Speaker 1: Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome.
Speaker 1: It is time now for our community connection right here
Speaker 1: on K one built one you trust. Commissioner Mitch antel
Speaker 1: in with is today from Washington County and good morning
Speaker 1: here kind certain happy new year do you.
Speaker 2: Good morning, mister Davis, Happy new year to you as well.
Speaker 1: Well. We had the swearing in ceremony yesterday, correct though.
Speaker 2: That went well.
Speaker 3: Judge Thomas were in our four electeds yesterday morning at
Speaker 3: about eight thirty on the third.
Speaker 2: Floor of the courthouse just right his rain. Huh, yes, sir,
Speaker 2: we'll speaking of rain.
Speaker 1: I understand we could get some weather that could be
Speaker 1: coming down in the form of freezing rain. And as
Speaker 1: a commissioner, you got a lot of things on your hands.
Speaker 1: One is infrastructure and two is roads and a lot
Speaker 1: of other things that they go into the mix. But
Speaker 1: freezing rain is just a crazy thing to try to combat.
Speaker 1: How do you get your roague crews ready for that?
Speaker 3: Well, you do a lot of prep work on vehicles
Speaker 3: and equipment, make sure everything's ready to go just in case.
Speaker 3: So you're kind of loaded down, ready to put down
Speaker 3: in the ice situation. Salt sand mix of course, there's
Speaker 3: sometimes where there's not a whole lot we are going
Speaker 3: to be able to do.
Speaker 1: That's some mails. It'll be freeze yet.
Speaker 3: Right, So we just continue to work through those things
Speaker 3: as often as we can and hopefully we're as prepared
Speaker 3: as we can be.
Speaker 1: Well, that's about all you can do. The other infrastructure
Speaker 1: would be like if the electricity goes out. Something you
Speaker 1: guys did and I thought was great was redundancies, investing
Speaker 1: in at least you voted to invest in redundancies as
Speaker 1: far as computer and things like that.
Speaker 3: As far as yes, as far as our operations are
Speaker 3: considered in continuity of operations. But additionally, what we do
Speaker 3: is we partner with one of our local electrical providers
Speaker 3: in as much as provides staging area for them. In
Speaker 3: the event of a major storm or major event, we
Speaker 3: stage electric providers contractors that may be used by multiple
Speaker 3: electric providers are staged up at our fairgrounds and ready
Speaker 3: to deploy. Now, normally, if they're staged here, we're not
Speaker 3: going to get the event they're staged.
Speaker 2: Here for that reason.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but there's other communities within the northeastern corner of
Speaker 3: the state that allow those same things, so that coupled
Speaker 3: with some aggressive what I will call aggressive by way
Speaker 3: of our electrical providers here in the community is their
Speaker 3: right of way clearance, their maintenance of their facilities. So
Speaker 3: when you see those guys out there working hard and
Speaker 3: clearing those lines off, just know that that means it
Speaker 3: lessens the likelihood of you suffering an outage during these events.
Speaker 3: And we're very grateful as a community for these entities
Speaker 3: that come out and maintain their infrastructure the way that
Speaker 3: our electric providers do.
Speaker 1: Now we're talking with Commitcher, Mitch Antele and Mitch. One
Speaker 1: thing that some folks might be new to the area,
Speaker 1: freezing rain is not something that affects every part of
Speaker 1: the And as a person who came from the Great
Speaker 1: Lakes area, yeah, we get it every once in a while,
Speaker 1: like once every four or five years. But down here
Speaker 1: we're kind of in that hit and miss region where
Speaker 1: it's either going to be snow or freezing rain, and
Speaker 1: it's really a different animal. And even though you don't
Speaker 1: have a foot of snow out there, you still have
Speaker 1: branches that could break and fall on power line down
Speaker 1: them and it could be a mess.
Speaker 2: Quarter of an inch ie.
Speaker 3: That's all it takes if we look at quarter of
Speaker 3: an inch of ice, If we've got a storm of
Speaker 3: that magnitude that's coming in and we're going to get
Speaker 3: a quarter of an inch of ice, you're going to
Speaker 3: have some implication of infrastructure failure, if you will.
Speaker 2: At that point. It doesn't take a whole lot.
Speaker 3: Now, when we're talking about driving, any amount of moisture
Speaker 3: on a road that freezes is insufferable. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: just not something that gives a whole lot of grace
Speaker 3: to the traveler. We see it most pointedly on bridges,
Speaker 3: so elevated surfaces that don't have the protection of a
Speaker 3: roadbed underneath of them. You're just looking at a freeze
Speaker 3: ban structure gonna it's gonna freeze. It's getting cold from
Speaker 3: the top end of the bottom, and it's gonna freeze
Speaker 3: before anything else. There's protections in place, but you don't
Speaker 3: want to take your vehicle and ping pong across a
Speaker 3: bridge structure simply because.
