Tuscaloosa mayor announces curfew to help combat COVID-19 Share Shares Copy Link Copy

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in the time, especially on short notice to be here. I feel fortunate to be joined by a counselor Busby Counselor Makin Street. We have our fire Chief, Randy Smith, who is the incident commander for this. And I've also asked Glenda Web, our city attorney who's also serving his deputy commander of this event, to join me as well. And I see Miss Odom has came in. So thank you, Miss Odom, for being here. You know, I've said from the beginning we have seen so much courage on the front lines of the Corona virus outbreak, especially among our medical providers. I think of those at D. C. A. To have spent countless hours out there putting their own lives at risk to the test the public. I think about our first responders here in the city of Tuscaloosa, who every day get someone they love goodbye and they go to work and they're doing it because they love this community and certainly all of us up here we stand on the shoulders of their courage. And when someone demonstrates that type of courage, we have to respond with our convictions and our actions in cities across our country leaders are looking for ways to build upon that courage to stop the spread of Kobe 19 Thanks to many of the leaders you see with me today. We've been Ford leaning at the city since February 28th and over the past 26 days we've activated our emergency command. We canceled 300 public events. We've declared a state of an emergency state of emergency. We have adopted an enforced Alabama Department of Public Health guidelines. We have limited public access into City Hall, and we worked with stakeholders from the city schools to D. C H to the University of Alabama to protect the health, safety and welfare of our community. And what we know after 26 days is this. Within a one hour drive of City Hall, 1/3 of the state's Corona virus cases can be found in Jefferson County within Lee County, which closely mirrors Tuscaloosa County. We see some of the fastest growing rates of Kobe 19 cases in our state and based on reliable data sources, the same sources used by the governor's task force on the Corona virus. We know that in late April, without any change in the dynamic that Tuscaloosa County's own healthcare system could be overwhelmed. We also know that the more we stay home for ourselves, for our families and for our community, we will be safer. So we also know that it's time to doom or within the authority granted to the city of Tuscaloosa. And in all, we must continue to be bored leaning. So today I wanna announce to you that just a few minutes ago I signed an executive order establishing a curfew that will go into effect on Friday, March 27th 2020. And it will last through April 3rd, 2020. And certainly every single day will be evaluating the effectiveness of the curfew and track its record and make certain that it's going to meet its intended goal. The curfew itself is going to be from 10 p.m. To 5 a.m. and his goal is to reduce social gathering, especially among young people in our community. No, this This may be the first of many steps I have ordered our incident command team to begin looking at additional measures that could be put in place if necessary to continue to ensure the safety of this community. I also want to make public to use some work that's going to be announced in the next couple of days. In the near future, the water and sewer business office will be closed, but the drive thru will remain open. Permits and other business of the city will be by appointment. On Lee, we're limiting the number of employees in city vehicles. Basically, employees are limited to the number of windows in the given vehicle. We've also added an employee advocate to our incident command to ensure that our heroes here at the city are protected in this response. Lastly, our mission and my commitment is to act responsibly and decisively to the threats we face now and into the future. At this time, myself or any of the ones that you see here would be happy to answer any questions that you might have. There are exemptions that are built into the executive order and many people will follow under those exemptions, as we have done with past curfews that we've had to do. And so once this is completed, you'll all be given a copy of those exemptions and so you can begin communicating those out to the public, we will begin as well communicating those to the business community into the public at large. Any other questions that you may have people D. C H is, is making contact with each one of those individuals, and so that's going to be a matter for them in D. C. H. But certainly that limited sample has has been part of our decision making. And yesterday, in discussions with the council, we've done our best to project out what that means for Tuscaloosa counting. And certainly I want to say again that we're thankful for the work that D. C. H is done in this. And there have been one of the early leaders with that, and we certainly appreciate the work that they've been doing. Four. No, not as of yet. But I would imagine, especially at this event, continues that it will. We have a local manufacturing manufacturer who has stepped to the plate. I'm not certain that Annapolis man has become public it, but they're stepping to the plate to help the city in the state of Alabama, and so we look forward to celebrating that at the appropriate time, any other questions that you might have. I appreciate you being here on such short notice. We appreciate the fact that you'll communicate this in the future so our citizens will be knowledgeable of it. In the meantime, Richard and his team will be getting you the information necessary. And hopefully everyone that's seeing this on Facebook Law Program turn into a virtual town hall meeting that will begin at three clock. Thank you very much.

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