>> i am the vice chair. i would like to welcome you all today. thank you for coming out to commemorate the 22nd anniversary of the loma prieto earthquake

and training everyone to be prepared for earthquakes. at this time, we are honored to have mayor lee present. he will open the ceremonies. >> thank you. welcome, everyone. i wanted to come by and signal my support for this wonderful idea of the guardians for the city. i know supervisor farrell will talk more about that. i thought this would be an appropriate time to recognize those that we lost in our city in 1989 and give recognition to the great number of volunteers that have sprung up over years to give even more strength to our communities and city.

i want to thank our fire department and police department for always coming together in every situation. there is a very renewed effort to strengthen our city. nert is such a wonderful program that gets right into our neighborhoods to make sure that the volunteers have a role to play. how i want you to know that the commitment from our city is very solid. we want our city to be so strong in everything it does to prepare for our next disaster. i want to thank our sheriff for being here. he knows working as a city with all our public safety departments helps our neighborhoods. i also want to say to you that we have so many other heroes in

our neighborhood that have sprung up, even in the last fire we all experienced down on a street. -- 8th street. it was called in by someone trained in our nert program. individuals are taking up their responsibilities. connecting up with our public safety agencies is helping us become a stronger city. this commemoration of the loma prieta earthquake, in recognition of all our public safety divisions, i want to thank all of you for being here. i want to thank supervisor farrell for leading this effort as well. this is an historic reminder that we have a history to honor and recognize.

as importantly moving forward, we need to bring our city closer together in recognition of the needs we have to help each other out in every way possible. that is the most important message of this. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you very much. i would like to introduce sheriff tennessee -- hennesy. out his support, the guardians of the city would not exist in san francisco. >> thank you. despite some rumors, i was not sheriff during the 1906 earthquake, but i was sheriff during the 1989 earthquake. i can say that san francisco is much better prepared today than we were in 1989. we have much better radio communication and agency cooperation and training than we've ever had before. the lessons we learned from 1989

are things we have trained on and prepared for what will happen eventually at some point. we do not want it to happen anytime soon. you are in a beautiful facility for the fire department. the agencies have come together to create a larger public safety endeavor called the guardians of the city. it has a website if you want to look at it and get involved. the idea is to share the history of the san francisco sheriff's department, police department, fire department, and paramedics and emergency responders. as they say, those who forget history are destined to repeat it. it is also an effort to remind people of the challenges that we faced in the past and will face

in the future. it is personalities, events, and amazing stories of humans overcoming incredible obstacles. that is why i enjoy the guardians of the city so much. i want to emphasize that today's remembrance of the 1989 earthquake, it is hard for me to believe it was 22 years ago. it seems like it was not that long ago to me. the city is much better prepared. we want to continue to work on those preparations so that we can face as best as possible any calamity that san francisco faces. thank you very much. [applause] >> another strong supporter. [applause] >> it is a real privilege to be here with mayor lee and my public safety partners.

he is the longest serving sheriff in the state of california. he is only being modest when he says he was not here in 1906. [laughter] [applause] it is such an honor to be amongst all of this tradition. as he said, those without the knowledge of history destined to repeat it. this city is so proud of its history and so rich in its history. you can look around with a fire department has displayed. it will grow in time. it is a tribute to guardians of the city and the people around me that and gotten this thing going and will keep it going. 22 years ago, we all remember where we were. we remember the giants were playing in the world series. we are so much farther along

than we were 22 years ago with public-private partnerships and preparing for every calamity aroma world as if it occurred here. prior to becoming mayor, mayor lee was charged with recovery planning. that has moved far along for infrastructure with public/private partnerships. we're committed to prepare more today than yesterday. we need the help of everybody to get it done. we have to keep in mind how far we have come and how far we have to go. [applause] >> thank you. i would like to introduce the sheriff of san joaquin valley -- county. thank you for coming. i would also like to acknowledge some members of the board and guardians of the city.

mike anderson of the sheriff's department. dave everly from emergency management. jamie o'keefe, jan ford. did i miss anybody? where is mike? i mentioned jamie. she has her whole family here today. as we enter the solemn moments, i like to call joanne hayes- white up to lead us through. >> thank you. you will hear more about the guardians of the city. it is a wonderful concept. welcome to station 10. this is our museum. it has beautiful pieces and parts of our city and history and department. as you can see, it has outgrown

this place. the guardians of the city are working on a place where our departments' histories will all be housed together so that the public can come, visit, and do research. my hat is off to all of the volunteers putting this concept together. thank you for that. i would also like to acknowledge the presence of one of my predecessors, also a huge history buff who knows so much about the city and apartment,, the former chief of the department ed phipps and his wife. [applause] thank you so much for being here. while we are acknowledging people, i would like to pay my

utmost respect to our sheriff who will be retiring sen. he is a rich part of the city history. i think was entering high school when mike started as sheriff. it is a well-deserved retirement. [applause] >> she says she was still in high school when i became share. i keep reminding people they do not know how long it took her to get through high school. [laughter] >> we joke that he is retiring sen. when i reached the end of my career, i am going to take the show on the road. a light to pay-respect -- my respect and thank you for your dedication to the city. we're here to learn more about the guardians of the city. it is all about what happened here at 5:00 04 on october 17, 1989. that was the loma prieta earthquake. 67 people lost their lives. there were countless others that

were impacted and injured. i will echo our police chiefs and sheriffs. we are much better prepared today than we were in 1989. that does not mean our work is done. we can always improve our efforts. it is most important on days like today to continue to emphasize that message. as the public safety department, we will be there for you on any given day and at a difficult time. when there is a large disaster, that is when the community apart comes in. we're very well-coordinated with the department of emergency management. we exercise and train together frequently. that is so we can respond effectively in moving to the recovery phase as quickly as possible. preparedness is the key message.