Speaker 2: Of you know, a tenth of an inch of ice
Speaker 2: or less.
Speaker 1: Even Oh wow, Mike, recently we had a small breach
Speaker 1: of security with the computers. I guess it was kind
Speaker 1: of explained. It's a little complicated for the average person
Speaker 1: when you hear a breach, you go, oh.
Speaker 2: My gosh, exactly.
Speaker 3: It's it's one of those frustrating and infuriating things, and
Speaker 3: it's not unexpected or atypical, especially around the holiday seasons.
Speaker 3: To see government government type facilities, to see our systems tested,
Speaker 3: our networks tested, our computers tested. And what I mean
Speaker 3: by test it is it's a great time for infiltrators
Speaker 3: or bad actors to play with your system and try
Speaker 3: and figure out what's going on. We're managed, and I
Speaker 3: say managed, we're tested literally tested on multiple levels, just
Speaker 3: kind of routinely. Oklahoma Department of Homeland Security, which is
Speaker 3: under Department of Public Safety, will periodically look at our
Speaker 3: systems and our infrastructure make sure everything's everything's well protected.
Speaker 3: In this particular instance, it was a Homeland security office
Speaker 3: out of California, Federal Homeland Security that had tested our
Speaker 3: systems and found what they believed to be a breach,
Speaker 3: and that just immediately set our plan of action in
Speaker 3: place as to, Okay, what's our response mechanism look like.
Speaker 3: The deficiency that we noted the board of kind of
Speaker 3: commissioners noted as a result of that was we didn't
Speaker 3: have a critical or an incident response plan in place
Speaker 3: with our firewall services, so we will migrate to that.
Speaker 3: But what we did was engage those services through a
Speaker 3: third party contractor with our firewall provider.
Speaker 2: Over the weekend.
Speaker 3: We conveyed that authority or I conveyed that authority to
Speaker 3: our ORIT director, mister Naherd. She handled that on our
Speaker 3: behalf and did a wonderful job with it, working with
Speaker 3: the Sheriff's office. That's how our initial conversation began. It's
Speaker 3: difficult sometimes to vet where these things are coming from
Speaker 3: and to understand that.
Speaker 2: So it takes relationships.
Speaker 3: So a phone call from California telling you your systems
Speaker 3: being compromised, that's I don't know this person, right, I've
Speaker 3: not dealt with them before. So these things come to pass,
Speaker 3: and it came to pass that it went through a
Speaker 3: Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs agent known to
Speaker 3: this San Francisco DHS agent, known to DHS agent in Tulsa, and.
Speaker 2: To our undershare who knew these people.
Speaker 3: So it's those relationships that that vet what you have
Speaker 3: coming in, make sure it is what's what it is,
Speaker 3: at least gives it some credibility initially, then your IT
Speaker 3: department begins there their.
Speaker 2: Query into your system to see what's going.
Speaker 3: On, and again very low level couple of probing type
Speaker 3: attacks where they basically want to enumerate your system number
Speaker 3: it give you a numbered list of here's here's how
Speaker 3: many users, here's how many pieces of equipment, here's the
Speaker 3: topology within that network, so they can begin to know
Speaker 3: reconnaissance mission, if you.
Speaker 1: Will, case in the joint.
Speaker 2: Case in the joint, there you go, I like it.
Speaker 3: My Chicago came up, and then they move on from
Speaker 3: there if undetected. So in this case, they weren't undetected,
Speaker 3: and we've isolated and quarantined the area of compromise, and
Speaker 3: we'll move through the corrective actions necessary to make sure
Speaker 3: that doesn't happen again.
Speaker 1: Do we know who this was or what this was?
Speaker 2: No, we don't know who or what.
Speaker 3: I haven't received the final report yet from well for
Speaker 3: a while.
Speaker 2: Normally it doesn't take him very long. You'd be amazed.
Speaker 3: Really, Yes, that's become much more efficient than it used
Speaker 3: to be. I expect we'll have a final final report
Speaker 3: sometime next week.
Speaker 1: Nice, very good. We're speaking with Mitch Channel he's one
Speaker 1: of our commissioners here in Washington County. We've been talking
Speaker 1: about a great deal of things. One of the things
Speaker 1: that comes up out of the meetings, it seems like
Speaker 1: there's always something to be acknowledged or voted on with
Speaker 1: the new Washington County Emergency Management Center, and that's going
Speaker 1: to be a fine little addition to our county.
Speaker 3: It's a phenomenal addition to our county. I know that
Speaker 3: there are some concerns that it's too large of a facility.
