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I <br />2 <br />3 <br />4 <br />5 <br />6 <br />7 <br />8 <br />9 <br />10 <br />II <br />12 <br />13 <br />14 <br />15 <br />16 <br />17 <br />18 <br />19 <br />20 <br />21 <br />22 <br />23 <br />24 <br />25 <br />26 <br />27 <br />28 <br />29 <br />30 <br />31 <br />32 <br />33 <br />34 <br />35 <br />36 <br />37 <br />38 <br />39 <br />40 <br />41 <br />42 <br />43 <br />44 <br />45 <br />46 <br />47 <br />City Council Regular Meeting Minutes <br />lunell ,2013 <br />Page 3 <br />VII. <br />preparations before disasters, and provides analysis of impending disasters; in addition , <br />Emergency Management provides recovery assistance, e.g., the north Minneapolis tornado and <br />the recent Oklahoma tornado. He advised that Emergency Management is involved in situational <br />awareness, e .g., potential wind situations , and provides messaging to other agencies to prepare <br />their teams for potential threats. He indicated that Emergency Management has a watch leader <br />program where the watch leader is the primary point of contact for agencies and is responsible <br />for checking in with agencies that track and forecast emergencies, whether natural disasters, <br />industrial hazards , or adversarial threats. He stated the County is in the process of placing <br />weather stations throughout the west metro intended to provide early warning to take appropriate <br />action , adding there is a wind threshold for sirens of70 mph and the County 's weather stations <br />help disprove or prove that threshold and reduce unnecessary sirens. He explained that <br />Emergency Management has begun a partnership with Clear Channel to provide signage to alert <br />drivers to threatening weather conditions and Clear Channel has agreed to preempt their <br />advertising to provide tornado messaging in areas under threat. He stated the County also has six <br />signs along the 494 corridor that will be used for this purpose and are intended to complement <br />the outdoor warning s ir ens . He discussed Emergency Management's response recovery efforts <br />in assisting incident commanders and providing assistance in prioritizing and allocating needed <br />resources. He stated the Medina Emergency Operations Center was recently upgraded with new <br />technology that provides an important platform for coordinating multi agency and multi <br />jurisdictional responses. <br />Councilmember Roth asked where Minnesota stands in terms of preparedness compared to the <br />rest of the country. <br />Mr. Waage stated there is currently no data that ranks the states and indicated Minnesota <br />received a lot of positive feedback after the 35W bridge collapse and this incident is used as an <br />example nationally of how responders can work together. He added the State receives a number <br />of requests from other states for assistance and provided crews in response to Hurricane Sandy <br />after being requested specifically by Massachusetts and New York to assist in their efforts. <br />Councilmember Stille asked if there is technology ava il ab le that can pinpoint where events will <br />occur and alert people on their cell phones. <br />Mr. Waage replied there is a program through the National Weather Service called Wireless <br />Emergency Alerts (WEA) that provides these types of targeted alerts based on the nearest cell <br />phone tower. He stated most newer smartphones have this capability and the top four cell phone <br />providers can provide this capability. <br />Mayor Faust thanked Mr. Waage for his presentation and thanked him for his past military <br />service and his service to Hennepin County. <br />REPORTS FROM CITY MANAGER AND COUNCIL MEMBERS. <br />City Manager Casey reported the City will be participating with the Chamber of Commerce on a <br />Business Retention and Expansion Program , an outreach program to meet with local businesses. <br />He advised he recently met with representatives from Industrial Custom Products , an award- <br />winning manufacturer with forty full-time employees. He extended his thanks to them for the