So fire department helps, mutual aid helps if we get mutual aid, we take a lion share of it, and you get just go, go, go. Knock, they're fine. Hey, call your brother. Hey, your sister called, your mom's worried about you. You know, that or if there's a problem and you find that people are not well, then then you act, but you start chipping away at these welfare checks to get those done. That's one. You don't have everybody doing that, even a team doing that. Then you have uh after your first push or your windshield assessment, you could have catastrophic problems with traffic infrastructure where the actual hardware is gone, or you could just have power that's out. Yeah, I feel like that's one of the areas of having experience with major storms. I think our city learned and recovered from a lot of things because, for instance, like the the last couple storms, we've had generators ready to go at major traffic uh intersections to help so that it, you know, even if we didn't have power to the intersection, we were still able to have a more fluid uh method of traffic. It cleared up our personnel to go do other things. And that that was one of the key takeaways I think was really good that we learned. Let's back up a second on the traffic. Why

Traffic Control And Community Lifelines

21:31

do we do traffic? Well, we are part of a continuum of our city to get back to normal, and that happens very early. Well, in our community, how do you get back to normal? You pick your house back up, you need building supplies, you need food. So they call it community lifelines. Community lifelines are retail centers that provide lifelines for people, publics, um, pretty much publics for food, but there's other groceries. Stores, um, Lowe's, Home Depot, Target if it's available, Walmart if it's available, big retail to help you get ice, food, medicine, baby stuff, supplies, screen, wood, anything to start moving, right? Well, if you're gonna do that in this community, you have to travel. Well, if you're gonna get the community back and rapidly get our economy going and our life back, even as early as the second day, you've got to be able to drive safely. Yeah. So we deploy to all major intersections and we for lack of a better word, we categorize them in three different ways. If a crash at this intersection happened, would there be a likelihood of death, significant property damage to the cars, or a minor inconvenience? Now you could have that a death at anyone, but Pine Island Road in Del Prado, right? If there's no traffic control and people are driving like the Wild West to get ice, and people you get into survival mode, if there's a crash there, there's a stronger likelihood of death. And we have got to be there. And then you kind of peel back from there. So we put people at all these intersections. And to your point, after Charlie in 04, we had the the actual lights, everything were gone. It was just wide open. So it was a long time before we were able to get some of this stuff back. There's been a lot of improvements in the hardware, the infrastructure that we have, and the sustainability and resilience to be able to keep the stuff, but we just may be out of power. So we have stocked up on portable generators. No secret, if you leave a portable generator unattended after a hurricane and people are desperate, hands on buzzers, what's going to happen to that generator? Ding ding, stolen. Right. So we put a cop guarding that generator. Right. And we're also there to work with power companies and the and streets and transportation to quickly get that infrastructure back online. As those intersections start coming live and energized and activated, we peel off those resources and get, you know, reallocate to better manage the intersections because there's a lot of right turn only, straight or right turn only. It's the best bang for your buck when there's a lot of stuff out. As stuff gets better, we reconfigure those intersections and then slowly get it down to a bite-sized piece, and then we're fixed. That's one part of Bravo. The other part of Bravo is there's limited fuel resources, but there's three gas stations that are open, and you better be there to protect it. So we'll put people there. The industrial park, I remember after Charlie, we went and checked for looters because it was dark. And you got to make sure people aren't taking advantage of it. There's predatory contractors that come in and they come in faster than you think. So we're out there looking for that. If there's significant damage to um some of our first responders' homes and they can't get home, go check on it. We'll do certain things like that. So and the the Bravo days shift, the assignment shift and are very fluid. Alpha is always alpha. It was alpha before the storm, and it's alpha after. It's you show up and you're a cop and you go do the job. The Bravo changes. We could have a pod or point of distribution where the National Guard is at a certain city park and they are handing out bottled water and supplies. We go there and and back them up, provide security. We have 50 generators coming on a pallet that are going to go to lift stations for sewers to keep those lift stations running until we get power back up. You got to be there to guard the assets that are coming in. So and that shifts and that's fluid. Shelter helping if we need to. Um, you name it. If it's something that would be hurricane related or recovery related, that is not something that is done on regular blue sky days, it's it's the Bravo. That's who gets it. And then you work your two days on, two days off. So you're alpha alpha doing regular cop stuff. Then your day off, you go to Bravo and do different stuff. And the guys that were doing the different stuff go and do the regular job. And you work every single day for an extended period of time until we're able to start start scaling back.

