[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Hello, I'm Jackie Broach and this is First Friday with Georgetown County. Our first guest today is Seth Housen. He is the director of our MIS department, or what most people would call our IT department.
Seth is here today. He's going to talk with us a little about the security upgrades and things that we have put. Put in place since 2021, when, as a lot of you know, the county suffered a, a ransomware attack and it shut us down for a while. Seth, do you just kind of want to very quickly review that and then tell us a little about what we've done?
[00:00:43] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks for having me, Jackie. So, yeah, in 2021, we fell victim to a ransomware attack and they basically encrypted all the data on many of our servers.
It took us approximately three months to recover from that incident because again, we.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: Did not pay that.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: No, we did not pay that.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: We don't do that.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: No. We recovered our systems from backup as well as migrating some systems outside the environment. So we did not fall. We did not pay the ransom. That's one of the biggest things with the threat actors is they will continue to try to ransom you if you continue paying the ransom. So we would not, we did not allow ourselves to. We did not pay the ransom as they would not benefit from us.
But since then, we've lighted a lot of upgrades right when that happened. And we migrated all of our mail from on premises to 365 in the Cloud. We also put in a lot of new security systems and softwares to help layer our defenses.
Previously we only had about maybe two or three layers of defense. Now we have about seven layers of defense spinning across the county. That way, if one layer were to fail, another layer might pick that up.
So example would be Dropbox. Most folks know what Dropbox is. It's a cloud based service that has an application you can install on your computer and you can transfer files, information.
The new systems we have in place now allow us to say we do not like Dropbox. We don't want it used. I can block it on the policy level, the endpoint device level, the firewall level, and the web filter level. So if one of those were to be compromised, I have another way to block that application or malware from coming through.
But yeah, over the past four years, I think about 75% of our equipment has been replaced. Since then, we've had all new PC refreshes. We've migrated over 15 servers to cloud to decentralize a lot of our services, to maintain county operations and Continuity. So our cybersecurity posture is a also helped us a little bit in our emergency services emergency response posture as well. Some of the systems allow, allow us to respond better to natural disasters and events. Those natural disasters events is kind of what helped us get through the actual cyber attack. Because we've had hurricanes, tornadoes, chemical spills, flooding, you name it, we've seen it. Yeah, that really, really helped us have the resiliency to better get through that attack.
The biggest other thing was departments. This was not a single department incident. This was all the county had to come together and adapt to new policies and new standards. One of those new policies is like hr. You can't simply email HR and have a change of direct deposit. So if someone were to impersonate you via email, try to make them believe that you're Sally Jo or whatever, trying to get your account to have direct deposit to another bank. You can't do that unless you show HR directly. So it's a trust but verify situation. We also have those policies in place in finance, purchasing, in various other parts of the county.
[00:03:57] Speaker B: So I mean, a lot of that goes into staff training as well. You're working individually with the people who are on our staff.
[00:04:04] Speaker A: Exactly. And also every individual in the county is a sensor. One of the biggest drawbacks we had prior to the network intrusion event, we did not have enough systems that would alarm us. Like a fire alarm goes off and you have a fire. We have an intrusion event. We did not have any monitoring tools to say, hey, guess what, something's wrong.
Our individual staff and county employees are sensors too. And they got really, really well at reporting this email was suspicious. This doesn't look right. They report it to it. We look it over, we say, you're correct. Thank you for reporting it to me. And we can block that from everybody else in the county. So it's not just one department, it's a countywide event and effort. Another big portion of that was the multi factor two factor authentication. We have to, you know, log in. Username and password aren't good enough anymore. You have to username, password, and then have a third device you use to authenticate. There was a lot of pushback on that at first, but most all the departments in the county have adopted to it and it's made things a lot more secure.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: It's inconvenient, but it certainly serves its purpose. And it helps to make sure that the person logging in is the person it's supposed to be.
[00:05:11] Speaker A: Exactly. And we call a lot of times where folks have Been trying to impersonate others or folks that their account was trying to be compromised and it thwarted the attack. We notified the end user and said, we don't think you're in Germany. We're pretty sure you're here in the us you're here in Georgetown. But someone trying to log into your account from Germany. Yeah, we caught it, we alarmed it and we were able to reset their password and get them on the way.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: How many of these attempts do we see in like a week?
