>> Good morning, everyone.

Thank you for joining us today.

As we share updates on the winter storm coming to North Carolina tomorrow, I'm joined by the director of emergency Management.

Will re secretary of Transportation, Daniel Johnson, secretary of Public Safety, Jeff Smyth, Major General Todd Hunt of the North Carolina National Guard and the commander of the state Highway Patrol Colonel Freddy Johnson.

Jackie Metevier and Mertado Bustillo are our Spanish language interpreters and our American sign language interpreters are Steven Holland and Karen Magoon.

The latest weather forecasts lead us to expect impacts to the majority of the state starting tomorrow and lasting into next week.

Between snow, sleet, ice, freezing rain and bitterly cold temperatures.

This storm is expected to call the cause.

Major disruptions to your daily life, possibly for days.

Our message to North Carolina is simple.

This is a serious storm.

We are taking it seriously.

And so should you.

On Wednesday, I declared a state of emergency across North Carolina to mobilize resources in advance of the storm.

We've activated the state emergency response team, a cross agency group that includes the Department of Transportation, the Department of Public Safety, the North Carolina National Guard, the state Highway Patrol and our state's utilities.

The NC DOT has already put down 2.8 million gallons of brine to pretreat the roads and is ready to salt the roads and plow them once the storm begins.

The state emergency response team has shipped pallets of meals and drinking water around the state and preparation.

Some localities are starting to open warming centers.

So check your local government emergency management's website to see what options are available near you.

And utilities like Duke Energy have brought in more than 18,000 workers from around the country to help restore power, where necessary.

At this time because of expected ice accumulation and cold temperatures.

Our greatest concerns remain unsafe.

Travel and power outages that could last for days.

So we recommend that you take the following actions to navigate this winter weather event.

First, stay informed.

Make sure you're following your local media.

The National Weather Service and your local emergency management agency for the latest updates and recommendations.

Second get disaster supplies ready.

Now in case you lose power and can't leave home for a few days.

You may be water, non-perishable, food medication and other supplies for 3 to 5 days for each person and pet in your household.

You may also need a flashlight and fresh batteries.

A battery operated radio a way to keep your phone charged and blankets and winter clothing.

Visit ready, NC .gov.

For more detailed information about how to prepare for a storm.

Make a plan.

Make a plan for if the power goes out, how you'll safely keep warm, what you eat and who you will call in case you need help.

Be ready to reach out to family.

Are authorities for help?

If you're without power for an extended period of time?

The effects of the storm could last for days stay off the roads starting tomorrow for your own safety and that of others, please do not drive unless it is necessary.

And that request will likely extend beyond the weekend.

Next weekend is going to next week.

Excuse me is going to be cold.

We expect the temperature to fall below freezing every night for the next 7 days.

That means whatever ice or snow that turns to slash during the day.

We'll freeze again overnight.

Black ice will remain a risk in many places into next week.

So plan for the possibility that you'll be stuck at home for a few days.

5th.

And finally, as you're getting ready yourself, don't forget to check on your loved one's neighbors and anyone, you know who might be vulnerable, including the elderly.

Over the past year.

I've been inspired time and again by the many North Carolinians I've seen lending a helping hand to their neighbors in need.

So please look out for your family and yourself and for your neighbors, too.

North Carolina.

That's how we're going to get through this storm together.

Thank you.

Now turn it over to Director Wray and then Secretary Johnson director thank you, Governor.

Good morning, everyone.

Winter storm warnings and ice warnings are now in effect through midday Monday for the mountains and the Piedmont.

>> A winter storm watch remains in effect farther east and as accumulation types and amounts become clear, the watch will transition to warnings or advisories.

Significant wintry precipitation is forecast over the weekend with major impacts lingering into early next week as dangerously cold temperatures are forecast.

Ice accumulation of a quarter inch or more is likely across much of North Carolina Saturday through Monday morning.

Areas across the Southern Mountains, higher elevations into the Blue Ridge, a Scot Mundt and into much of central North Carolina are forecast to see the most impactful ice accumulations and in some cases reaching or exceeding one inch.

