Good afternoon and welcome back to the emergency operations center where our teams from across Louisville metro government agencies continue to work around the clock to monitor the flooding events that we're dealing with across the city to ensure that safety is our number one priority and everyone across the city is safe and remains safe. Just to recap some activity over the last 24 hours since we last gathered, we're very fortunate it was *** relatively quiet night from *** first responder perspective. There were no additional water rescues that were necessary, so *** giant thanks to the entire community for heeding the warnings, for not going around barricades, for not driving through waters that is paying off as there have been no additional water rescues since last time we convened yesterday. More roads have been closed since yesterday and more roads will continue to be closed over the coming days as the Ohio River continues to rise. Over the last 24 hours, the Ohio River has risen over 5 ft, and we expect it to significantly rise higher over the next 2 to 3 days. Uh, as you can see that we have an image from 2018 up behind us over here and the Ohio River is projected right now to crest at or above those levels that we saw in 2018. So just to give the community some perspective about what we're expecting to deal with over the coming days and week, uh, that is the closest reference point to what is currently projected and again over the last 24 hours, the waters have risen over 5 ft. And we're expected them to rise an additional 10. Uh, they've gone, the projections have gone slightly up for the peak of the crest. We are already in flood stage right now as *** result of the rising waters from the Ohio over the past day. Uh, rain is continued to be expected in the forecast through tomorrow afternoon and additionally, as you all know from the Ohio River when it rains elsewhere, that's contributing to this. It's not just the rain here so that continues. All of our emergency responder agencies have been working very well, closely coordinating amongst themselves and the other emergency responding agencies like the suburban fire departments around the county. I was in Fairdale last night and we have LMPD for example has some water rescue teams that are stationed at the Fairdale Fire Department right now just so we are closer all across the county in in the event water rescues or other emergency services are needing and so I wanna give thanks to all of our partners at all the suburban fire departments for working closely during this as well. Uh, no, no significant new updates from the updates from that MSD provided yesterday. Uh, they continue to operate 24/7 at full capacity, uh, working to get all the water out of here as best they can. Again, just want to reiterate *** request from MSD uh that please if you, if you can avoid using the laundry or the dishwasher this weekend, that will be helpful because there is such uh such an amount of water going into this to the system right now that, uh, that will help every, every bit helps to prevent. Additional overflows from the, um, the sewer treatment facility. So that's the request. Of course, people should, should and can continue to flush, but if you are able to not use your dishwasher or laundry for the next couple of days, that will be helpful. More flood walls have gone up as well, and MSD continues to monitor that as we as the river continues to rise. MSD will stay ahead of that with any additional floodgates that need to be installed, and our public works team, uh, will be continuing to add additional barricades. Again, if you see areas of water, do not drive through them. If you see areas of water that you think we have not yet gotten to, please call 311. Our MetroSafe 311 operators are working through the weekend to take information. We'll get out there and put barricades up and please turn around. It's not worth anyone's safety. It's not worth any risk to try to drive through water. You might not think it's deep, but you could certainly get stuck or even worse, uh, could happen to yourself. You know this, the impact of the Ohio River flooding has *** lot of impacts, *** lot of impact on people's daily lives and of course impacts on events as well. We've been getting *** lot of questions about Thunder over Louisville, which is scheduled *** week from today, uh, and so we're joined here today by our great partner. Matt Gibson, the president CEO of the Kentucky Derby Festival, and other members of his team, uh, and I'm next going to introduce Matt Gibson and excuse me, following Matt, you'll hear from Chief Paul Humphrey of LNPD Chief Brian O'Neill of the fire department as well, and then we'll be happy to take any questions from members of the media, Matt. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, thank you all of you all for being here and thanks to all of our partners who help us, uh, make this show happen. LMPD Metro Safe, MSD, uh, local Fire Department and others, uh, we can't not only navigate weather and situations like we are this year but every year, um, they are always so key in helping us make this happen. Safety is always the top priority of the Kentucky Derby Festival and Thunder O Louisville. We've been doing this *** long time. I'm entering my twenty-seventh year doing this, and it's not unusual for us to deal with the Ohio, uh, and what she brings to this community each and every year, especially in the springtime, um, it proves to always be challenging. In fact, most years, uh, as many of you all know, we have, uh, meetings in this room to discuss it because the Ohio is often outside of its banks like it is at this time. Um, but I will tell you, uh, as we've seen in *** couple these coming days, this weather event is like nothing we've seen during our operational period for the Kentucky Derby Festival or Thunder over Louisville. We've seen it before, we've seen it after, and we've certainly dealt with issues during the event itself, but nothing like this, as the mayor said, this is *** top 10 historic flooding event, uh, and if you look at the graphs next to us and on the National Weather Service and the NOAA sites, um, it, it is, it is one for the record books for sure. While there is uh nothing more than we'd like to do than to bring everybody together on Saturday to watch, uh, one of the best uh air shows in the country and, uh, arguably the best fireworks show in the nation, we realized that uh at this time it's uh very logistically impossible to do what we would do and to do it safely, not only for those people who attend our shows, but those people who do extraordinary work to get the infrastructure out there like our center line marker for the air show. That allows the aircraft to know where they are during the air show in the airbox, uh, those amazing partners, uh, that work the river every single day from LMPD's dive team to Louisville Fire Department's rescue teams, uh, the, the tug operators, uh, from our various partners that hold the, the barges in place for the show, move all of our equipment around where we load the fireworks. Zambelli, who's out there trying to do what they're doing and access even the barges to do what we do. Uh, safety again is always the top priority when, when you're scaling what we do to bring *** festival of fun, uh, to the community at large. Um, it pains me to say this at times because I've been doing this and this really is *** labor of love. We've made the very, very difficult decision to cancel Thunder over Louisville this year. Um, I don't think that that's *** huge surprise for those in the room today as you start to watch what's happening when you look. These 2018 uh event pictures or or February flo flood event pictures, um, this is what we're going to be facing if not worse in the next coming days, uh, as early or as, uh, Wednesday and as late as Thursday, uh, based in part of the graph over the chief's shoulder, um, this is extraordinary based on those numbers and it would mean that over 99% of the. Waterfront is underwater and exceeds all the way back to Melwood Avenue when when the mayor was talking about these floodgates being in place, um, that's extraordinary even in my two decades doing what we do. We've seen some floodgates and we've had some flooding, but not anything like this. And again, getting people out on the water to do the work that is required to keep the show and move the show forward, it's just not possible at this time. The floodwaters will prevent us from doing that. The, the, the debris field will prevent us from doing that. The viewing areas along the waterfront will be inaccessible and even again accessing the barges to install the fireworks at this time because *** lot of work is underway even up until this point and uh we believe even tonight that we won't even be able to. Access the the barges um to even do so. So the height and the speed of the river will prevent us from safely doing that. And again it's *** hard decision to do but when we can't even access the island that we do the drone show from right there at Shipping Port Island, um, it was an easy decision, *** painful one at that to make this very, very hard decision. So unfortunately Thunder is such *** large scale event and massive logistical undertaking with all of the federal, state, local, uh, and, and metro partners that we work with that rescheduling and postponing is just not an option. There's not another date, uh, that we can look at we we uh. Research that exhaustively as we moved the event forward based on the holidays, uh, and knowing that there are other things happening in this community that if we couldn't do our event we would absolutely be interfering with something else entirely and it takes *** year of planning as our producer Wayne Hettinger will tell you, um, he's the guy that does this every single day of his life and this was not *** decision that we came to very easily. It's been *** tough one. Uh, and one for the record books for sure because we've not had to make this decision, um, the, the pandemic notwithstanding, so believe me when I say that we're just as disappointed to everyone, it is