[00:05:37] Speaker A: It depends.
Just this past week or whatnot, especially over the past weekend, we saw about maybe 20 or 30 real hard attempts, but we block anywhere between two and 3,000 emails a day.
[00:05:51] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:05:52] Speaker A: And these will range between spam emails to true phishing attempts. Like someone trying to impersonate or mimic someone else.
[00:06:00] Speaker B: Like some of them are the emails everybody gets from the Prince of Nigeria. Yeah, and others are. Or much more elaborate.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: Oh yes, they try to impersonate things like your software. What was the rest of the antivirus like? Norton. Hey, your Norton subscription is expiring. We don't use Norton, but a lot of people will see those or they'll get like the text messages in saying, you owe a toll on this bridge.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: I get at least one of those a day now. It's ridiculous.
[00:06:29] Speaker A: And so we always try to block those anywhere we can, but some of them do slip through. And then of course, users report to us and we block anything we can see. Some of them do slip through and that's why it's important for users to also report to us as they're a sensor as well.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: So we certainly will never say that, you know, we, we can't suffer an attack like this again. But it certainly is harder now we have to.
[00:06:51] Speaker A: It's much more difficult with the layering. It's much more difficult. We try to isolate the attacks to whatever device or the user might be compromised. So now if your computer were to be compromised, we try to isolate that one computer and wipe it and clean it, rather than it be able to spread across the network.
So that's getting trust, trying to decentralize a lot of our systems and a lot of our sites, again, we've moved, what was it, four or five of our really big applications and softwares to cloud. So they're no longer here, they're hosted elsewhere. So if you were to breach us, that does not mean that system becomes.
[00:07:26] Speaker B: Breached, which is great because I remember after the breach we were all setting up Gmail accounts and everything because nobody could access emails. It was A rough few months.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: Yeah. And but you know, cloud comes with challenges too. Some things are not as quick as they used to be. It takes time to sync and synchronize between what's on site and what's in cloud. But we're still moving towards it. We have a few more systems and we're still trying to get to push towards cloud. And I know we have some softwares that we're looking to replace next year that will revamp some of our security and also maintain some continuity of operations across the county.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: Well, that was my next question is what else do we have left that, that we need to do? I'm sure that it's also a moving target. You know, technology changes so fast that it's probably something that we just are constantly trying to keep up with.
[00:08:16] Speaker A: We have a few softwares, I can't give all the details of all the softwares of course, but I do have about four or five softwares we still have on site that I really like to get off into the cloud and host it elsewhere. And then the rest of the services that we have are necessary on site.
But we have at least two applications moving next year. They're in the budget process now to see if it could be approved. We are currently in the process of replacing some of our edge equipment like firewalls and so this year and how well it does the rest of this year, we're funding for additional ones next year. And again that's going to help us decentralize some of the sites. Hope to have some more protections and layers in place for future. And also as resiliency and continuity across the county, especially when we have other events like hurricanes, flooding events, power outages.
[00:09:05] Speaker B: Which never seem to stop.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: No, they don't, but. And also we revamped some of our backup solutions.
We are trying to get some more backup and redundant backups in place now. That way if there ever is an intrusion event, we, we can pull backups a lot faster and also spin up those services much quicker.
[00:09:26] Speaker B: Okay, well, I don't know how much you could answer this, but do you have any advice for just like people at home, how they can help protect themselves from, you know, the kind of things that they may suffer attacks like you may just have at home?
[00:09:41] Speaker A: Yeah. The biggest one is, you know, don't trust every email you get. There's also social media attacks as well. Be careful with your accounts. If you can try to set up a multi factor, two factor authentication either through your phone, cell phone or even a separate email account, you Just used to recover your account from. Because even I have a secondary email that if I lose access to one, I'll use that other email as a recovery of that one and I'll have that account set up where it's not used for anything but recovering, you know, access to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Gmail, Yahoo, whatever it is, you have a recovery account you can go back to and that's all that counts. Used for again, anything you can do to stop them. And do not enter your credentials in so easily and always use different usernames and passwords for every site.