Mutual Aid Burnout And FEMA Paperwork

26:29

Sometimes we'll get mutual aid where we did after Ian. We did not after Milton. You only do it when you need it because you're taking away from somebody else who really, really needs it. But we had a huge contingent of cops from the East Coast that come over and they are all Bravo. Intersections, help us out with this list, put it in the GPS and go and do welfare checks or whatever it's gonna be and let us do the cop stuff. That's kind of how you do it. You slowly peel them away, but you don't peel them away too fast. Your instinct as a leader is to not need the help and get rid of them as quick as you can and not be a burden, but you can't get rid of it too fast because you can't get it back. When it's gone, it's gone. And you don't want to burn your people out either. That's right. And same with Alpha Bravo. If we've been running for about nine days, seven days, everybody's on, every day, every day, every day, and you start looking ragged, and we can do it. We don't let every Alpha Bravo is still in effect, but you take the day off. And now we can afford somebody else to take the day off, and two people, and then you can scale it back a little bit, but you do not release it because if you release Alpha Bravo and go back to normal, you cannot call it back. You can't do that to people. Right. So you have it's it's very um scientific and systematic the way we do that. Everything has to be documented super meticulous on a uh 214, which is a FEMA form that that documents you, what assets you used, cars, equipment, chainsaw, um what you did that day. What you did that day, very specific for reimbursement. But you can't think about that now, other than document it, and then there are finance people make sure that everything gets in so the city gets their their money back. Um, there's just a lot that goes on, but it's very scientific. So what what is important to you? We have everybody here, all hands on deck. Um, our communications people are here, Alpha Bravo as well, because there's a lot coming in. You you guys are here every day. Then um we deploy and do regular police stuff. We've had people get um traffic fatalities. Yep, we've had people, like I said, commit suicide. There's domestic violence incidents, there's still stuff happening. And sometimes it's worse too. Yeah. Because without, you know, like we didn't have water for part of Ian. You don't have power. And I think that, especially if it's hot, I think that just aggravates conditions for a lot of people. So sometimes we see even more. So we're still there doing police stuff. Yeah. And we are also all hands on deck doing all of the other stuff that it takes to put a community back together. As much as we can, as much as needed, and nothing nothing less, obviously, but nothing more. We don't overdo it. You're not you're not sitting around. There's a lot of work. And as soon as we can get people recovering and off, we do that, and then get the community back. So it's really a microcosm of what every everybody else is going through, right?

Hard Hurricane Memories And Better Readiness

29:38

But um, that's why it's important that we do it beforehand. Where are your kids gonna go? Where you know, do you get them out of town? Do you have them go stay with somebody in the middle of the state? It really depends on where the storm's gonna be, but you gotta have that as a as a cop or a dispatcher or um a professional staff who knows they're gonna be here, like you. You're not a cop or a dispatcher, but I know where you're gonna be. Yep. You're gonna be here. So you have a family plan in place already. So that's one less thing you gotta worry about so that we are here for you, the community. And uh that's it it's a little bit more granular when you're talking to the the off like what I've never been through one. What do I do? We're gonna talk about that, make sure they're prepared and what the expectations are. And we all get through it. We've been through I've been through um Charlie, Irma, Ian, Milton, and believe it or not, I was actually activated for Hurricane George in '98, but it it was coming and then skirted. But so been through your fair share. Been through enough. As a Floridian, I've been through my fair share too. You know, whether it was hunkering down in my parents' closet as a kid, going through Charlie or uh covering Ian and Irma as a news anchor, and now we did Milton and Helene here. Uh so yeah. You look at what in in my life, Hurricane Donna hit here in 60. We didn't have anything for a really long time. We had a bunch of no names, we had a bunch of tropical storms, they can be bad, but nothing like what we had. So we had a huge gap. Yep. And when Andrew came through, I was a senior in high school, and football practice got canceled for the day, and then we showed back up the next day. No communicating, no texting, just I'm probably not gonna go in that day and the next day. I guess we better show back up. That was it. And then we didn't have anything until Charlie, and you know, George was coming, hit the keys, hit Key West. It was pretty good if you Google it. It was right at the last minute, it was gonna jog up and hit us. But the primitive, you know, meteorological technology back then, right? You look it seemed normal, but you look at it now, it looks like dot matrix stuff. So that didn't hit. But we were driving around giving evacuation warnings. I'm like, why? We don't get stuff like that. We're we're insulated, we're protected. You have all these stupid things that you believe because we hadn't had it in so long. And then when Charlie came, same thing. You know, I was off that day and I'm in a closet with a mattress over me, going, What in the world? Yeah, yeah. And then we go out and do first push to now, look at where we are now. I know it's how advanced the technology is to track them and how prepared we are as a city, but as as first responders in this city, how prepared and planned and and ready we are. Definitely. I think getting hit so hard with Ian made us very um, not only gave us a lot of experience, but also a lot of caution as to how bad things can really get. Because sometimes you'll see people just brush it off. But I'll tell you, I was um in my parents' house for Ian and they had the hurricane windows. Um, I think I probably would have rather had shutters so that I couldn't see what was going on because it was crazy. There's like a canal behind their house, and it was just it was filled, filled up. It looked like a river in the back. It was just gushing through. And then, you know, a lot, a lot of people's homes flooded and it was it was really serious.

What We Want The Public To Know

33:14

Right. It's definitely crazy. And that's why we wanted to do this to kind of let our public know we are prepared. The steps have been in place well before June 1. And if something comes our way, we'll be ready for it. We'll be ready. Hope we don't need it, but we'll we will uh we'll be here for you. That's what I always hope is like when you prepare, you won't actually need it. If you don't prepare, that's when you're gonna really need it. So I always say, you know, I'd rather over-prepare and it doesn't happen than the opposite. So our communications friends from across the street said that they last year bought a bunch of snacks in pre preparation for the hurricane. And they said they did that again this year in case, you know, it worked last year. They didn't get a hurricane, but they prepared and they're hoping the same this year. So I can I can get behind that. Any little thing we can do, little super stitches. Yeah, whatever, whatever works for you, man. Absolutely. If case snacks aren't a good repellent, we'll be ready. We will. All right, Chief. Anything else? That's it. All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us, and we will catch you next time. Stay safe.