As a reminder, ice accumulations of around a half inch of ice or more can cause an increase in down trees or impact power lines and lead to an increase in power outages as well as hazardous travel conditions.

Based on this morning's forecast update.

Hazardous travel conditions are expected to begin by midday Saturday and will worsen through Sunday and may remain for several days due to those lingering low temperatures.

We need all North Carolinians to remain focused on preparing for the potential impacts with a plan and supplies to support you and your family for the next several days.

Unnecessary travel not only puts you at risk, but also the public safety personnel, power crews and the DOT workers who are working to respond to emergencies to restore power and to clear roadways.

The state emergency response team, including all our interagency partners, a private sector and nonprofit in volunteer agencies has been activated here at the State Emergency Operations Center as well as our regional coordination centers in Kinston, Burlington, in Hickory, we continue to support commodity distribution from are activated warehouses.

As of this morning, the state emergency response team has shipped approximately 65 pallets of meals.

Ready to eat or amari's and drinking water to assist communities with shelter operations if needed.

This is in addition to over 460 cots and blankets shipments to supplement local supply as well as commodities that have been shipped into local communities over the past several months to assist in building local capacity.

Additional commodities are shipping out from our warehouse is today into tomorrow.

11 counties, states of emergency have been declared and to county emergency operations center are activated with many others monitoring plans to activate this weekend.

Communities across the state are opening shelter locations and warming stations for the most up-to-date information on the resources available in your community.

Please visit your local government and local emergency management agency's website and social media accounts.

Elements of the North Carolina National Guard are active today and pre-positioning across the state to quickly assess the needs of our communities.

95 force packages will be assisting with clearing roadways from downed trees, helping disabled motorists supplementing our first responders and assisting with commodity distribution, these force packages include approximately 430 National Guardsmen and women and 170 vehicles and they will be on station across the state later today.

We remain in close coordination with our energy sector partners who are present here at the Stadio C and we'll be closely monitoring power outage, information and assisting any needs to quickly restore power in communities that do see outages.

The North Conifer Forest Service has placed 6, 6 task forces on standby to assist local first responders or state agencies with clearing roadways.

As soon as it's safe to do so.

Each task force is comprised of saw crews, heavy equipment and a mechanic, additional chainsaw.

Crews are activated in all 100 counties are staffed with their forestry personnel.

Communications personnel and equipment have been pretty deployed to assist with any degradation of 9-1-1, systems radio.

So radio systems and phone networks, 44 caches of radios have been deployed to assist with local response efforts and our partners at the North Carolina Highway Patrol have conducted checks of the systems that support the state's viper radio system used by our first responder statewide.

As a reminder, 9-1-1, should only be used for emergencies for general information.

Please call 2, 1, 1, or follow your local government and emergency management websites and social media accounts.

We will continue to work with the entire state emergency response team, local and state governments, the private sector in our nonprofit volunteer agencies as the forecast continues to evolve to ensure we can support our 11 million North Carolinians as we go into the weekend, it is imperative that again, all North Carolinians are prepared for for preparedness information and checklists.

Please visit ready and C .gov.

Finally, please check on your friends or family members and neighbors.

Are those in your community who may need additional support this weekend.

We're going to see significant winter storm impacts and we are stronger and more resilient together.

Thank you, governor.

Now turn it over to Secretary Johnson from DOT.

Thank you, Governor.

Thank you.

Director safety is our top priority and C dot and it remains our key message today.

>> With the likelihood of icy weather creating treacherous travel conditions in the days ahead.

We urge people to please stay put if you don't need to be out on the roads, staying off the roads during and after the storm allows dot crews, law enforcement, utility crews and other emergency responders to do their work.

We're expecting a storm that is largely going to be ice related which makes traveling on the roads that much more challenging.

If you have a large truck or SUV driving on a icy roads is near can be nearly impossible.

We'll also have implemented immediate towing measures without the cooperation, the state highway patrol to help remove any vehicles have been disabled to help facilitate clearing of the roads and also to eliminate danger for those traveling on on those roads.

