Why should you care about the floodplain?

Missoula County residents are lucky to live in proximity to multiple rivers and creeks, but this also means increase risks of flooding. Missoula County is currently working with both state and federal agencies to update floodplain maps for the Clark Fork River, the Bitterroot River and Rock Creek. But what exactly is the floodplain, and why are updated maps needed? 

Recently, the Missoula County commissioners spoke with Matt Heimel, floodplain administrator for Missoula County, and Adriane Beck, director of the Missoula County Office of Emergency Management. Adriane and Matt answer these questions and help decode the many acronyms around the floodplain mapping process.

Visit missoulacountyvoice.com to learn more about this process.

Thank you to Missoula's Community Media Resource for podcast recording support!

Transcript

Dave Strohmaier: [00:00:10] Welcome back to the agenda with your Missoula County Commissioners. I am Dave Strohmaier I am joined here today with my fellow commissioners Juanita Vero and Josh Slotnick. We are also joined by a couple esteemed guests. Today we have Adriane Beck, director of the Missoula County Office of Emergency Management, and also Matt Hieiel, our very own floodplain administrator for Missoula County. And I have got to just set the stage here today. I am looking out the window at the Missoula Valley, and a little over 10,000 years ago, we would be underwater today on the floor of Glacial Lake Missoula, which was emptied by flood waters. So at one point in time, even we were in the floodplain here in the administrative building of Missoula County, but good observation. Yeah, that's what I'm here for today. Yeah. That's good. So let's kick this off.

Josh Slotnick: [00:01:06] All right. So I want to throw out a statement to you guys and just tell me where the inaccuracies are in this statement. There's a lot of them. And this is a test.

Juanita Vero: [00:01:14] Lots of semicolons. I feel them coming.

Josh Slotnick: [00:01:15] The county is making the floodplain bigger and putting my house. And it just so they could stick their fat faces in that federal FEMA trough. Wow.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:01:24] That is getting right to the point.

Josh Slotnick: [00:01:25] Okay, so where are the inaccuracies in that? Do you remember we can break it down. Or do you want the counties making the floodplain bigger?

Matt Heimel: [00:01:32] All right. So this is Matt here. Yeah. There's a lot of a lot of inaccuracy there. So the county is not making the floodplain bigger. The county is not expanding the floodplain. Nobody is expanding the floodplain. Rivers change over time, whether it be a change in 10,000 years from the glacial lake or over 50 years or after a large storm, there can be erosion that builds up for for years and years. And the rivers change, the floodplain changes, our watershed changes, the hydrologic cycle changes, and we need to understand what those changes are so that we know what areas are more prone to flooding so that the public know where should they build their house, where should they not build a house? What kind of areas should have better structural protection against flooding? So that's what's going on with the floodplain. Is the.

Josh Slotnick: [00:02:18] County making the.

Matt Heimel: [00:02:19] Map so the county does not make the floodplain maps.

Josh Slotnick: [00:02:22] So Matt, who's making the floodplain maps, if it's not the county, the.

Matt Heimel: [00:02:25] Floodplain maps are being drawn up by FEMA and DNC. So that's the federal agency and the state.

Josh Slotnick: [00:02:30] And what's the county's role there?

Matt Heimel: [00:02:32] The county's role is to adopt the maps and regulate new or replace development in the floodplain, so that people are reasonably safe.

Josh Slotnick: [00:02:41] Is the county putting anybody's house in the floodplain?

Matt Heimel: [00:02:43] We're not putting houses in the floodplain. The floodplain is there. Flood hazards exist. So if people find that the new maps show their house in the floodplain, it's because we have a better understanding.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:02:54] How about just before we get going too much farther down the stream here, so to speak. What the heck is the floodplain? I mean, we've we've used that term a few times here already, but but what what is that?

Matt Heimel: [00:03:08] So floodplain is any area that's normally dry land which can have a temporary inundation of water. We then have a floodplain that is mapped under something called the National Flood Insurance Program, and that was created in 1968 to map certain areas and understand what kind of areas are prone to different levels of flooding. So we have a what's called a base floodplain. And the base floodplain are areas like along the Clark Fork River or the Bitterroot River or Rock Creek, that a certain volume of water would have a 1% chance of inundating in any year. So there are some technical definitions for a floodplain. And is that the same?