absolutely *** labor of love for my team, uh, our staff, uh, the board of directors, all of our sponsors and partners and those who make us, uh, who help us make this happen. And we know our focus needs to be on the community and all of those affected by weather. When you have 300 state roads closed currently, when you have, uh, houses that are being damaged, when we're talking about people being mindful about flushing or washing their dishes and taking showers, and our public safety partners like uh uh Louisville Metro Police, Public Works who are. Doing the real work that they all signed up to do and that's keeping the public safe and making sure that that people continue to stay safe. It's hard to to have *** discussion about let's have *** fireworks show when when there are *** lot of people in need right now um so let me reassure you we have *** full schedule of the Kentucky Derby Festival. um, obviously, uh, there was *** delay. Between Thunder and the rest of the festival going into April, uh, but all of those events are still on. We're not talking about cancellation for all of those all of those events will still be going on just as they always do. We have over 70 events beyond Thunder over Louisville. Our there off kickoff luncheon is this Friday, and we can, we plan to continue to hold that that sits right on the banks of the Ohio. Um, but we will have *** full schedule that you could go to our website at KDF.org, uh, to tune in and all of those things will be ongoing. Uh, Peg's pins are still for sale and they're out there doing great. Our, our, uh, teams are working hard. If there are adjustments that we have. To make because the venues are affected, it's what we do and what it's what we do best so if uh uh if you all have any questions we'll be here after but it's always our our mission to bring the community together and celebration and we still plan to do so. So thank you, Louisville and thank you for all of y'all being here today. So I wanna say thank you to uh Matt and KDF as well as the mayor uh and the community ahead of time because I think we all know how significant of *** decision this is and even though it's it's *** logically an easy decision to make, it's ***, it's *** tough one for the community and so I'm appreciative that uh they made this decision uh based on public safety needs that when you image search Louisville, you know, I think you all see images from Thunder over Louisville and how much it means to us as *** community. Um, and so it's very important that we put public safety first and understanding that resources are limited and we have to put, uh, those resources where they're needed in order to keep people safe. Uh, the police department has about 20 rescue divers that that can participate in this, and they go into, uh, working with KDF and the fire department and doing all the prechecks and everything to make sure that. Thunder is safe, but their primary job is being tasked right now to make sure that everyone is is safe out there. The fire department has *** few dozen divers some of the suburban, uh, fire departments have have rescue divers and so it's important that we primarily put those resources where they're needed to keep people safe and. Uh, to echo the mayor's point, I also want to say thank you to the community for heeding the warnings. Uh, if you go out there and make *** poor decision and put yourself in danger, you're putting the lives of officers and firefighters, uh, in danger and so you're risking their families as well, um, so. We're very appreciative that that everyone has heeded the warnings and uh we will continue to make decisions in order to protect the safety of the community and I'm grateful that uh everyone standing here uh with us today has has done the same so thank you and I'll turn it over to the fire chief. I wanna echo what uh Chief Humphrey just said. uh, we are happy to make house calls we will, uh, but we don't want to have to do so uh if you call us, we're coming to help you. Uh, but yes, if you can, uh, stay in and uh stay safe, that's what we need, obviously, yes, this is, uh, emotionally it's hard that uh to not have thunder over Louisville, uh, but we cannot risk, uh, rescue divers in this type of water, uh, and that is something that's necessary for the pilots so we can't do that if you look at, uh, we're very fortunate that we did not have any water rescues overnight or this morning. Uh, but please don't allow this kind of, uh, since we haven't had this huge storm like we did earlier this week, this has been more of *** steady encroaching water and rain. Don't let that lull you into *** false sense of security. Uh, maybe you've been out today running some errands and you saw that, uh, some of the underpasses and viaducts are open. They might not be that way tonight. We've got another system that's gonna hit us. We're gonna have *** lot of heavy rains. Uh, please try to stay safe, uh, for the fire department we've put on extra boat crews, so we are prepared and we've got those spaced around the city to make sure that we're ready in case