People made those messages of we placed on digital highway signs across the state.

Crews will focus on these efforts on highways and primary routes will continue the effort until NC DOT and the Highway Patrol determine that it's safe to lift these measures.

We're also continue to monitor forecasts closely with the help of our partners at the National Weather Service forecasts help us make informed decisions and ensure we're placing resources.

Where they're needed.

Most.

That's especially important when a storm impacts statewide has statewide impacts like this one.

Our crews in the process of wrapping up pre storm preparations as the governor, the the department supply about 202.8 million gallons of brine on the roads.

The state system nearly all 2100 dot employees who are trained to respond.

Such storms have contributed to this effort.

They're now transitioning their focus and equipment to be ready to clear roads as the storm moves in.

This includes removing trees and limbs that may fall salt on hand as 160,000 times.

And we continue to secure additional saw and distributed across the state.

So we're in good shape from a supplier standpoint.

We're taking all precautions possible because we are going to take a chance with your safety.

I encourage everyone to stay informed, make safe decisions about travel and sure you have all the supplies you need in case the sins of being a long-term event.

People can visit Drive-In C .gov to view the latest road conditions and other storm-related information.

Thank you.

I'll turn it back over to the governor for questions.

Mr.

Secretary, thank you.

Director >> if any of you all have questions feel free to go to the microphones on either side of the year.

>> Yes, hi, Carolyn U-of-h, a WRAL news.

And so since we're expecting icy roadways, what should essential workers, state employees due to make sure that they're safe?

And if the roadways are dangerous and if they feel that their it's not safe to travel, what are the impacts that that could mean for the community?

Yeah.

>> One area that we have a special concern as whenever you have vulnerable people together, whether that's a retirement center and a hospital and each of those facilities have their own emergency plans.

And part of that is having the pot, the preparation that folks may have to spend the night at their place of work so that they don't have to travel on the roads back and forth and put themselves at risk or find themselves unable to get back to work where they're desperately needed by by the patients or residents of that community and terms of the central workers for the state.

Each department, each agency has its own emergency plan and its own way to notify folks when they should come to work.

And if they should come to work, obviously, we don't want anyone traveling who absolutely does not need to.

And if they can't get there safely, they should not be on the road.

>> I wore it with a radio.

I wonder if she had been in touch with 1000, everything riders and it damaged to cell towers and outages are anticipated.

>> We have been here at the Emergency Management Center.

We have our private sector partners, whether the utilities or they're the cell phone companies, the communications networks, and so we're in regular contact with them and asked director to to answer to your specific question.

Thank you for the question.

As the governor said, I think one of the things we continue to reinforce here is.

>> What we do is not a public sector function only and so are our commercial telecom partners are here as a part of what we do.

They are here in the E E O C We are closely monitoring with them.

What impacts to their networks.

They are seeing and how then we need to pivot to adjust resources, whether it's an infrastructure issue, whether it's a technology issue or some other issue kind of impacting their their provision of service.

They are very much a part of what we do.

They are here with us in our part of our state emergency response team.

And as we move through this event, that's one of the areas that we're going to continue to remain significantly focused on is our worst.

Our our network statewide to make sure that folks are able to receive any type of emergency alerts or information, certainly from from local emergency services.

>> The audit, but the real the monitoring that's already happened.

Any indication that cell outages will occur?

>> We're always concerned.

We have a nice event like this.

It can topple towers that can that have trees following that hour or so.

There will also be an incredible demand on the system.

Folks are going to be at home.

They're going to want information.

So we expect that people are really going to be maximally utilizing the networks, which will cause their own issues.

That's one reason why we encourage folks to get battery operated radios so that you can stay informed even if you lose communications through modern may through modern means.

Michael.

Perfect, ABC, 11 to that point from a staffing perspective see or local county storm operation centers.

>> What he believes exist for them to work remotely in the event.

They're not physically able to get there in person.

Yeah.

Well, as I said, each.

Agency of government, whether it's state in Cedar County Agency has their own emergency plan.