Dave Strohmaier: [00:03:46] Is that is that the same as the. When you hear folks refer to the hundred year floodplain or.

Juanita Vero: [00:03:52] The 500 year?

Dave Strohmaier: [00:03:53] Or are we are we mixing terminology?

Josh Slotnick: [00:03:56] And when you hear things like 100 year floodplain, does that mean once in a hundred years this happens? And well, if it hasn't happened for 40 years, we've got 60 years left.

Matt Heimel: [00:04:03] So there are a lot of terms that more or less mean the same thing. But 100 year floodplain is a way of getting at what's called a recurrence interval. So there would be a 1% chance in any given year of a 100 year flood, because that 100 year flood is really talking about an amount of water, an amount of water discharge in cubic feet per second that statistically has a 1% chance. So there are different volumes of water that could calculate it by FEMA and the state that will show what could be an event every ten years, what could be an event every 50 years, or like a 500 year flood?

Josh Slotnick: [00:04:33] Isn't that what happened in Red Lodge? Isn't that a 500 year flood?

Matt Heimel: [00:04:36] After it hit the 500 year level, it broke the gages.

Josh Slotnick: [00:04:41] Okay, okay.

Juanita Vero: [00:04:42] And what year was that?

Matt Heimel: [00:04:43] I was in 2022. Yeah.

Juanita Vero: [00:04:45] Do you want to talk a little bit more about the FEMA trough? Yeah.

Josh Slotnick: [00:04:49] The county didn't make the floodplain. Didn't make the floodplain maps the state and the feds are doing the mapping. We have the option of acknowledging the map and where we aren't putting or not putting anybody's home inside the map, we're just acknowledging the boundaries of the map.

Juanita Vero: [00:05:05] And if we don't acknowledge what happens, yeah.

Josh Slotnick: [00:05:07] How about the FEMA trough?

Matt Heimel: [00:05:09] Well, the FEMA trough, that's an interesting way to put it.

Juanita Vero: [00:05:12] Oink oink oink.

Matt Heimel: [00:05:13] Right. Exactly. So I mean, I'm not really feeding from the FEMA trough, and I don't think any of us are or really want to. What's going on is as a way to promote resiliency over decades and years in the floodplain, the idea for integrated floodplain management is for areas to slowly meet floodplain standards. So we want to see houses that are elevated. We want to see area that should be open space right in the river, preserved as open space to let that natural carrying capacity function. And so as part of participating in this program, communities can be eligible for flood insurance. Communities can also be eligible for federal disaster aid in case there is catastrophic flooding.

Josh Slotnick: [00:05:53] So if we adopt the maps and a person finds that, oh my goodness, my house didn't used to be in the 100 year floodplain and now it is. And oh man, my mortgage lender is demanding that I get flood insurance. Now this person is eligible for federal flood insurance. Is that correct?

Matt Heimel: [00:06:08] So anyone in the county is eligible for flood insurance under the National Flood Insurance Program.

Josh Slotnick: [00:06:13] The federal flood insurance. That's right. It doesn't matter where you live, you're eligible.

Matt Heimel: [00:06:17] Yes, you can be a property owner. You can be a renter.

Josh Slotnick: [00:06:19] I mean, you don't have to be in the floodplain to be eligible for federal flood insurance. Or do you have to be in the floodplain to be eligible for federal flood insurance? You don't.

Matt Heimel: [00:06:27] Need to be in the map floodplain, is.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:06:29] There? I'm wondering what what would the impetus be to have federal flood insurance if you are not in I. It's a great question. I guess there could be a flash flood in some place that's not in the floodplain, but very cautious person.

Matt Heimel: [00:06:43] Some people that live in like riparian draws that aren't necessarily rivers, but they can experience like so.

Josh Slotnick: [00:06:50] They're not flooding, so they're not mapped as the floodplain.