they're necessary. Uh, we also, I want to just, uh, remind that uh the rest of the state is suffering along with us. Uh, we have *** swiftwater team that's in Casey County right now helping out there, uh, and so that you don't lose sight of what the rest of the state is going through. Uh, it's much worse as you get further south and west of here down towards Mayfield Paducah, and there are teams in state from Vermont. From Georgia and from Maryland that are here to help out the rest of the area obviously we're fortunate here in Louisville that you've got the Louisville Police Department, Louisville fire department that can handle this, but other areas of the state are not so fortunate but uh please continue to stay safe, stay inside unless you absolutely need to get out, uh, and if you even think that there's water, do not try to drive through it because you have no idea how deep that might be. Thanks Chief O'Neill, Chief Humphrey, thank you to Matt as well and just to reiterate *** couple things that were already said that when you look at the projections for where the Ohio River is going to crest and how long it's gonna take for it to get back to its usual stage, uh, this while *** challenging decision, uh, disappointing decision was not even *** close decision. Uh, because when you look at the projections, it will be way above any even in these models here to to my right, you can see that it's gonna be way above the safety zone for pulling off *** thunder over Louisville. Matt and his team at Kentucky Derby Festival make the challenging happen every year, having 70 events in such *** short period of time is something unlike any other city. In the entire country enjoys they're used to dealing with challenges they're used to reacting to Mother Nature to making decisions on the fly, but this one here is really not even possible because of the unique set of circumstances and the danger that the Ohio River is creating with this top 10 historic flood event that we are in the process of experiencing here in Louisville. Matt, I just want to say to you and your entire team, thank you all so much. I know this was not easy. Given *** year's worth of work that goes into one of Louisville's greatest days of the year every year, as you said, you said arguably the best fireworks show. I will say definitively the best fireworks show in the world every year for the entire community to enjoy, but to end on *** positive note, as Matt said, there are 70 other Kentucky Derby Festival events that bring our community together. That display our hospitality to the world in the run up this year to the 151st Kentucky Derby. All of those other events are scheduled. All those of other events are planned to go on. There might need to be some tweaks here and there. I'm looking forward to running in the mini marathon in *** couple of Saturdays. That route might need to be slightly tweaked because of these floodwaters as well, but that race will go on. All of the favorites, the, the parade, the balloon, all of those are still. Scheduled and so I really do hope while we're not gonna have thunder this year, the entire community can come together, can enjoy these other wonderful Kentucky Derby Festival events as we get ready for the best time of the year here in Louisville to celebrate the Kentucky Derby in our great city of Louisville. Thank you all very much and all of us are happy to answer any questions that you all might have. With the exclusion of the pandemic, uh, and what everybody faced during that time, uh, in its 36 years, it has never been canceled before, um, and much in large part to the great partners that are standing in this room and they've been alongside us to make the extraordinary happen, but this is an unprecedented, uh, uh, event currently. Certainly and uh you know we moved to the event *** week forward uh this year and *** lot of that was based on *** lot of discussions with the community on the Easter impact and our ability to even have an air show and the like and the resources uh needed but even barring that, uh, it would be tough because of all of the requirements that it takes to move the, the fireworks from, uh, their home. Uh, location to hear the federal agencies that sign on board, uh, scheduling for all of the partners that help us do it one of the largest open air venues in the in the country on an annual basis and that huge, huge lift it's not like if we had to move the balloon race by *** day or so or another event because of its magnitude, um, it, it's virtually. Uh, impossible to do so. Looking at other dates on the calendar, we know that it would have *** gross impact. This is *** very event, uh, friendly and event centric town, something that we would move because our date was unavailable because of the historic flood would, would certainly impede on something else that makes quality of life in in this community so great, so we're very mindful of that. Like this is the opening to the Kentucky and I'm sure *** lot of people. It certainly does. Absolutely, uh, and in conversations with our partners at Churchill