in my capacity as the speaker of the california legislature, in 1989 i was invited by the then mayor to join, wellcome, and extend the arm of friendship to the then president, george bush, who came to tour the area as a result of the '89 earthquake. it was, for me, an incredible awakening. the president of the united states in total command of this nation. the most powerful individual in the world, observing in close detail what the mayor of oakland was doing with reference to the tragedy. what the persons who operated under his leadership in the

coast guard were doing. what the people at the state level, who had the responsibility for emergency relief, were doing. what the mayor of san francisco was doing by way of feeding the people who had been disrupted in terms of their lives as a result of the quake and its devastating attack on the marina district of san francisco. then, of course, we moved outside of san francisco, with a stout heart, moving outside this peninsula. results were equally as incredible. his comments and conversations with each individual, evidence of a very collected and qualified group of people who were willing to be in appropriate form, working together to produce quality results. then, of course, 2001 occurred.

now, the capacity of the mayor, in it i was awakened by martha:, a woman who was activating this activity. she tells me that i may not be going to new york, because something has happened to one of the world trade center towers that you should look at. looks like a small plane hit the towers. i clicked on the television, as all of you did. was just in time to see the second flight. dan at that point i knew what the mayor, the coast guard, and all of the other people who had been a part of the 89 experience had attempted to put together a had to go and play. you are going to hear about the perfection of each and every one

of those. it will begin to suggest to you that there is a level in america people who are dealing with the issues that might be before them, in case of any kind of emergency. is not just dealing with the physical issues. is not just dealing with how you do what ever you need to do to keep the traffic flowing in to keep the movement and repair the structure that needs to be repaired instantly. it is how you include how you deal with the incredible challenges that human beings themselves, psychological and otherwise, will be facing. this fleet week is clearly different from any previous fleet week we have had. but the planners have done, with

mike, george, and all of the other people, in recruiting people like the governor of mississippi, who has lived at the challenge that had to be executed quickly in terms of responding, in sharing all of that while at the same time celebrating the 100th anniversary of the u.s. navy and all of its flight acrobatics sector. this has got to be an incredible location. i am looking forward to going out there and listening to, very closely, but each one of these leaders will say so clearly as i arrived at the facility and the place where the emergency services were coordinated and how each one of the units, whether it was the fire, or people like our own chief, or whenever it was, dealing with

the people that came to see me from the coast guard, or the people that called me from other regions. speaking of coast guard, police officers, whatever, i saw your chief of police and he had less hair than i had. mr. mayor, i saw your chief of police and he had less hair than i had. i trust there is a level of stress that costs you your hair. you should do something about giving us the kind of guidance that will allow other responses and give us the assurance of all can be well as we go about meeting the potential that may be hours, in case of any form of

an emergency. i welcome each and every one of you and am looking forward to a fabulous 13,000 sailor visit, 13 ships visit, and all of the other activities the golan. more importantly, the information that will be forthcoming from this panel. thank you, and welcome to fleet week. [applause] >> never had a loss for words. we like that about mr. brown. first of all, let's thank the u.s. navy for bringing this beautiful ship to san francisco and once again participating in fleet week. a tradition that i can remember, having been born and raised in san francisco, having the opportunity to be around the navy and the personnel that make

this work, also allowing this intimate setting for this particular group. let me introduce, very briefly, our panel. we have a long day. first of all, on my far left, we have a young woman who was recently on television with me. the vice president of the san mateo board of supervisors. baez to have you here, adrian. thank you very much. next, capt. cynthia stone is here. she is captain of the port. i would say that that is a vitally important part of our community. no question about it. next, mayor quam, of oakland. congratulations to you, mayor, for your current operation.