Matt Heimel: [00:06:52] Right? So they might not be in our central river floodplains, but they can be in an area that can be subject to some sort of seasonal flooding that can damage their homes.

Juanita Vero: [00:07:00] What's an example of one for listeners to kind of wrap their minds around to.

Josh Slotnick: [00:07:03] Say, Lolo Creek? You know, houses have flooded there. Right.

Matt Heimel: [00:07:06] So some of the tributaries of Lolo Creek don't have mapped floodplain. O'brien Creek does not have a floodplain.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:07:13] So for the for the current exercise that that we're engaged in here, we're not talking about the entirety of Missoula County. Correct? We're talking about the Clark Fork River and.

Juanita Vero: [00:07:25] Rock Creek.

Josh Slotnick: [00:07:26] And Bitterroot.

Matt Heimel: [00:07:27] Right. So the maps for the Clark Fork River, the Bitterroot River and Rock Creek are being updated by FEMA and the state.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:07:32] So just to game this out, and we've hit on this a little bit in terms of what the consequences would be if we did not adopt these maps. And I'd love to hear you say a little bit more about that. But if we, as Missoula County did not take the step to adopt these maps once we get to that point in the process, would that preclude anyone from, as you mentioned earlier, anyone, whether you live in the the floodplain or not, can have access to this this insurance. Would it be the case if we did not adopt those maps, that no one would be eligible to get that federally backed insurance?

Matt Heimel: [00:08:11] That would be exactly the case.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:08:13] Sounds like a bad deal.

Josh Slotnick: [00:08:14] Yeah. And mortgage lenders who don't care about federal plans at all would look at a house inside a map in terms of federal plans on subsidized insurance or not, the mortgage lender is going to be concerned that if the house is destroyed in the flood, they get their money. So they would demand of a homeowner who owns a house in the 100 year floodplain that they get flood insurance.

Matt Heimel: [00:08:33] That is right. And if Missoula County is not adopting the maps and doesn't participate in the program, they won't be able to actually complete that deal.

Josh Slotnick: [00:08:40] Agent. In my first hyperbolic sentence there, FEMA came up. What's our history with FEMA in Missoula County? I know you've interacted with FEMA quite a bit. When have we engaged with FEMA financially and how has it gone?

Adriene Beck: [00:08:51] You bet. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, we've had occasion to have federally declared disasters in Missoula County, two of which for flooding. In 2011, we had flooding along the Clark Fork River that met the met the thresholds and the qualifications for a federal disaster declaration, which means that 75% of Missoula counties costs to respond to that flood are eligible for reimbursement from the federal government. So we're not putting that burden for that response on our local taxpayers. It's being shared by the nation. In 2018, we had another flooding event on the Clark Fork River that also met that criteria for a federal disaster declaration. And again, we were eligible for 75% of our costs to damage to public infrastructure. So we had several roads and bridges that were damaged in that flood event, as well as just that initial response for that immediate public safety component. In that 2018 disaster declaration, we also received There's public assistance, which is a disingenuous name, which is designed to be a grant program back to the local government. But then we also got an individual assistance declaration with that 2018 flooding, which meant that those private property owners that sustained damage were were eligible to seek personal reimbursement from the federal government.

Josh Slotnick: [00:10:08] Imagine that was quite important to them. Yes.

Adriene Beck: [00:10:10] And so, you know, [00:10:11] when we talk about the importance of participating in, in this program and adopting the floodplain maps and doing all the work that Matt does to to regulate the development in the floodplain, it's also that when we do have these disasters, we remain eligible for these grant programs, not only the Public Assistance Grant program, which helps the county kind of be made whole or as close to whole as we can after these large disasters, but also in in those certain circumstances where we have an individual assistance declaration, it allows individual property owners to. [00:10:40]

Juanita Vero: [00:10:40] Going back to if someone finds themselves now in their properties in the new Floodplain where the map now shows your properties in it. Do you have to move or do they have to modify their property? What's required if they own it outright?