[00:10:31] Speaker B: And do you have any guidance on passwords? I know you do because you've given it to me in the past.
[00:10:35] Speaker A: Well, passwords, they should always be at least 8 to 12 characters and consist of both uppercase lowercase numerals and certain other characters like exclamation points at symbols and so forth. There are third party softwares out there that can help manage your passwords for you. Some are more free, some of them do cost some money. We do use a third party software for our IT staff and they create characters that are. No one could guess they're over 32 characters long just to make it so it's very difficult to get set our systems but users try to set multi factor authentication wherever you can. And also if you can get that savvy into like Gmail or Facebook, utilize the unknown device or untrusted device settings inside of it. You ever see Facebook? You log in from a new device and say is this you? Yep, that's me. And go from there. I think they even have that Netflix and Hulu, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Yahoo, all of them have those features now.
[00:11:38] Speaker B: And my phone recommends passwords for me now.
So I mean there are easy ways to do it. But then if somebody gets your phone, I guess you're in trouble if they.
[00:11:47] Speaker A: Get well, that's the way you put it. Password on your phone or biometric setup on your phone. Just make sure you have an account you can recover it from or lock it up.
[00:11:55] Speaker D: This is true.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: So again it's those extra steps. It takes more time, but it secures your accounts. And that's the, that's the biggest drawback with security. And it's finding that right balance between continuity of operations and also making so people are productive but also keeping them secure at the same time. You know too much security to something, you're being counterproductive for production and continuity of operations. But if you are too lax on security, it can shut you all the way down the Other side. So find that happy median is always a very tough challenge, especially for us in the county, because I want our folks to be very productive and be able to have ease of doing their jobs, but also need to make sure we're secure at the same time. And that can be a very big challenge to maintain.
[00:12:40] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:12:40] Speaker B: Well, Seth, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for talking with us.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: Up next, we have two wonderful guests you probably already know. Beth Goodall over here, our director of Parks and Recreation. And I hope that you all know Linda Ketchron, who is a wonderful member of our community. She doesn't work for Georgetown county, but she is certainly one of our favorite volunteers. Linda is responsible for lots of things in our community. She runs class over at the Litchfield Exchange. But what we're talking about today is Bike the Neck, of which Linda is chairperson. And Linda, we are having a big anniversary for Bike the Neck this year, Correct? Tell us about that.
[00:13:23] Speaker D: Indeed, Bike the Neck was an idea that came up over lunch when two women had to drive two and a half miles, each of us different directions. And we said, boy, we could have done this on bicycles. Instead, we've used gas. We've been out on the road. And so that all took place in the fall of 2023, and on Valentine's Day of 20. 20. 20.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: No, 23.
[00:14:03] Speaker C: That was like two years ago.
[00:14:04] Speaker D: That was two years ago. Excuse me. The. The lunch took place on. In the fall of 1993.
And the first meeting of the assembled group who decided that we needed bike paths in Georgetown county and especially up on the Waccama Neck, happened on Valentine's Day, 1994.
So it's 30 years ago and now really 31 years ago. Pretty amazing.
Not that many of the original members of the committee are still even alive, but we have maintained our role as sort of the cheerleaders behind the county's efforts. And the county's efforts have been spectacular.
[00:15:04] Speaker B: And Beth, of course, works very closely with you on that.
[00:15:08] Speaker E: Absolutely. So I got to know Linda back in the beginning, I think I wasn't even with Georgetown county at that point, but I've lived here since the beginning and just cherished that friendship and the work that she has done. But we would not have this wonderful 20 plus miles now, bike paths. And were it not for you, Mike Danette.
[00:15:31] Speaker D: Well, it just took a few people committed to the idea. And among those were Dean Barry, still with us, but not active with Bite the Neck anymore, and Mary Prince and Julian Kelly, who always hoped that we Would bring paths onto Paulie's Island. But that has been a problem for many reasons.
But Glenda Chalet, who for years was on the planning commission.
The Kam, Joan and Ken Kmeyer.
Leon Rice from Merle's Inlet. Linda Mock, who at the time was the leader of the Murrell's Inlet. I think it was 2007 at that time and then became 2020 and probably now should be 2050.