also, oakland has been involved in a number of different activities. the oakland hills fire was a local disaster that i am sure we remember with regret. myself, i walked on the freeway when the embarcadero went down. i was on channel 7 at the time. it is a strange feeling to walk on a freeway that has just collapsed, let me tell you. the mayor of san francisco is here to contribute his portion to what san francisco will be doing if an event happens this significant and dangerous. the question that i think most of us would like to know, what is the most significant project that this city, and the cities

around us, can do, and participate in, in case of another disaster, natural or otherwise. >> thank you for having me here today. i would like to say congratulations and thank you to all those in uniform for your service. i think the one project that i think is a vitally critical that we are all working on together here is the hetch hetchy water system. we are improving that so we can make sure that that is protecting us in the case of an earthquake. right now, we're very vulnerable with our water system. but we have collaborated with all of the bay area to make sure that we can run those pipes through our different counties and make sure that we strengthen that. so in the event of a major earthquake, we will still have a water system in place. maybe the second one would be the microwave link to make sure

we have operability between all of our communities and the bay area so we can talk to one another in the case of a disaster. we are continuing to work on that. we're very close. that is something we have work very well together on as a region. i think my regional partners for that. >> ok. mayor lee. >> i wanted to emphasize that we're working on our bay area web-enhanced wireless communications. that is probably the most important one -- well, it is as important as the water delivery. but the communications is obviously something that we depend upon immediately. many of us have been working on our own systems for so many years and failing to connect up with each other. we learned a great lessons from what happened in oakland. unfortunately, lives were lost because of that. so we have to learn better.

i think the operability for the bay area, all 10 counties, all three major cities have been involved, and not only have we talked about it, we have actually agreed and formed a joint powers authority to make sure this project moves forward. we have done that with a stimulus money is, and we're on our way to a full agreement in implementing interoperable communications that will benefit us, and we will use the latest technology. we are already a green -- in agreement that it will be a 4g communications. that is to survive through the worst level of earthquake disaster. the biggest successes we have seven counties and three major cities already involved in that. i think that it's a great tribute to the level of concern, and also learned from past mistakes from all over the country and right in the region. >> let me ask the two of you, since we're on the subject --

what has been the most typical problem in terms of communication between the various agencies? is it a problem where one agency claims that they have responsibility or they do not have responsibility and passing it back and forth? i think this is a problem agencies that had in every type of natural disaster, when they say it is your term -- your turn -- no, it is my term. your turn, might turn. what problems at the scene in the past that would affect anything coming up in the future? >> i guess one thing we learned in the san bruno incident, in particular -- we were very fortunate that we had many agencies coming to our aid and risky. the problem was that oftentimes some of the information tools or the radio can activity or not always sink up. i think what we need to be sure of is that we can actually talk to one another, between our

radios between the different counties that came to our aid. i think we have also learned that we all -- we're all working on information-sharing tools because of that, and we're looking at web-based information tools that we can share on going. those are some of the lessons we actually learned from san bruno. we had to make sure we had the commands all in order and the communications and needed to be sent up a little bit better. -- needed to be synce littled up better . >> i would like to go back. i think we are each a different. i would guess for the bay area, the disaster that we know is happening, we just do not know when, is a major earthquake, either on the west side of the day or the east side of the day, more likely on the east side, the hayward fault, that we're expecting a major incident within 30 years. and we're now in the 142 yea

ä40-year hayward fault earthquake. we have not retrofitted our buildings. i felt -- i feel like we are like katrina. we knew the levees were not strong enough in at new orleans. we knew that the levies needed to be reinforced. in northern california, we know that, say, along the hayward fault that if it were to happen today at the level of retrofits that have been done, we will lose about 15,000 lives. in oakland, i will lose one- third of all my rental housing. there are soft story housing and other projects. for may, is to try to get monies freed up for a revolving lending pool so we can retrofit housing stock and buildings, because it only costs, on a single-family

home, less than $10,000 to retrofit a home. even with the real estate crisis, you say then a quarter million dollar home on the east bay with about $10,000 worth of work. the fact that we're not mobilizing along both sides of the bay, particularly where we have stopped -- soft story buildings and multi-story units for some of the poor people and some of the high-rises for richer people is, to me, sort of waiting for another katrina to happen. and i think that is the main thing we need to be working on. >> captain st militaryowe, already had a major -- captain cynthia stowe, the military has always had a major role in your area. what would be the role for your group in terms of significant preparation? >> thank you, it is an honor to be part of this esteemed panel