Adriene Beck: [00:10:55] Yeah, I certainly will defer to Matt here in just a second. But what I would say is that by adopting these maps is that that allows us to to maintain access to a lot of federal grant programs that are administered through FEMA, specifically the Flood Mitigation Assistance Grant program, the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Grant program, as well as the Hazard Mitigation Grant program. And all of these are designed to mitigate risk. And so, to the extent that there is a home that now finds themselves in in the floodplain, that probably always was there, but now, you know, we know more definitively with better science and better data, that that's where the floodplain is, and that's where there is an underlying risk that could be mitigated. It allows us to work with that property owner to find appropriate mitigation strategies, to either elevate the home or to do other things that would make that home more resilient to flooding.

Juanita Vero: [00:11:40] Well, besides elevation, kind of what are the other common ways that people mitigate their property.

Adriene Beck: [00:11:46] Some of the things that are relatively simple are if the appliances you know, your hot water heater, your furnace, those types of things that sometimes are below grade in a in a crawl space, moving those up to above that base flood elevation just so that if that crawl space were to get inundated, that your your major appliances would not be damaged. Other mitigation measures could be along with that elevation. So not necessarily moving your house, just bringing up that base flood elevation, putting in flood flaps in into the foundation or into areas so that water can free flow through that area without causing structural damage.

Matt Heimel: [00:12:19] Right. [00:12:19] If somebody sees that these new maps have their house in the floodplain, they own it outright. They don't have to do anything right away. They don't have to move. No one's telling them to move. No one's telling them they have to retroactively change their house. They own it outright. They don't have an outstanding loan, so they don't need to buy flood insurance. But something to really keep in mind is that they were shown as out of floodplain on old maps, old maps with data from the late 1970s and our understanding of the river has changed, the river has changed, the hydrology data has changed. That's how much water is in the system. And our understanding of how to model how that water moves across the landscape has been changed, refined over time. So to follow up on everything that was said about retrofitting, I mean, that's one of the best things people can look into right now. If they see that these maps show them in the floodplain to really think hard about what should they do in this situation? Maybe they're not being told that they have to buy flood insurance, but it can be a good way to protect their investment. [00:13:19]

Dave Strohmaier: [00:13:19] You've really hit on the crux of this here in terms of what the floodplain mapping is meant to do is to reflect the circumstances on the ground. So either you've always been in the floodplain, but the mapping, which was perhaps in some circumstances inaccurate in the past, didn't catch that, or the hydrology on the landscape has changed. Such as such that maybe you legitimately, even with modern mapping techniques decades ago, would not have been mapped in the floodplain. But you are today because the circumstances on the ground have changed. So it's not like zoning. And I've heard folks confuse this at times that somehow the county is zoning you into the floodplain. Very different. This is trying to align the mapping of the floodplain with what is on the landscape and.

Josh Slotnick: [00:14:11] Correct me if I get this wrong, but there are certain reaches of those two major rivers where folks who were in the floodplain are now not in the floodplain. If the draft maps become the real maps.

Matt Heimel: [00:14:21] That's right. So there are sections of either the Bitterroot, Clark Fork or Rock Creek where people are shown as being taken out of the floodplain.

Josh Slotnick: [00:14:29] What we heard in you and I were at the same meeting. You were there, too, out in Frenchtown, when there were some folks who were really angry because the new maps show their homes in the floodplain based on elevation, that the elevation of their property is X, and x means you're three feet above the floodplain or whatever. And these folks were certainly convinced that the technology used to measure those elevations was flawed, and those elevations were inaccurate, which would mean they're not actually in the floodplain for a person in that situation, what are they to do? Or if they believe themselves to be in that situation, what are they to do?

Matt Heimel: [00:15:01] So if someone wants to dispute the maps or think it's wrong, they can present that information for us to look at. There's going to be an opportunity to comment on the maps once we are in a in a further stage, do.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:15:14] They present that information to Missoula County, to FEMA, to NRC, all of the above.

Matt Heimel: [00:15:19] So the steps are that people will present that to us at the county. Okay. And then we relay it to FEMA and the state.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:15:27] And I'm suspecting that the information folks provide should be a little meatier than simply I don't believe I'm in the floodplain. Right.

Matt Heimel: [00:15:35] It can be that, too. I mean, we can accept comments or really, if someone wants to actually appeal the map.

