it is the vocation. no matter how difficult it gets, you are going to need to produce your art. whether it is a large scale or very small scale. the need to create is going to happen, and you are going to have to fulfill it because that is your life. >> hi. i am cory with san francisco and we're doing stay safe and we're going to talk about what shelter in place or safe enough to stay in your home means. we're here at the urban

center on mission street in san francisco and joined by carla, the deputy director of spur and one of the persons who pushed this shelter in place and safe enough to stay concept and we want to talk about what it means and why it's important to san francisco. >> as you know the bay area as 63% chance of having a major earthquake and it's serious and going to impact a lot of people and particularly people in san francisco because we live on a major fault so what does this mean for us? part of what it means is that potentially 25% of san francisco's building stock will be uninhibit tabl and

people can't stay in their homes after an earthquake. they may have to go to shelters or leave entirely and we don't want that to happen. >> we want a building stock to encourage them to stay in the homes and encourage them to stay and not relocate to other locations and shelters. >> that's right so that means the housing needs to be safe enough to stay and we have been focused in trying to define what that means and you as a former building official knows better than anybody the code says if an earthquake happens it won't kill you but doesn't necessarily say that can you stay in your home and we set out to define what that might mean and you know because you built this house we're in now and this shows

what it's like to be in a place safe enough to stay. it's not going to be perfect. there maybe cracks in the walls and not have gas or electricity within a while but can you essentially camp out within your unit. what's it going to take to get the housing stock up to this standard? we spent time talking about this and one of the building types we talk about was soft story buildings and the ground floor is vulnerable because there are openings for garages or windows and during the earthquake we saw in the marina they went right over and those are -- >> very vulnerable buildings. >> very and there are a lot of apartment buildings in san that that are like that. >> and time to.

>> >> retrofit the buildings so people can stay in them after the earthquake. >> what do they need? do they need information? do they need incentives? mandates? >> that's a good question. i think it starts with information. people think that new buildings are earthquake proof and don't understand the performance the building will have so we want a transparent of letting people know is my building going to be safe in it after an earthquake? is my building so dangers i should be afraid of being injured? so developing a ranking system for buildings would be very important and i think for some of the larger apartment buildings that are soft story we need a mandatory program to fix the buildings, not over night and not without financial help or incentive, but a phased

program over time that is reasonable so we can fix those buildings, and for the smaller soft story buildings and especially in san francisco and the houses over garages we need information and incentives and coaxing the people along and each of the owners want their house to be safe enough. >> we want the system and not just mandate everybody. >> that's right. >> i hear about people talking about this concept of resiliency. as you're fixing your knowledge you're adding to the city wide resiliency. >> >> what does that mean? >> that's a great question. what spur has done is look at that in terms of recovery and in new orleans with katrina and lost many of the people, hasn't

recovered the building stock. it's not a good situation. i think we can agree and in san we want to rebuild well and quickly after a major disaster so we have defined what that means for our life lines. how do we need the gasolines to perform and water perform after an earthquake and the building stock as well, so we have the goal of 95% of our homes to be ready for shelter in place after a major earthquake, and that way people can stay within the city. we don't lose our work force. we don't lose the people that make san francisco so special. we keep everybody here and that allow us to recover our economy, and everything because it's so interdependent. >> so that is a difficult goal but i think we can achieve it over the long time so thank you very much for hosting us and hosting this great exhibit, and thank you very much for joining

today we are going to talk about fire safety. we are here at the urban center on mission street in san francisco. it's a wonderful display. a little house in the urban center exhibition center that shows what it's like in a home in san francisco after an earthquake. one of the major issues that we are going to face after earthquakes are fire hazard. we are happy to have the fire marshall join us today. >> thank you. my pleasure. >> we talk about the san francisco earthquake that was a

fire that mostly devastated the city. how do we avoid that kind of problem. how can we reduce fire hazard? >> the construction was a lot different. we don't expect what we had then. we want to make sure with the gas heaters that the gas is shut off. >> if you shut it off you are going to have no hot water or heat. be careful not to shut it off unless you smell gas. >> absolutely because once you do shut it off you should have the utility company come in and turn it back on. here is a mock up of a gas hear the on a house. where would we find the gas meter? >> it should be in your garage. everyone should be familiar