with our elected officials, so i appreciate the opportunity to be here. it is appropriate for the operational commander on the bay and the water, that connects all of the county, that we take part in this conversation. the most important issue for us following a major disaster, of course, is live-saving. we are on the water. our members are 4,000 strong. life-saving in the water is our first responsibility. but the reality is the waterway provides that lifeline to commerce. it is that piece that needs to come back and function as soon as possible so that we can use resources to help individuals affected by the disaster, as well as provide fuel to keep our refineries running, keep flames in the air, keep the river, good, and services. it is a dual function. the primary focus is a

lifesaving, and then at reconstitution and recovery of the port so we can get the goods and services into the community. >> one of the things that the coast guard has done over the years, and i have been involved in it myself being rescued by the coast guard in a boat that stopped running, is the individual kind of activities that go on in san francisco bay. those of us that had been on boats in the bay, with the coast guard has done a magnificent job. and just on a daily basis, not even talking about earthquakes or other types of activities, and helping the citizens of the bay area and also the other areas where the coast guard exists. >> thank you. in san francisco bay on any given week, we saved six lives. we do not do that by ourselves. we do that with our county fire department and the police departments that are by our side on the water. we worked very well together

using all of our limited resources to actually execute that mission on a daily basis. i can say we are well-practiced on a regular basis, and that will certainly serve us well in a disaster. >> i would also like to add that -- and i know that the coast guard is going to be there right off the bat on the first responding to save lives, and that is valuable. i think the strength of the coast guard and all the other military organizations is their ability to do logistics. that is where the real talent is when the navy and marines are able to get in in the few days after the large event. that is why i think it is so valuable for this to take place, because we can start working on closed logistical priorities. one of the things that i really have been championing is the ability to recover very quickly, and logistics is going to be key

to that. mobilizing personnel, carrying essential personnel, determining what that is. one of the things we're doing in san francisco is we already formed, with our key utilities, a utilities lifelines' council. to be in that discussion now with pg&e, with our own puc, water delivery, as well s metro, because of our hospitals are down for a long time, then we will be contra -- compromised with live sitting abilities. logistically, we will need key personnel in our city working on a reconnecting those lifelines, so that the key hospital centers in the medical clinics can operate. i think logistics, the talent that the military has, will be key. >> ok, one of the things that i do not think we should overlook is the fact that the military has been, of course, totally involved in all things. but on a daily basis, the san francisco police, the fireman,

the of the people who were in the city, contribute on a daily basis, as well as in the event of a disaster. i think those folks should be supported along with the military, a combination of both civil and military work to help protect the citizens of the bay area. right now, we're just wondering about the regional cooperation that we would have, for example, down the peninsula and oakland and san francisco in terms of a disaster that potentially could hit the whole san francisco area as loma prieta did. haven't there been talks among the group of you about what we can do in the case of that, and including the coast guard? >> i think it really depends on the size of the disaster. with loma prieta, the east bay was large hit, but even san francisco had some damage.

i remember my husband was a director at highland hospital at the time, and he could get the highway patrol, but he also had officers on the navy who would fly doctors from san francisco over because of the collapse of the east bay freeway. it turns out there were no survivors and we did not need them. i remember six or seven insurgents were flown over. in a major incident, we are going to need probably the naval hospital, literally. but i would like to go back to the point that ed was making, that logistics is part of it. i think what we learn from the wildfires in southern california is that we're going to use just in time supplies to the question is, have we done our regional shopping list, and have redone and for different disasters in the whole area, and whether or not maybe we should not try to leverage our buying power to get good prices ahead of time? we're getting to that point

where we can plan regionally for those types of things. particularly, if in oakland, for instance, we will lose 40% of our roads, passageways. i was fascinated by the previous presentation. using satellite technology, using the information data bases that the military has, you can help us quickly assess how to quickly get in and out of areas. we usually have 72 hours to rescue people. that is going to be critical. if it is a major bay area wide event and not just one side or the other side of the day, because we will not have enough search and rescue people, we will not have enough equipment, and it will be hard to get to more isolated areas like the east bay hills. if we have a really bad incident, you'll have a tsunami issue. then there will be an inner bay issue. those are two different kinds of issues. i am not even sure we will have