But those people just thought this was the perfect amenity to add to this already spectacular attraction. Tourist and resident attraction, that is the walk among Neck. And our plans got extremely ambitious and we drew maps going all over out to Andrews and other places because we figured it would take a year or two to get the Walkamaw Neck taken care of. And after that we just move on.
Well, 30 years, but we've got the neck.
Not the whole neck, but a good chunk of it. Pretty close. 20. 20 years. I mean, 20 miles. We've got the.
The plan to go from the south end of Pauley's down to the bridges.
That is such an expensive route.
I don't know if the ownership, membership, whatever of Santee Cooper will stand by their original commitment, but it was to grub and compact and fill and make asphalt ready.
The entire stretch on the east side of Highway 17, where they're what we used to call the green monsters. I don't know if they have a new name now, but that the huge electrical poles have a 50 foot wide easement underneath them. And it's the perfect route to take people because they have to maintain it, they have to keep it cleared. And if they did, in fact, prep it for asphalting, then that would be the main expense.
Well, drainage. Drainage. We hate mentioning drainage. It always complicates things.
But that, I mean, there is a plan in place. There's. There was such an ambitious idea for the Build America program. We didn't win that grant, but it's written, could be adjusted, could be resubmitted if there's ever an opportunity again.
And it included really bringing a bicycle bridge, bicycle and pedestrian bridge over Highway 17 and then continuing down the west side to the old ferry landing, which would be resurrected as a new ferry landing only for tourists, for pedestrians and for bicyclists. And it would carry people across when you're obeyed to.
To East Bay Park.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: What a wonderful addition.
[00:20:04] Speaker D: Wouldn't that be fabulous? Then we had great ideas of, of high school kids pedaling rickshaws from the landing and then bring them downtown. People would shop, people would eat, people would get Back in the rickshaws, we would keep our young, our young people fit. Back to the landing.
You know, it was a love. It's lovely. And they said they wanted ambitious ideas. And I thought that really was quite ambitious. And I can't even remember how many millions of dollars it was.
Yeah. Now probably. Oh, incredible.
[00:20:44] Speaker B: What do you think the inflation from 1993 to now, that's the thing about Linda and that's.
[00:20:51] Speaker E: You have the great, the grand ideas and that's why you are our matriarch. That's why connect and of everything biking on the walk of my neck. But while you have all those ideas, you also carried it through to fruition. And the parks that we have are amazing. And the 20 miles. There's not a week that goes by that I don't have at least one call from usually a tourist about the bike trails, the bike paths where they can park, where they can get on.
So it is heavily utilized and it is beloved by people who live here, second homeowners, and just people who come here to ride those trails.
[00:21:33] Speaker B: I never drive through the Walkamac and don't see just tons of people out there enjoying it. Families too.
[00:21:39] Speaker D: Right.
[00:21:39] Speaker B: And it's wonderful to see families out there just enjoying it with their kids.
[00:21:43] Speaker D: Well, it was the concept. I mean, I know we've had some little skirmishes with what I call the Lycra bikers. The. The folks that, you know, they're really, they're serious about. They're serious. They are Class 1, Class A racing cyclists. And there are clubs in the area that there never were until there were bike paths and.
But it wasn't conceived. They. They've written to me and said, how about straightening out these trails so we can ride faster? And I explained that the whole intent is to have a meandering route through the community so that families feel safe, so that parents feel safe having their children bicycle to school. And now with this new addition, this latest completion on Waverly, it is so beautiful. I mean, I used, I used to come down Highway 17 and now I always just go around so that I can admire it because it looks so polished, professional.
It belongs in a high, high dollar community, which we are. And I love that. It's, it's just, it's already being used. I've seen kids on it in their. With their bicycles and older people walking.
At the very beginning, one of the motivations for the route that we took was to bring it through the Parkersville community because so many people in that community actually use their bicycles. For primary transportation. And you would see them coming down Highway 17 before we made it impossible with the medians, which I love.
But they would be riding their bikes on, in the medians with huge grocery sacks on each handlebar. And there were at the time that we started in 93. There had been five deaths prior to that in this decade or so before. And I don't know of any sense.
