Special Called Council Meeting Recap
On Thursday, February 25, City Council held a special called session on the severe weather event and the ongoing relief and recovery efforts, as well as our regular COVID-19 briefing. You may view the video of the meeting here and find slides here.
COVID-19 and Vaccine Distribution Updates
Public Health staff provided updates on Austin’s COVID-19 situation and vaccine distribution. At this time Austin remains at Stage 4 in our risk based guidelines. Given Winter Storm Uri affected the ability of city, county and hospital officials to collect data, you will observe a temporary shift in the way our healthcare system reports data, especially with respect to the seven day moving average figures. The storm also forced Austin Public Health to temporarily suspend testing and vaccine services. To mitigate the lost time, APH opened additional sites, extended hours, and added days of service once services resumed last week. Austin Public Health is currently providing both first and second round doses of the vaccine and is in discussion with the Department of State Health Services regarding the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Please note that you must have an appointment for both the first and second doses. Walk-ups will be turned away.
APH also reiterated the CDC guidelines stating there is no maximum time between the first and second vaccine doses to maintain effectiveness. Staff is scheduling patients for their second dose using a 28-day window. However, if you miss this window, your second dose will still be effective. If you previously received your first dose from APH and have not heard back from APH about scheduling your second dose or see incorrect information on your APH COVID-19 profile, please call 3-1-1 or fill out this online form. APH notified us that the state has started to automatically ship second doses mirroring the number of first doses that are given. This means that moving forward, APH will immediately schedule patients for their second dose while they are present for their first dose instead of following up with them later.
Austin Public Health also shared a new website (centraltxvaccs.org) where residents can find vaccine hubs, locate smaller vaccine providers, and see vaccine FAQs. APH continues to update their system and technology to improve the vaccine distribution process and it appears our area is beginning to see an increase in the supply of vaccines as evidenced in this weekend’s COTA mass drive thru vaccination and the increasing number of providers / pharmacies with vaccine access. As a reminder, APH continues to offer free COVID-19 testing. Please continue to visit austintexas.gov/covid19 for the latest updates.
Homeland Security and Emergency Management
Homeland Security and Emergency Management briefed Council on the city’s initial response to the winter weather event as well as ongoing efforts by the Austin-Travis County Emergency Operations Center (EOC). Juan Ortiz, the head of HSEM, described the EOC’s efforts related to weather shelters, healthcare responses, water distribution, and other disaster relief and response efforts. Information and resources are available at AustinTexas.gov/Weatherinfo.
Austin Energy
Austin Energy staff provided an overview of their storm response efforts and provided additional information regarding the ERCOT-directed load shedding. The situation continues to stabilize, and over the coming days and weeks a lot of work must be done to analyze what happened and why. During the question and answer portion of the briefing, I raised the outages of Feb 11-14, which were not related to ERCOT and affected around 40% of District 10. Many of those outages were a result of tree damage affecting power lines during the ice storm. Over the past several years I have pushed for Austin Energy to accelerate and expand their vegetation management program in order to prevent these types of outages. In the aftermath of this storm I will continue to focus on proper vegetation management and other methods to ensure we have a reliable and resilient electric grid.
After the briefings, the City Council took up several items related to the severe weather event.
Declaration of Local State of Disaster: The first vote on Item 3 extended Mayor Adler’s prior state of disaster declaration. The disaster declaration will allow the City to access state and federal emergency funding to recover from last month’s severe winter weather.
Permitting, Plumbing Requirements and Development Services: Item 4 waived residential permitting and development fees related to repairing or reconstructing structures, and removing trees and tree limbs damaged as a result of winter weather events. The fees covered by this waiver include permitting, plan review, inspection, demolition, and variance fees for repair of existing structures only, and do not include fees for re-inspections.
The City’s Plumbing Code requires an individual to obtain a permit for most plumbing activities. Due to cold weather-related damages, the Building Official expects that the number of small-scale plumbing activities will be significant. As a result, normal permit requirements may, in some circumstances, result in delays that are counter to the City’s health and safety interests, which include preventing further damage to structures.
To simplify the repair process, Council passed Item 5 to:
Exempt certain plumbing activities from permit requirements from Article 6 (Plumbing Code) of Chapter 25-12 (Technical Code);
Extend the deadline to submit a permit application from one business day to five business days from the date the activity starts;
Waive City registration requirements for work regulated by the Plumbing Code.
For further support, the Development Services Department established a dedicated webpage for Emergency Repairs and Permitting, including a live web chat feature for quick response and a hotline (512-974-1500), operational Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
EMS Fee Waivers: Item 4 also waived any fees and costs for emergency medical services (EMS) provided between February 12 and February 20, 2021. During the weather event, hospitals were so overwhelmed that EMS had to bring patients to places other than emergency rooms and under current rules transport to non-ER settings are not reimbursable by insurance.
In the most recent budget cycle I led the creation of the Office of the Chief Medical Officer as part of a new approach to delivering medical services to Austinites. Included in this initiative are steps to use paramedic practitioners and community health paramedics to provide quality medical care in the field without sending folks directly to the emergency room when not necessary.
Austin Water and Austin Energy Relief: Customers are already protected from rate spikes from our City utilities due to the City's fixed rates, set by Council, however, more work must be done. With Item 6, Council took action to evaluate and mitigate the effects of the recent weather emergency on city residents, including their utility bills. One amendment I authored directed the Manager to look at ways we can regulate and mitigate the impact on bills for non-city owned utilities such as our natural gas providers.
This item also directed action to:
Conduct a formal review of the disaster and our response so we can avoid future disasters, to the extent possible, and improve our response efforts
Evaluate and identify future improvements to public communications from our utilities, such as more timely warning notifications, more localized, real‐time outage information, and estimates of when service will be restored
Mitigate the spike in water bills residents may see due to water leaks
Modify the wastewater averaging period for 2021 so that residents won’t have their bills impacted from the severe weather event
Establish a community task force to solicit information from members of the public and prepare a report to Council.
Develop recommendations for development and improving our notification and disaster response systems, particularly for vulnerable seniors
Conduct a series of Council hearings to examine key facets of the City of Austin’s emergency preparedness and response.
With Item 8, Council suspended all late-fees for Austin Water and Austin Energy bills for 30 days to enable residents and businesses to focus on repair and restoration efforts after the storms.
