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. if we can get every day area presented about what they can do to survive for 72 hours, that would be critical if you do not know and want to see some things come and join us on october 20. >> i think we all learned a valuable lesson after katrina.

i know we did in our county. from then on, we have had a disaster preparedness and day every year. we draw in dozens of people on that day. we talked to people about, you know, i will use san bruno as an example, we had all the resources you could want or need that evening, but there's no major -- no other major incident happening. if we have a major earthquake, that will not be the only thing happening. we face of a two hours, but we are actually pushing people to be self-sufficient for even a week. they need to have supplies in their house. the other thing we learned from san bruno and what we have been teaching people is when the disaster happened, people needed to call relatives outside of the area. they also realize that -- maybe they did or maybe they did not listen, but they had to have all their papers in some place other than their home should there be a disaster. and a lot of people struggled after the fire because they have lost everything, including their insurance papers and all their

other important papers. we tried to tell people, you are going to be responsible for yourself for the most part until the public safety people can come to you, and i can be a very long time. i think we really learn from some of the dusters that were not necessarily in our area, or other areas, but each and every person needs to be trained. we have the him -- we have the neighborhood emergency training programs and others, and they have done a tremendous job. but you cannot stop training, because you do not know when it is going to happen. >> captain stowe, we know that on a daily basis you're pulling people out of the water or rescuing people out of the big, sinking boats and so forth. do you have a regular schedule kind of prepared this practice session for various disasters in the bay area? >> absolutely. you know, there's a full range of contingency plans that we have developed and that they are

practiced. they are practiced with the state and local communities. they are practiced with the private sector as well. all of our facilities have received ships required to practice and participate. it is on going on a regular basis. it is just a very complex set of plans that do need to be exercised on a regular basis so that we are ready to execute on them. oil spills and search and rescue, security, to name a few of the subject areas that we practice. >> from a security standpoint, and do you have responsibility for checking ships coming in and out of the bay? >> we do, and the coast guard has a system where ships are given -- have to give 96-hour notice of a rival for coming into the bay. all ships are screened in advance of arrival. the restraint for carter, last ports of call, and crewmembers.

ships with a higher security risk are boarded that sea. if we were to encounter a security incident, those are in place every single day. >> on a financial note, most cities have been effected recently with the downturn in the economy, and i wonder how that affects your ability to deal with problems when you have a smaller police force, smaller sheriff's office, and so forth. it has to be taken into consideration. cities are getting bigger. many times the helpful units we have become accustomed to have been cut either by budget or by personnel. >> i think we can all speak to that one. one thing we have done in our county, many of our cities are struggling, especially with public safety.

our share of its department has shared services. we're now operating san carlos, half moon ba. y we're sharing services so we can take -- so we can continue across the board. so far, it has done very well. we're counting with 20 cities. as it relates to public safety, we have taken evidence to the fact we do not need to have, you know, 20 separate departments. we can consolidate and share services. >> what about the city of san francisco, mayor lee? >> and those resources are dwindling and we have had to be creative. one area that we have been very creative in in the public- private partnership is getting private funds, helping to supplement our education programs in schools and never had associations. that has been extremely important for us.

we do have corporate sponsors that have stepped up. the recognize that not everything can be done with both federal and state and dwindling funds. when it comes to educating our residents, companies like walgreen's and city-wide stores have stepped up and funded educational programs so that they can have to both the tools and resources to educate residents write in their neighborhoods. i think that has been wonderful, and it has been an expanding program. those neighborhood programs will be extremely important to help connect up when the big disasters happen. >> i remember in elementary school, since i am just a kid, were the air raid withdrawals from world war ii, and children were taught to duck under their desks. that seems rather antiquated at this time. but our their drills and helpful hints for the children and for the teachers, just in case something h