Josh Slotnick: [00:15:41] Oh, so there's a formal appeal, not just a comment.

Matt Heimel: [00:15:43] That's right. There's both. But the formal method would include information from a licensed surveyor or a professional engineer. And it goes from demonstrating that there's more accurate or refined elevation data or all the way to proving that the model itself is wrong.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:15:58] Here's a question for you. So before someone actually initiates or goes out and tries to find a surveyor or a professional to help with this, I suspect it would be good to have some actual maps in hand. Do those exist at this point in time, or are we still waiting for the draft set of maps to comment on to be completed?

Matt Heimel: [00:16:20] So we're still waiting for those actual preliminary maps?

Dave Strohmaier: [00:16:24] Okay, we've.

Matt Heimel: [00:16:24] Had draft maps, draft data for a little over two years now. Some folks might have seen a date thrown out there November of this year, but it turns out that more time is needed to complete the maps.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:16:36] Does this mean you drop the ball on something, Matt?

Matt Heimel: [00:16:38] It means. I don't know if anyone dropped the ball, but there's there's some balls floating down the river.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:16:43] They're going downstream. Okay. Yeah. So a little bit of a delay, but. But before anyone hires a surveyor, they should. I'm just guessing. Maybe. Maybe wait until they see the maps.

Matt Heimel: [00:16:52] Yes, they should wait. But also, before they go and hire a surveyor, they should probably meet with me and actually look at the maps and discuss them. Because I think a lot of people are confused or mistaken about the maps for good reason. It's really complicated, technical stuff. I look at this all day, and I'm every day at 5:00 when I leave. I'm pretty confused and but I think that if I can explain how some of the mapping works in areas, people might at least understand some of what we're looking at.

Josh Slotnick: [00:17:20] At that meeting in Frenchtown, we heard some pretty angry folks, and they were angry because now they believe they would have to engage the services of a highly trained professional, like a surveyor or an engineer, to prove what they've known to be true via common sense for 40, 50 years. And they felt like, you know, county's doing this. The county should pay for it. What would your response be to something like that?

Matt Heimel: [00:17:41] The floodplain mapping is such a broad scale, and we're looking at this for community wide impacts. And there will be areas on a specific piece of property, very small scale changes in the landscape that can show maybe a one area being above that base flood elevation or above that water surface, and other areas that are lower. There are methods for someone to work with FEMA. They do have to hire a surveyor. It does cost money. However, that's really on the owner to follow through with those steps.

Josh Slotnick: [00:18:11] So in the meeting in Frenchtown, we heard people pretty angry that they were now in the floodplain, and they do not believe themselves to be in the floodplain because they believe the elevations on the draft maps are inaccurate. For them to get out of the floodplain, they need to get new elevations measured. That means hiring the expensive services of a professional, like an engineer or a surveyor. And these folks said to us, well, you're doing this to us. You should pay for it. The county should pay for it. I shouldn't have to pay for it. I didn't do anything. You put me in the dang floodplain. You mismeasured the ground. Why do I have to fix your dumb mistake?

Dave Strohmaier: [00:18:47] A couple thoughts, I guess. Offhand. One would be if folks are thinking that the county is the entity doing the mapping, we are not. We are in this position of needing to affirm and to adopt the FEMA and DNC produced maps, but I won't go so far as to say help is on the way. But we are kicking around the idea of recognizing that none of this mapping is completely infallible, and that someone might very well be correct that there's a disparity or discrepancy between the forthcoming maps and what is on the ground. We have kicked around the idea here in Missoula County whether we could do some level of initial ground truthing to get a sense for whether it appears as though something is off or not. What? The next steps. What that looks like yet to be determined, and what the next steps after that would be. Whether property owner would still need to go out and hire a licensed surveyor to to do the more fine grained work yet to be determined. That's most likely the case, but yeah, I think it's not lost on any of us that there could be legitimate discrepancies.