today too as we were prepping for this, um, Thunder alone, uh, through *** recent economic impact study, uh, makes up $126 million of our over $200 million economic impact that is *** huge, uh, uh, income generator for the. Community and the state as *** whole, uh, and really contributes to the things that makes this community great um that's why it was not an easy decision. The mayor and myself and other community leaders have been having this conversation um since Monday of this week as we started to watch what looked like uh ***. Uh, normal springtime event until the last couple days when we really started to look, which is why, uh, as we've said, um, it is *** tough decision, but it is the right decision. We will be back to make up that, uh, extraordinary impact next year, uh, from an economic standpoint and the rest of the festival really does impact another. Almost 100 million just for the other events alone when you when you exclude Thunder over Louisville um and that's part of what we do as the small not for profit. I've got the best team in the world as the staff and an amazing board of directors, but it's more than just producing events it's about creating and and contributing to the quality of life of this great community, so. Back to the vendors that um obviously through the child. There's so many vendors that show up on different businesses for food and drink and all that. What is the impact to them and what sort of resources or support from those vendors who are anticipating being part of this $126 million economic? What, what sort of resources. Now One of the reasons that we didn't wait until Monday is because you're at this critical point right now where people start to adjust based on weather and believe me we're all weather watchers, um, an 86 degree or an 80 degree day on thunder is *** lot different than *** 54 degree or *** 30 degree day or sometimes you get both of those temperatures in the same day as you all know. So being early and having this discussion as early as possible with *** lot of those partners is about affecting their impact as well. Because it's, it really is *** Kentuckyana problem and *** Kentucky and uh uh community jewel. um, we've been in *** lot of conversation with our, uh, Indiana partners, *** lot of those Thunderfunder partners who contribute from the museums who have different parties or all of those folks who, um, build *** thunder room and and their architecture when they build something along the waterfront because they really do help us, uh, in *** lot of those cases and bringing them into the loop in our communication chain, uh, over the last couple of days to have discussion. Uh, and what led to this decision because we keep them in the loop, um, and it's *** tough one, especially as again I say the, the private small not for profit who does it, those costs are initially borne by us for the production. uh, it's, it's hard to measure what, um, Metro Louisville contributes from the public safety piece and the partnerships and. All of that, but the financial cost is our burden, um, but working close with Zamelli and, and, and those folks to make sure that they know as early as possible, so not try to add additional investment between now and Monday because when I say we work around the clock right now it's all hands on deck, uh, for *** couple months on end so I really was trying to get out ahead of it by having *** Saturday conversation. the uh fiscal. number You know, Losing that much Are we gonna see any changes in next year's? Anything that we don't have the funds to sort of contribute. So, uh, we, we start from *** zero every year, uh, to raise the funds. We've got an amazing, uh, sponsorship team and *** lot of great partners. People, uh, in the community help this show happen by buying *** Pegasus pin and the entire festival, and, and those they're the things that we do, uh, each and every year for the last, uh, 70+. Us to do what we do and to keep it low cost and affordable to the community and we invest every bit of it that is raised into creating the show um we we hope for great weather, but we do have plans because we've got *** phenomenal executive board and *** lot of smart people that work alongside of us that have allowed us to create some models that allow us to sustain. Uh, should something like this happen, we've been doing this for quite *** long time in springtime in Kentucky, so it's not like this is the anomaly, it's just something this extreme, so you'll see us back just as strong, um, on average we host about 1.4 million people, uh, just through the festival. that's not including our partners at Churchill, um, and we'll be prepared this year to have record crowds should the weather uh present itself and do the same for next year. You'll see just as strong of *** product in 2026 as you see in 2025. Very important for the viewers at home that are probably well I tell you, oh yeah. I tell you there's no other ticket in this town that you can buy and go to multiple events, uh, like you can with the Kentucky Derby Festival. um, when you go out there