passage to the golden gate. there are a lot of different scenarios. i think the ability to gather the data on survivability, and one of the things to enter your last questions is that we have been playing with all of our software companies on what kind of applications we can make for may be a regular iphone, so people can help self-report where injuries are, which buildings are still standing, so we can have a very quick assessment of were the most injuries are an which infrastructures car most left in tact and must damaged. we're going to have to work with the private sector. i think our enemy will be time, particularly in a big incident, knowing how to get the -- how to get to people, knowing where people are hurt, and getting medical assistance to the bill that is what i worry about. this is not the north of japan. this is a highly dense urban

area. we're talking about tens of thousands of potential casualties. >> i would say one of the other important things, and i know we're doing this in san francisco, is a relationship- building. even within our city, one of our strengths is we have police, fire, and dem american red cross, with nert volunteers in the various committees, some residents in the neighborhoods already have a relationship- building. taking back to the bay area, this is for the opportunity is helpful, where we can start understanding even better what the military protocols are in relation to how they will interact with the civilians. that was a big challenge for us within the city, because we had to take a lot of time for folks to get to know how our fire department works and communications and protocol there, police and so forth.

same with each of the different military organizations. i think that we need a lot more of these practice sessions for the logistics leads that the military has can work in concert with our different jurisdictions so that we get used to who is on first base, who is on second, how things work in the military that we can take advantage of as we are forging these relationships. relationship-building is one of the most important things to get familiar with, because that is about who we saw with and what we can expect to manage the expectation. >> along those same lines, partnerships are extremely important. just to draw a good example, we have a coalition with 29 state and local agencies that participate, that came together, meeting up this weekend. they are all working together on the water right now to perform a protective force and the safety force around the operations that are ongoing.

it is relations like that that we build every single day and operations like fleet week, and the america's cup will be no different, where we build those. because we are on the water, we cut to the edge of each of the communities and have been very successful in bringing the committees, like the harbor safety committee and the maritime committee, where we interact with the to the elements. they're very powerful groups. we appreciate that opportunity. >> i appreciate the san francisco's mayor, 's about how we plan and exercise over and over again. and that is very important. we need to continue to plan right down to the local, local level. i think the one area that has not been talked about as much as a really the private sector. the private sector to play an incredible role with resources in our community. we're starting out working close

with them in san mateo county. businesses do not necessarily know the boundaries, like government does. so we need to bring them forward. we're working with our south county with the national disaster resiliency center at moffett field. we're working with the government sector so that they are all in together and they're not isolated. they bring a lot to the table. it is critical that we continue that regional collaboration, as well as our public sector partners. because they really do add a lot. >> we have all seen the result of some of the disasters that we have had in the bay area. when there was the fire we had in the san francisco marina or the freeway collapses around the bay area, but i wonder what the best way is to reach the average citizen -- hear i am, and to warn us about potential

disasters, because we talk about it, we have meetings. people get together, and pretty soon you have forgotten that the marina was burning or that the freeway is down. and at the citizens of various counties and countries to be aware of the fact that these things do happen and that then a -- that they should have some way of preparing just in case on an individual basis. >> that is a lead-in to the october 20 -- it will be the 20th anniversary of the firestorm in oakland, and we're going to be doing three evans. we're going to be having a major safety preparedness fair. i think all of our cities have done a pretty good job. i like the 72-hour website san francisco has. it is very simply, easy to use. oakland is known for our

neighborhood based training. we do it in 5 dedrick languages, our basic fre we do it in five t languages. we are organizing our neighbors block-by-block, particularly in areas that are likely to be isolated like oakland hil askine able to take care of themselves for 72 hours is something we're all doing right now, and we are trying to develop as many multilingual ways of doing that. i know that both ed and i have about 120 languages spoken in our cities. i have the windup radios in all of my cars and my closet, and i have water. i usually have flat shoes in my car in case of a disaster