[00:24:20] Speaker E: No, I don't think so. And, and it's interesting too. The, the path started with a plan, but it's kind of evolved too. And it doesn't go exactly. We've had little places that go off and that have evolved just based on usage. And I know there are plans now for more path in the Pettigrew area for Martin Luther King. Right. Because there are a lot of folks that do still use their bikes for trans. For primary transportation. The Waverly path is another great example. Some safe routes to school money for that. And there are kids that ride their bikes. I've seen them ride from the neighborhood. So it's, it's wonderful how it. We have a plan but it's also not inflexible to the point of we have been able to add pieces and, and parts in that make sense.
[00:25:13] Speaker D: Right. I like calling all of those safety connectors because they, that's essentially what they're accomplishing.
And the, the bigger picture, which is the East Coast Greenway they have now for the same 30 or 35 years they have been working to connect Maine to floor to the Florida keys with a 3,000 mile non traffic interfered with path where people could actually, you know, sort of like the Appalachian Trail, but it's the East Coast Greenway. And early on they just wanted us coming right down Highway 17.
And but as in every community that is participating with the East Coast Greenway, you have to make it serve your own people first. The, the community that is going to support it. Those are the people that need to, that their needs need to be addressed first.
[00:26:31] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:26:32] Speaker D: And so ours meanders a little more than probably the East Coast Greenway would like and that the long distance cyclists would like.
Every once in a while I will be at the back of a pile up of cars trying to get through and it turns out to be a group of cyclists that have a police escort on Highway 17 because that's the way they wanted to come up from Florida. So that's all right that they can, they can do that, but our people can get around the community where they need to.
[00:27:14] Speaker E: And they do.
[00:27:15] Speaker D: They certainly do.
[00:27:17] Speaker E: And like I say I get calls all the time. I mean, we, we're, we're out there with our heart maintenance guys throughout the weeks and the months and, you know.
[00:27:26] Speaker B: Do what we can.
[00:27:27] Speaker E: But now that we're getting to 30 years, we've resurf, resurfaced some path. We're about to release a major resurfacing really through Huntington beach and, and Lichfield area. So we're to get some of that stuff done. So it, it, while it's built, we build it. It's still a good bit now needs to be done. So we're happy to be working on.
[00:27:52] Speaker A: Some of those projects.
[00:27:54] Speaker D: That's wonderful because I, I still get calls saying, there's a tree down in Huntington beach. Can you do something about it?
[00:28:03] Speaker C: And you call me, oh, sure, I.
[00:28:06] Speaker D: Can fix that, Beth.
[00:28:10] Speaker E: So it does happen.
[00:28:11] Speaker D: It does happen. And it's interesting. You know, in the original planning of it, we wanted to keep as much foliage as close to the path as possible. And now we realize as time goes on that, and it's true of all development and the need for there to be breathing room around any trees and tree roots, that asphalt up to the baseline is going to kill the tree. And then you have storms and then you have trees down and, and roots trying to find someplace to go underneath the asphalt.
Been a bit of a maintenance.
Every storm, we know that that's going to have to go.
[00:29:02] Speaker E: But it's a beautiful section.
[00:29:04] Speaker D: It is, it is treasure.
[00:29:06] Speaker E: And finally we've opened. We're going to be cutting a ribbon on the parking at the, at the entrance inlet, the entrance to the Hanita beach path. Some parking is there now that has been seriously needed for a long time.
[00:29:22] Speaker D: It's a beautiful design. I mean, I, I just immediately saw the engineering and conceptual work that had gone into that because there wasn't that much space to deal with. But the parallel parking and bringing them off the road farther, it all really looks to work beautifully.
[00:29:48] Speaker E: So it does. And then rolls Inlet has been working on path paths also that meet into bike the neck. And Bike the neck is really the, the catalyst for it. All that is, is the backbone for all of our biking.
[00:30:01] Speaker A: So.
[00:30:02] Speaker E: And without you, we wouldn't have that.