Speaker 3: That's that's kind of where I fall out is. It's
Speaker 3: it's not too large of a facility. It's what we
Speaker 3: need within the community. We've got a unique arrangement here,
Speaker 3: and we have got a very aggressive emergency management director
Speaker 3: who operates well within the state of Oklahoma with all
Speaker 3: the other entities that are associated with emergency management and
Speaker 3: those type of emergency responses. That facility will allow us
Speaker 3: a level of posturing and preparedness that we've not had previously,
Speaker 3: and it will last long into the future. I call
Speaker 3: that one of the tree projects. I'm planting a tree
Speaker 3: so that the next iteration of me can operate more effectively.
Speaker 2: Does that makes sense? And looking ahead, we as a community.
Speaker 3: Planted that tree, and that's the beauty of those kind
Speaker 3: of projects.
Speaker 1: I've spent a lot of time in emergency management complexes
Speaker 1: in Florida during hurricanes and covering hurricanes. I mean not
Speaker 1: saying that we're going to get to anything that's going
Speaker 1: to last days in the way of a tornado or
Speaker 1: a heavy storm, but it's nice to know that when
Speaker 1: everybody has to be in there, you can fit everybody
Speaker 1: who's supposed to be in there in there correct. They
Speaker 1: can be responsible for getting communications out to where they
Speaker 1: need to go.
Speaker 2: Yes, so that size is important. It is.
Speaker 3: And part of that facility is a hardened infrastructure type
Speaker 3: that is design if you will, it should withstand an
Speaker 3: e F for tornado.
Speaker 2: So that's really and it allows.
Speaker 3: Us an opportunity. You know, our state Auditor inspector has
Speaker 3: been routinely I don't want to say pinging, but but
Speaker 3: letting us know that we could do better with regard
Speaker 3: to continuity planning as a county government. And their position
Speaker 3: now is what happens if a storm comes through and
Speaker 3: wipes out your administration building.
Speaker 2: What are you going to do? How are you going
Speaker 2: to continue your operations?
Speaker 3: This facility offers us the ability to basically just flip
Speaker 3: a switch. We have equipment at the ready, so any
Speaker 3: office currently housed administratively, so our treasurer, our assessor, our clerk,
Speaker 3: our board, border county commissioners could immediately go over there,
Speaker 3: flip switch, and we're back up and running exactly.
Speaker 1: That's where the size comes in, correct. You may never
Speaker 1: need it. If you ever do, you're not going to
Speaker 1: be caught with your shorts down.
Speaker 3: Well, and it's not always just about that one time,
Speaker 3: big incident. We have a multitude of small incidents throughout
Speaker 3: the year. Yes, And for ease of operations and the
Speaker 3: ability for a community this size to have let's just say,
Speaker 3: distribution points of whether it's food, water, prophyle axis, whatever.
Speaker 2: It may be.
Speaker 3: You know, we've got some sort of illness that's running
Speaker 3: and we want to run a vaccine clinic or something
Speaker 3: along those lines.
Speaker 2: That's available.
Speaker 3: Not to say that it would ever be used, but
Speaker 3: it's designed and how so that you can move vehicles
Speaker 3: in and out quickly.
Speaker 2: We could probably rotate a large portion of.
Speaker 3: The community through that facility in a very short period
Speaker 3: of time. With the warehouse facility toward the back of it.
Speaker 1: I keep thinking fires because by Olly, when those things
Speaker 1: go up, he's got a lot of land, you know,
Speaker 1: and Lord knows how many resources you might need. It
Speaker 1: runs out of the emergency center.
Speaker 3: We have a unique system out there with regard to
Speaker 3: our fire protection services at the county level.
Speaker 2: They're not.
Speaker 3: They don't have a specific response area. They're a secondary
Speaker 3: response to everybody that responds.
Speaker 2: So if we have a.
Speaker 3: Small rural fire department, volunteer fire department that's responding to something,
Speaker 3: they can go respond to back them up and that
Speaker 3: bolsters our ISO rating as well as provides for a
Speaker 3: service within the community. And quite honestly, the county doesn't
Speaker 3: put a whole lot of money into that. We give
Speaker 3: him some basic operations money just for that endeavor, but
Speaker 3: they operate grant heavy off of that and community participation
Speaker 3: off of that. We've got several community entities that provide
Speaker 3: for those services regularly.
Speaker 1: And chandled is our guest here and commissioner. Anything you'd
Speaker 1: just like to say.
Speaker 3: To encourage everybody to remain safe, especially with this weather
Speaker 3: coming in. Check on your neighbors, make sure your pets
Speaker 3: are cared for, drive safely and if you don't need
Speaker 3: to be out, and we do have some ice or
Speaker 3: snow on
Speaker 2: The ground, then don't get out.