and you buy it at any one of our partners like Kroger or any number of those multi 100 locations, um, you get *** lot of that back once you open, uh, your envelope, uh, with the coupon. And those are partners who contribute to the success of the organization so when people are out doing that and they believe that that, uh, boy do I need one that's why there's over 70 events we have something for everyone, uh, just log on and look and it, it was going to we've actually been underway we had one yesterday uh we were going to have one today, but the. Weather prevented it, which is not normal for us, uh, but it's almost every single day all the way here all the way through the first Saturday in May with our partners at Churchill. So we do encourage people to purchase that Pegasus pen, look at the KDF merchandise, uh, that's out there. It's extraordinary because every bit of that, uh, contributes to the sex the success each year. Any other questions? Yes, um, information reference yesterday, um, with the questioning amount in the west and southwest of Louisville at 16. Talk about how that side of the city is being prepared and what that may look like, um, just so they have an understanding. Yes, so the question was about the the cresting on the western and the southwestern part of the city which is referred to as the lower pool south of the McAlpin locks and dams, uh, that is projected to crest at 68 ft, which is about significantly higher than its its usual level. So we're taking the same precautions in every part of the county. MSD has made significant improvements to that part of our city over the past several years that will help, but when you have Mother Nature and it's, it's, uh, and like this, it's intensity, there's only so much that can be done. So we're treating it like every other part of the city there's parklands that are along there they certainly will be flooded. Uh, *** lot of people who live nearby the river understand uh what can happen in these sorts of situations, but we'll be taking the same precautions. We are just advice to everybody is please use caution. Don't wait until it's too late. Get ahead of it. If you live in that area, you need to be prepared and continue to monitor it. Uh, there are also some low lying areas in certain other parts of the city as well that are susceptible with all the rainfall, but we're just giving people the advice to use that same caution. You expect to preemptively close *** few more roads or what is that gonna look like in the next few days? So we do there's, um, we continue to post all of the road closures on our, our website at LouisvilleKY.gov. And as the waters go up, we're getting ahead of that based on our knowledge from previous years of flooding. Uh what roads we have to close based on the river rising to certain levels. So for example, right now if you get off the ramp at 3rd Street on 64 downtown, you cannot make *** right or *** left turn. That's different from yesterday. You can still go straight, uh, go south on 3rd Street as the waters continue to rise, it is likely that that entire ramp will be closed as you go up the river as well, there are other. Um, there are other road closures that will occur, and of course MSD is monitoring this as well from *** floodgate perspective to get ahead of that situation. So we'll continue to stay vigilant in that regard. I know you guys are focusing on current projections into the week, uh, when it finally starts receiving, what resources will be available to the impacted members of our. So the question was about what resources are available to the uh impacted men of members of our community once the floodwaters start receding. Uh, we have, I declared *** state of emergency for Louisville. The governor has declared *** state of emergency for the entire state, and so we will be, uh, collaborating, combining all that information, and we're hopeful that there are federal resources available in certain situations. We'll have debris pick up uh hopefully starting next week we'll get more information to people that have debris from the storm earlier in the week or anything else related to the flooding. If people need unique assistance, please call 311. To to let us know, but you know our public works team, our solid waste management team will be out there assisting with the clean up all around the city, letting people get back to normal prior to these severe weather events. Thank you all very much. We're gonna let our teams get back to it and uh we'll continue to stay in touch. You can follow our social media channels for the latest information we don't expect to have *** press conference tomorrow. We did as Matt said. Uh, for *** lot of different reasons and out of respect for the vendors and everyone else that's working 24/7 in preparation for thunder, we didn't want to wait until Monday, uh, when the decision became clear, so we had that today. We don't expect to do this tomorrow, uh, but if necessary we will, we'll continue to keep everybody informed. Thank you all very much stay safe and use caution when you're out there.