[00:30:04] Speaker D: Well, me and an awful lot of people who really wanted it and who came out to all of the fundraisers that we did, endless golf tournaments and dances and hot dog, you know, roasts and all those National Trails Day. That Ray funny, I mean, his group out in Plantersville, the village group, was an offshoot of how successful all of this was on the Walkama Neck. And it's a just a stellar group. Their annual tour to Plantersville is so well attended. It's just grown every year and, and a real advantage. And one day all of this will be connected with ferry service back and forth across.
Across the river.
[00:30:59] Speaker B: Let's hope so.
[00:31:00] Speaker E: But we, we go all the way to the Ore county line though, right in. So we do indeed. We, we're to the north and we just work our ways up and keep working our ways up.
[00:31:12] Speaker B: Well, Linda, thank you so much for everything that you have done for our community. Continue to do for our community. And thank you for coming on to share this history with us.
[00:31:21] Speaker D: Thank you for having me so much.
[00:31:24] Speaker B: And thank you, Beth, for joining us too.
[00:31:26] Speaker E: Yeah, thank you very much.
[00:31:29] Speaker B: Next we have with us Brandon Ellis, our director of emergency services for Georgetown county. You should all know him by. And we have a special guest from the American Red Cross, Irene Branyard. And I'm going to try and get your title right. You are over disaster training for the Red Cross, correct? Did I say it right?
[00:31:47] Speaker C: South for most of South Carolina, yes. The regional program lead for training is the title. But training person for South Carolina, yes.
[00:31:59] Speaker B: So, Brandon, talk to us a little about your relationship with the Red Cross and how we work together.
[00:32:05] Speaker F: Right. So the Red Cross is a extremely crucial member in our operations from an emergency management standpoint. They, you know, coordinate all of our sheltering activities during an emergency. They also help us on the fire response side as well. They respond to fires involving home fires and provide that assistance to those residents who are often burned out or need assistance after a home fire.
[00:32:28] Speaker B: Well, Irene, we certainly do thank you for everything that y'all do for us.
Talk with me a little bit about what all goes into that, about how we can help you. I assume you maybe need some volunteers.
[00:32:41] Speaker C: Well, first of all, by just saying what our mission statement is, sure it sums a lot of it up.
We prevent and alleviate human suffering in the face of emergencies by the mobilization of our volunteers and the generosity of our donors. So right there we're a humanitarian organization and we don't do this alone. Like we partner with Brandon. Right. And a number of other non profit organizations and other agencies. And right now I hate to blame things on Covid because Covid's been so.
[00:33:20] Speaker B: Long ago, but it has changed so much. Something just never went back to normal.
[00:33:25] Speaker C: Right. I mean, and this is with all agencies and especially volunteer organizations. We've lost so many volunteers. And again, that's basically who we are. We're a volunteer organization.
The numbers fluctuate. 90% to 96% of our workers are volunteers.
So that's a big chunk. We lose some. And so we have to rebuild what we had before COVID And of course things change and how people are going to volunteer, that changes. And so what Red Cross has done is they change what we're asking the volunteer to commit.
But that's. We'll get into that. But that's basically why we're here today, for the volunteers.
[00:34:16] Speaker B: All right, well, that was going to be. My next question is what are you now looking for for a volunteer? I mean, what. Who are you looking for to come and help with these activities and events?
[00:34:26] Speaker C: Well, what Brandon mentioned, number one disaster, of course, is home fires.
I am a dap. We call them DAP teams, Disaster Action teams. And yes, I've been going out to a lot of fires since home fires. And that is our number one disaster.
Next thing that comes in big is we have hurricane season coming up.
[00:34:52] Speaker B: Do you know anything about that?
[00:34:53] Speaker F: Yeah, right around the corner.
[00:34:55] Speaker C: Not only that, but we have other weather events and we have fires and like upstate we have Greenville county and Pickens fire, Pickens county facing these fires. And to do that, we open up shelters for people to go for a safe place. And so what we're looking for is on the coast here is to build our volunteer capacity for sheltering. So when we have to open up a shelter, we have enough volunteers to do that. So in the past we asked volunteers to commit a whole lot of time to do this. And like we always say, you have to commit at least two weeks. And that's a lot, especially in this day and age.