Josh Slotnick: [00:19:57] And we're not the only county in the state that is going to have new maps. Is that correct? That's right. So would there be a role for the state to play in this sort of thing if this was just Missoula County? It would be easier for at least for me personally to personally to swallow that. Okay. We need to take an active role in this, but the fact that this is happening in other places in the state, it's beyond Missoula County. It makes me wonder if there's a role for the state to play as well.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:20:21] Like invoicing them and see. Yeah.

Juanita Vero: [00:20:23] What sort of role are you? I mean.

Josh Slotnick: [00:20:25] If I was just going to make it up, I think let's say if we do some initial ground truthing and it looks like, wow, this really there might be something here. I would love to see the state have some kind of cost share program where a person, in order to qualify for it, would have to cross the threshold of some kind of initial ground truthing after that, the cost share would be maybe they pay 50%, the state pays 50%, and if they're correct, they get their money back. If they're wrong, then the state keeps their money because they had to use that money to pay an engineer or a surveyor to go out and really do detailed work. I wouldn't want to set up a program where every you just get it for free, because then every single person will do this, regardless of whether they cross any threshold of reasonableness. I've got a.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:21:03] Question and then an idea. Okay. And so my question, Matt. So what role does DNC, state, Department of Natural Resources and Conservation play in the mapping?

Matt Heimel: [00:21:13] Dnc has engineers that are spearheading the conversation with with FEMA to make sure that it goes along per FEMA mapping guidelines. Dnc is also at a managing role at the state level to make sure that communities like the city and the county are following through with the nfip.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:21:32] So that was my question. Here's the idea. We have a little gathering in Helena coming up in just a couple of months. A little gathering. The Montana legislature will be circling up in the state capitol. I wonder if there could be some legislation that might be. I mean, this seems.

Josh Slotnick: [00:21:50] To be calling out for such work.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:21:52] It's looking like the actual official maps are not going to be forthcoming as soon as we thought. So maybe there could be some time to think about a legislative fix to some of this.

Matt Heimel: [00:22:03] So this is getting at what I see is a really common issue, which is when somebody either with the effect of maps we have now or the draft maps, whatever floodplain maps we have, wherever they are, when someone's either a portion of their land or their house are above the base flood elevation. Bfe that is the numeric benchmark we use in so much of this. That's the elevation that we regulate with. That's the approximate water surface elevation in that 100 year flood. And if someone is above the base flood elevation. It gets pretty confusing for a number of reasons, because they can be eligible for something called a letter of map change, which again they have to pay a surveyor for, which can remove them from the requirement for flood insurance, but maybe not from the regulated flood hazard area, because we're also dealing with a definition at the state level that gets handed to the county, saying that the regulated flood hazard area includes anywhere within that mapped floodplain. So someone can be above the floodplain but still need a permit. We can make it as easy as we can for them because they're already above a certain point. They might need to pay a surveyor to have a letter map amendment to say that they're out for insurance purposes. But as far as going through with the map change process, it gets again, really complicated because FEMA has their own mapping principles and guidelines where they necessarily don't want to have islands in the map. So they'll connect areas. They'll either call it hydraulic connectivity if they see that there's a road or a railroad track and then connect areas of, of the floodplain. Or there could be an area that's so much surrounded by a, by an area going in the floodplain, that they'll essentially fill these places in and decide that it has to come up later through that Loma process.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:23:44] Loma.

Matt Heimel: [00:23:45] Yeah. The the letter of map amendment. Amendment. That's right.

Adriene Beck: [00:23:48] One of the things I was going to add about these maps, and kind of the spatial relation that they provide for our purposes in emergency management, but also for the public. It is a setting of being able to recognize where risk exists, and it is an opportunity to engage with people so that they have a better expectation around what is flooding going to look like. But it also allows us to plan for when a flood does occur. Where are we going to see water, what roadways are going to be impacted that are going to prevent us from safely moving people and or resources? And so to Matt's point, you know, there may be kind of these nuanced islands and things like that in the map and certainly don't want to minimize the impact that that has on homeowners, and there are avenues for them to address that. But what the maps also help us convey is that level of risk so that people are more aware of what they're more susceptible to. Great.

Juanita Vero: [00:24:38] I think that's a great way to to end.