So they know exactly what to do, who they've identified before the storm hits, who are emergency personnel to identify whether that person can perform his or her work remotely or must come into the office.

Obviously, we need law enforcement.

We need fire.

We need EMS to be in their places of work so that when they need to respond, they can so this is one thing, unfortunately, because North Carolina has experienced so many storms of all types, whether their winter storms like this or hurricanes, the governmental entities, they're well prepared.

As a follow-up.

Can you speak to the lessons learned from some of those prior storms and I are able to control issue some of the issues may run into in the past to try to avoid them moving forward.

Yeah, I'll have the director speak to the redundancies, but clearly.

We became too dependent on a single means of communication, which is our cell phone.

And so we have worked hard to ensure that we have redundant means of communicating.

Certainly among emergency personnel.

And I will asked director to come forward and speak more.

I think specific to the communications point that that the governor was making and I think to expand what we talked about yesterday, I think most of the agency's you see up here on the stage, most of the agencies represented in the Stadio Sciorra Regional Centers and certainly locally.

>> Have taken lessons learned most recently from Helene or some of the more recent events and invested in some of the redundant satellite based technologies for forward and communication.

We have a variety of redundant communications platforms, whether it's radio caches, mobile towers, mobile data systems that are able to be deployed from a variety of agencies out out across the state.

Some of the pre planning, for example, that our 9-1-1 community in the state has really been focused on the last couple of years is fail over system so that if a local number one center and intersections impacted there is a fail over plan for an an impacted area to to be able to continue to receive 9-1-1, calls.

And again, that's the great work that that that community has done in reaction to many of our events.

I think broadly, we always want to take a a retrospective look at what we do and how we do it and how we can get better.

Now we've done that for every event, low-level ones or a major ones like we've experienced the last couple of years.

And it's certainly one that we will continue to do as we all move through this event.

And just ahead, I'll ask Colonel Johnson to come forward.

He just brief me on an investment.

The highway patrol has done.

>> And the VIPER network to help ensure its continued functionality.

Even when a tower or 2 gets knocked out.

And regular is about right?

Yes, sir.

Thank you, governor, to that question.

So the patrol maintains the state communication system across the state in one of the investments that was explained to the governor is that the they have the ability to just south of tower is impacted by the storm.

But Howard is an area does not impact.

It can readjust its Michael Way system and cover that overlap, that area.

So there's this stuff continues to work in a communique.

All our emergency services partners that operate on a system and another thing we have.

So if you have a local agency has their communications system, that's not totally on the 5 per state system.

We have Director Wray mentioned it.

Caches of radios with that is that is handheld radios that operate on this state communications system.

We have about a little over 3,000 of those, we could deploy those things.

It is communities and hand him to these agencies so they can operate.

Any other questions in the room, if not will grow today to those who are calling, if you could please identify yourself and where you're calling from.

>> Hi, this is Kelly.

I think that I will do it and that's enough to know and see regarding shelters, what are sure and are there in place to ensure election committee can access them without being question about immigration.

That is.

>> Or acquire to show State ID or even having the information shared with AI.

>> Yeah.

>> The shelters are operated locally and we are in contact with our county management agency's emergency management agencies.

11 counties have so far declared a state of emergency.

Others we expect will do so today whether or not a local emergency has been declared.

Many counties are preparing either shelters or warming stations and they are welcoming all people to come in.

Director.

Anything that is.

Any other questions.

>> Well, that just there are no written policy that explicitly prevent asking the type of information from the resident.

>> I can't speak to what the county policies are correct.

>> I think it's the governor said I think our focus here at the state level and the focus of the public safety communities at a local level for an event like this is how do we provide necessary support and services to all North Carolinians?

And so they are going to implement those warming stations based on their local operations.

And again, their focus is how do we get people safe?

So I would I would reinforce what the what the governor said is that locally there they are taking.

They are making preparations to deal with all people in their communities.

We don't want anyone who is in need a shelter at risk, freezing to death to not seek that help.

>> We're not seeing any additional questions online.

Thank you all for being here.