Once upon a time we could find people who would do that. But things change, especially after Covid. People change how they live. So we changed it and shortened it so that the commitment could be as three days. Okay, well, three, three consecutive shifts or non consecutive shifts that you would have to commit to.
We just came up with these, so I'm not familiar how they worded, but if you're willing to respond in your home county, Georgetown county, for three non consecutive 12 hour shifts, we could use you if you're willing to travel within 50 miles, maybe over to Williamsburg county or up to Warwick county or Charleston county or Marianne Berkeley, depending upon where you're living.
And you can commit to 3 non consecutive 12 hour shifts. So let's say you have a part time job or you have other commitments during the day or maybe watching grandchildren or whatever, but you can commit this much Time we can use you. And of course we have training.
One thing Red Cross is noted for, and that is training. And yes, I can tell you all about training. I can talk to you all day long about training because we train, train, train. And we do that so that when you go out, let's say in the shelter, you know what to do and you have a good experience. Because if we send somebody out and say, hey, here's a shelter. This is what has to be done, you're not going to know what to do and you're not going to have a good time or I'm not that you're going to have a good time, but it's not going to be as rewarding as if you're prepared. And so we have a training coming up.
[00:37:38] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:37:38] Speaker C: And since it's in your territory, it's May 10th.
[00:37:42] Speaker F: Yep. So we will be hosting a shelter boot camp of sorts on May 10, which is a Saturday at the Emergency Operations center located on High Market Street. It'll begin at 9am It'll be over at 1pm so you're not, you're not wasting your entire Saturday. But we encourage folks to come out, you'll get the basics, the one, twos and threes of shelter operations to prepare you to help support, you know, a disaster shelter, as well as hands only CPR training, which can benefit you every day of the week, everywhere you go. I'm a firm believer that the more folks that we can put out in the community that have hands only cpr, the higher success rate we'll have during a cardiac episode if someone witnesses that. So, you know, we're extremely excited about this partnership. We're going to be funneling it through all of our social media accounts, including through you guys in the public information office, as well as with our private nonprofit partners, our municipal partners, and even our local emergency planning committee partners. So we're going to really try to get the word out about this training and fill the room, hopefully.
[00:38:43] Speaker B: So is this something that people need to sign up for in advance or can I just show up on that Saturday morning?
[00:38:48] Speaker F: There is a registration, there's a flyer that'll be going out. We have that available. We'll be putting that out probably before this airs. So. But we'll get that out posted so folks can register and get the information they need and also follow up with any questions that they might have between now and then.
[00:39:06] Speaker B: Right. So you can find that registration link on our
[email protected] it should be right on the homepage we'll also post
[email protected].
[00:39:16] Speaker C: GCEMD D and you also, if anybody has questions about any part of disaster in Red Cross and we'd like to find out some of the other things that are needed in order for us even to open up a shelter. There's a whole team of folks that fall into action that say we need to open up a shelter. I guess you make a phone call to Red Cross and within hours we'll have that shelter open.
And we always. And it's amazing when people come into Red Cross they're so unaware of all the stuff in the background that takes place and all the different jobs and activities and it's all done by volunteers. I mean we have people driving vehicles, we have people who are working in warehouses, people bringing supplies back and forth to shelters and to even other type of facilities we're using. And even like we have in mid course we have two weather conditions. Okay. We have blue skies which right now I know may, may or may what you may call you.
[00:40:24] Speaker D: It's a little worried.
[00:40:25] Speaker B: We'll still call it a blue sky.
[00:40:26] Speaker C: Day because guess what, things are going smoothly, things are working. And in blue skies we survey shelters, we find new shelters possibly. We do a lot of training, we make sure we have the resources we're going to need for whatever event we're going to have and we have it in place where we can access it. And again, I know I said training, but we make sure people are well trained so they know what to do. And that's grace guys. And we do all that. But once that phone call is made and Red Cross is needed, we go into grace guys. And that's our operational mode. And it's amazing to see every time we do it, I mean I've been with Red Cross for many, many, many, many, many years and every time it happens I'm just amazed at how it all falls and everything works together. All the pieces fall together and it's like a well oiled machine.
It's amazing.
[00:41:24] Speaker F: It is and it's truly a community effort as well.