Josh Slotnick: [00:24:40] So before we go, we're gonna ask you our standard question who wants to do what we do? Both. We have both Matt and Adrian. So in the recent past, is there some kind of nugget of wisdom chunk of culture you've run across that you feel like? Man, that really worked. That stuck with me. That's worth remembering. Maybe even repeating. This could be a song. You heard, a book you read, a show you watched, something somebody said. Podcast, podcast.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:25:04] An earlier version of Floodplain regulations. Yeah, whatever.

Josh Slotnick: [00:25:08] The 74 was awesome. Oh, man.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:25:10] That was a good year.

Josh Slotnick: [00:25:11] Holy crap, was that an incredible show? No. I'm sorry.

Adriene Beck: [00:25:14] I just recently listened to a book. An audiobook. It's called Means of Control. It was none of it was earth shattering, but it really was telling around how as a society, we have everything being app based and making ourselves so vulnerable to surveillance. And I don't mean surveillance from the like, creepy CIA standpoint, but surveillance from marketing and everything else and how every bit of our lives is out there and digestible and in some degree for sale. And it just it was a fascinating read.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:25:46] Wow. If you didn't know, we're being recorded right now.

Matt Heimel: [00:25:49] So flood related books?

Juanita Vero: [00:25:52] No, no, it can be.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:25:54] I mean, if it was inspiring.

Josh Slotnick: [00:25:55] Anything that was not a flood related book.

Matt Heimel: [00:25:58] Any book.

Josh Slotnick: [00:25:58] Anything, any book, any anything, any of the things that we, three of us just said, any matter of cultural delivery of culture that you could wrap your mind around.

Matt Heimel: [00:26:06] Delivery of? Yeah.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:26:08] Have you been inspired by anything? Anything.

Josh Slotnick: [00:26:09] That's a good way to describe it.

Matt Heimel: [00:26:11] Oh, yeah. So I recently have been digging into these four books I bought 11 years ago but didn't even understand, but I'm just now beginning to grasp it. Therefore, jazz guitar method books by a guy named Ted Green. Wow. And they're written in the 1970s, but harmonically so advanced, and they just get at, um, some really amazing things, like how to convey sounds of different chords, different chords that could be so dissonant or have such colorful textures, but it's more than just playing the chord. Being able to play different arpeggios and scales and superimpose those sounds so that you really convey the idea and move into one in another. Wow.

Juanita Vero: [00:26:48] So that's I play guitar best. I think that's the best answer.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:26:52] I didn't see that coming.

Juanita Vero: [00:26:53] Agenda. We've got to.

Josh Slotnick: [00:26:55] Connect you up with Tom McGuire from Providence because he lives for that stuff. Oh, cool. He's he's an incredible guitarist, has a little spot behind his house and spends hours and hours with just him and Jeff Beck trying to talk to each other.

Matt Heimel: [00:27:07] Oh, fantastic.

Josh Slotnick: [00:27:08] Yeah. I want to introduce you to.

Juanita Vero: [00:27:10] Okay. So. Great. Please do. Oh, and as always. Yeah. Where can people go to find more information?

Matt Heimel: [00:27:14] Missoula County Voice.com. We've got all the maps, all the floods, everything.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:27:20] They got it all there. Thank. Thanks so much.

Juanita Vero: [00:27:24] Thanks everyone.

Josh Slotnick: [00:27:25] Thanks for listening to the agenda. If you enjoy these conversations, it would mean a lot if you would rate and review the show on whichever podcast app you use.

Juanita Vero: [00:27:33] And if you know a friend who would like to keep up with what's happening in local government, be sure to recommend this podcast to them.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:27:39] The agenda with the Missoula County Commissioners is made possible with support from Missoula Community Access Television, better known as MCAT, and our staff in the Missoula County Communications Division.

Josh Slotnick: [00:27:51] If you have a question or a topic you'd like us to discuss on a future episode, email it to communications@missoulacounty.us.

Juanita Vero: [00:27:59] To find out other ways to stay up to date with what's happening in Missoula County, go to Missoula.co/countyupdates.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:28:06] Thanks for listening.