mayor lee has always been a champion for public safety and prepared this report. this -- preparednes.. there is no reason not to be prepared. there many websites. we're very proud of our nert program. we recognize and thank the community that wanted to work with us shoulder to shoulder. the one thing that was missing was the training and education. in 1990, we went about creating and developing curriculum to teach the communy. it is free. is about disaster preparedness, how to keep your family safe, stay safe in your workplace, pets, it has a lot of ideas and concepts that should become natural. we're very seismically vulnerable. we need to be adequately prepared. the preparedness message is

keeping the more of us that are prepared, the better off we will be when we come to respond in moving to the recovery phase. that is my message. i also want to thank supervisor farrell. we are delighted region were delighted to be able to extinguish the fires 22 years ago. -- we were delighted to be able to extinguish the fires 22 years ago in the marina district. thank you for being here today and supporting the concept of the guardians of the city. i will hand it back over to the captain. thank you very much for coming. have a look around. [applause] >> i would like to introduce supervisor farrell.

he is our shepherd through the legislative process. >> when the captain came to talk to me about the notion of the guardians of the city, when i first came into office, it was such a no-brainer. i stand before you today as a member of the board of supervisors representing district two and also as someone who feels a personal connection to what we're doing. i grew up in the marina district. i went through the 1989 earthquake in a personal way. my family home was severely damaged in the earthquake. we were forced out of our home for over a yeawhile it was repaired. we spent the first three weeks volunteering for the red cross shelter, seeing my neighbors getting tagged and told whether they could go back in or would never be able to go back into

their homes. i witnessed firsthand what our public safety departments did. for that, we are forever grateful. it is a testament that we have mayor lee and the heads of all our public safety departments with us today. as a kid whose parents were founding members of nert, for me it is such a personal thing. it is something i am happy and proud to be part of. it is about preparing for the future. i am proud to serve on the disaster council with mayor lee. we are doing so much with the department of emergency management and city hall to make sure we are prepared for the next big one. it is also really important to remember the past. it is really important to honor those who serve us, kept a safe, and will continue to do so.

for me, guardians of the city is what it is about. it is honoring our public safety departments, those who put their lives on the line for us, and will be critical for us as citizens of san francisco in the future when the next one hits. we need to make sure that we continue to be prepared with them in the future and to honor their past to make sure it is safe for future generations of all san franciscans to make sure we remember. it is an honor to do that. i look forward to working with everyone here in making this museum a reality in the future. thank you very much. [applause] >> on going to ask the director of the department of emergency management to come up. she will be followed by moments of silence, remember this, and observation that led by chief

hayes-white. >> it is a pleasure to be here today among my distinguished colleagues. thank you so much. i think i am the luckiest person in san francisco to have the job as the director of the department of emergency management. i get to work with all these wonderful people. we enjoy the support of our legislative body and our executive body. i think that is very unusual. it is one of the reasons we have been able to become so much better prepared this -- preparedness because our elected leaders understand how important it is that san francisco be able to recover and the resilience. when mayor lee was our city

administrator, he undertook the whole effort for resiliency. this morning, we had a symposium that was very successful at city hall talking about the committee approach to disaster preparedness, response, and recovery. the fact that we cannot do it alone. police department, the fire department, the sheriff -- none of us has the capacity to be able to respond ourselves. we need to work as a community. you need to get to know your neighbors. you need to know what resources are in your neighborhood. all of that being said, we have many great schools we have come up with. check out 72hours.org. you can find simple things you can do to make sure you are prepared at home. they also have " happens -- today also happens to be bosse''

day. i would like to give a big shot out to my boss, mayor lee. i will do a proclamation for you, mr. mayor. i want to thank you for all of your support. you have been wonderful. i know is coming up on 5:00 04 when we will do a moment of silence. i want to invite all of you to the reception after this on california and presidio. we hope you will all join us. thank you for being here today. [applause] >> i would also like to acknowledge72 hours our fire

commission since 1996. he is here today. he is been a great champion for the city and has served a countless number of years. he has been a great supporter of of thing san francisco, particularly the fire department. thank you for being here today. [applause] i also have two division chiefs. we have the division chiefs here representing the city. [applause] i am also joined by my deputy chief. i want to acknowledge him. now here's retired captain jim lead to say a few things. >> i think we have a couple of minutes before we hit the timeline. i want to give the history on how we got started on this endeavor.

we were discussing coming together in a joint organization called guardians of the city. there were two organizations that stepped up to move it forward. it was the police officers association, and the firefighters local 798. i would like to commend those two organizations for having the idea and making it happen. they have the seed money to get us started with guardians of the city to create a nonprofit public charity. i like to honor them. tom o'connor is now the new president of local 798. thank you. >> i would like tom o'connor to come forward. chief white.

>> i am told i have approximately two more minutes. we did become a paid professional department in 1867. we will see adjacent to station 10 -- i served my probation here. the firefighters would come over. it gives you a snapshot of the department history and how we advanced from the beginning in 1867 to where we are today in 2011. as we approach 5:04, we would like to have a solemn moment. the deputy chief will bring the department fell three times.

we will observe a moment of silence and reflect back to october 17, 1989. 67 lives were lost. thousands were injured. much property was devastated. people's lives were greatly affected. i will ask you -- [bell ringing three times] ♪

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