We recently activated this process back on March 1 for the prince George Wildfire when we of conducting an evacuation there and quickly made phone calls, got the Red Cross in motion. We were, you know, on the phone with our other sheltering partners who supply the manpower which is Department of Social Services. So they kind of help augment that as well as using our organic resources. We were going to open that shelter at the Waccamaw Regional Recreation Center. So having all of those pieces predetermined and pre planned really helped expedite that process. Fortunately, we didn't need a shelter that day. But you know, it always helps to blow the dust off the plan in the process and ensure that it works the way it should.
[00:42:07] Speaker C: Yeah, those are recording practice runs. You know, hey, they're very, very important because it's sometimes in those things you find out where do you need to tweak something.
[00:42:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:42:18] Speaker C: And so it's an excellent. You know, I always tell people, well, we went through all this trouble. I said no, no, no, we need to go through that to keep, you know, keep show up on what we have to do. Yes. If you have any questions, you can put my number up on the website also and call me direct. And I can tell you about all the other wonderful opportunities we have in Red Cross for you to volunteer for besides your joint.
[00:42:42] Speaker B: Well, you also mentioned when you were reading the mission statement donation. So I'm assuming that people can assist that way as well.
[00:42:50] Speaker C: Yes, yes, yes, you can go to redcross.org and I believe there's a tab there for donating.
Surprisingly enough, do not come to me by handing money.
We do not accept money except throughout fund development and those folks because we have no way of giving you a receipt and stuff like that. So you just have to go to redcross.org and I know there's often those QR codes you can click on, you see them advertised here and there where you can also donate and I don't have one on me.
[00:43:25] Speaker B: That's okay. Well, if you would like to learn more about this initiative or how to volunteer or have questions for Irene, you can find all that information on our website, gtcounty.org
[email protected] GCEMD Brandon, Irene, thank you so much for talking with us today. And I'm excited about the trading on May 10th. I hope that we're going to have a full house.
[00:43:48] Speaker F: Thank you. And we hope so too. Please join us.
[00:43:50] Speaker C: Yes, definitely. Please, please join us. I'll be there, by the way.
I will be there.
[00:43:57] Speaker B: So come on out and see Irene and Brandon, I'm sure will be there too. So come out and say hello. Thank you guys.
[00:44:03] Speaker F: Thank you.
[00:44:04] Speaker C: Thank you so much.
[00:44:08] Speaker B: That's it for this month's episode of First Friday with Georgetown County. Thank you for joining us. Us as always, I'd like to end with a list of important meetings and events.
[00:44:17] Speaker D: Coming up.
[00:44:19] Speaker B: Georgetown County Council will meet on April 8th and 22nd at 5:30pm in council chambers Budget workshops will also take place prior to both of those meetings. The time hasn't been set yet, but the meetings will most likely start at 4pm The Georgetown Planning Commission will meet April 17 at 5:30pm in council chambers.
Tickets went on sale this week for the Friends of the Walkamaw Library's annual Blossoms for Books garden tour fundraiser. Purchase your tickets at the Friends center at the front of the Waccamaw Library. The tour is set from May 17 from 10am to 4pm The Georgetown Library will host a special Easter story time on April 15th at 10:30pm a.m. and an Easter egg scavenger hunt at 11am special Earth Day story time will take place on April 22nd at 10:30am the library will also have a free Easter candy craft activity on April 24th from 3:30 to 4:30pm in the children's room. Registration is required for the craft activity by April 19th. All of our branches will host Bright Star Theatre's production of Alice and Wonderland on April 23rd and 24th. Contact your local library branch for details. The Southern Georgetown Library will host a Family Fun Day on April 26 from 11am to 4pm Georgetown County Public Services Department will host its semiannual household Hazardous Waste Collection and Paper shredding event on April 12 from 9am to noon at Waccamaw Middle School. Capacity is limited and materials will be accepted on a first come basis.
As a reminder, April 15 is tax day so you want to file your taxes if you haven't already done that yet this year. And county offices will be closed on April 18 in observance of Good Friday. Check out our
[email protected] for more meetings, events and activities. Please join us again next month for First Friday. Enjoy Georgetown County.
