Inside how Mayor Cherelle Parker’s administration responded to flooding, its first major weather event
Managing Director Adam K. Thiel, who’s been in the job for all of two weeks, is leading much of the city's response to flooding and rain.
It was late Tuesday when top members of Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration held a lengthy video call about how the city would respond to a massive winter storm that dropped buckets of rain on Philadelphia.
Parker, who was inaugurated last week, wasn’t on the call — she delegated much of the response planning to new Managing Director Adam K. Thiel. He led the call alongside the city’s director of emergency management and heard from heads of other city agencies who briefed one another on rainfall, river heights, obstructed streets, and contingency plans.
Many of those department heads are holdovers from former Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration who have not yet been replaced or retained by Parker’s administration.
Joe Grace, Parker’s spokesperson, said the mayor was “apprised of everything happening” as water levels continued to rise Wednesday. Parker was expected to lead a cabinet meeting Wednesday afternoon, when top officials will likely brief her on the emergency response.
“She is expecting her appointees in the emergency management space to do their jobs,” he said, “and they are.”
» READ MORE: Live updates: Road closures, power outages, and water rescues reported across Philly area
The winter storm that brought heavy rains and significant winds through Philadelphia on Tuesday evening represented the first major weather event for Parker and her nascent administration. It comes as Parker has kept a light public schedule and has said she is focused primarily on hiring in order to fill out the top rungs of her leadership team.
While the Delaware River reached a record height early Wednesday morning and several roadways were closed due to flooding, Parker’s aides sought to project calm. Grace said the city had not yet activated its emergency operations center — where top officials can gather to monitor conditions citywide via a camera network — but was prepared to if necessary.
As of Wednesday morning, officials were monitoring obstructed roadways in several low-set places near the city’s two rivers, including along Kelly Drive and Martin Luther King Drive near the Schuylkill River, as well as on Columbus Boulevard on the city’s eastern edge.
The Police Department and Streets Department officials were also responding to flooded areas in Eastwick in Southwest Philadelphia and in Manayunk, both of which tend to see flooding during major rain events.
» READ MORE: ‘You can’t do this alone:’ Cherelle Parker reflects on her first week as Philly’s mayor
While Parker has named Thiel her managing director and tapped Police Commissioner Kevin J. Bethel to lead the force, she has not yet named leaders of most of the city’s operating departments. That includes ones that are typically involved in emergency response, such as the Water Department, the Streets Department, and the Office of Emergency Management.
Grace said each of those departments is still operating in the status quo and is being led by the people who led them under Kenney, including his appointed Emergency Management Director Dominick Mireles, who has led the office for about two years.
Thiel, the former fire commissioner, also has years of experience in emergency management and led that office for nearly two years before Mireles.
In addition, Carlton Williams, the Streets Commissioner whom Parker recently named to a new role as director of Clean and Green Initiatives, continues to lead the Streets Department through the weather emergency, Grace said.