with where the gas meter is. >> one of the tools is a wrench, a crescent wrench. >> yes. the crescent wrench is good and this is a perfect example of how to have it so you can loosen it up and use it when you need it. >> okay. let's go inside to talk about fire safety. many of the issues here relate to fire, for example, we have a little smoke detector and i see you brought one here, a carbon monoxide smoke detector. >> this is a combination of smoke and carbon monoxide detector. they are required in single homes now and in

apartment buildings. if gas appliance is not burning properly this will alert you before the fumes buildup and will affect you negatively. >> this is a battery powered? >> this is a battery powered and it has a 10 year battery life. a lot of times you may have one or the other. if you put in just a carbon monoxide detector, it's important to have one of these too. every house should have a fire extinguisher, yes. >> one thing people expect to do when the power goes out after an earthquake about using candles. what would you recommend? >> if you have a battery operated candle would be better to use. this kind of a candle,

you wouldn't want it in an area where it can cause a fire or aftershock that it doesn't rollover. you definitely want to have this in a non-combustible surface. >> now, here we have our stove. after a significant earthquake we expect that we may have gas disrupted and so without gas in your home, how are you going to cook? >> well, i wouldn't recommend cooking inside of the house. you have to go outside and use a portable stove or something else. >> so it wouldn't be safe to

use your fireplace to cook? >> not at first. you should check it by a professional first. >> outside should be a safe place to cook as long as you stay away from buildings and doors and windows. >> yes. that will be fine. >> here we have some alternative cooking areas. >> you can barbecue and if you have a regular propane bark could barbecue. >> thank you for joining us. and thanks for this terrific space that you have in this exhibition space and thanks for helping san francisco stay safe. >> hi, i'm lawrence corn field.

welcome to building san francisco. we have a special series, stay safe. we're looking at earthquake issues. and today we're going to be talking with a residential building owner about what residential building owners and tenants can and should do before earthquakes and after earthquakes. ♪ ♪ >> we're here at this wonderful spur exhibit on mission street in san francisco and i have with me today my good friend george. thanks for joining me, george. and george has for a long time owned residential property here in san francisco. and we want to talk about apartment buildings and what the owner's responsibilities might be and what they expect their tenants to do. and let's start by talking a

little bit about what owners can do before an earthquake and then maybe after an earthquake. >> well, the first thing, lawrence, would be to get together with your tenants and see if they have earthquake insurance or any renters insurance in place because that's going to be key to protecting them in the event of a quake. >> and renters insurance, there are two kinds of insurance. renters insurance coffers damage to goods and content and so forth. earthquake insurance is a separate policy you get after you get renters insurance through the california earthquake authority, very inexpensive. and it helps owners and it helps tenants because it gives relocation costs and it pays their rent. this is a huge impact on building owners. >> it's huge, it really is. you know, a lot of owners don't realize that, you know, when there is an earthquake, their money flow is going to stop. how are they going to pay their mortgages, how are they going to pay their other bills, how are they going to live? >> what else can property

owners do in residential rental housing before an earthquake? >> well, the first thing you want to do is get your property assessed. find out what the geology is at your site. get an expert in to look at structural and nonstructural losses. the structural losses, a lot of times, aren't going to be that bad if you prepare. an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. get in there and get your property assessed and figure it out. >> so, what is a nonstructural issue that might cause losses? >> well, you know, pipes, for instance. pipes will whip around during an earthquake. and if they're anchored in more numerous locations, that whipping won't cause a breakage that will cause a flood. >> i've heard water damage is a major, major problem after earthquakes actually. >> it is. that's one of the big things. a lot of things falling over, ceilings collapsing. but all of this can be prevented by an expert coming in and assessing where those

problem areas and often the fixes are really, really cheap. >> who do you call when you want to have that kind of assessment or evaluation done? >> the structural engineering community is great. we have the structural engineers association of northern california right here in san francisco. they're a wealth of information and resources. >> what kinds of things might you encourage tenants to do besides simply get tenants renters insurance and earthquake insurance, what else do you think tenants should do? >> i think it's really important to know if they happen to be in the building where is the safest place for them to go when the shaking starts. if they're out of the building, whats' their continuity plan for connecting with family? they should give their emergency contact information to their resident manager so that the resident manager knows how to get in touch. and have emergency supplies on hand. the tenants should be responsible to have their extra

water and flashlights and bandages and know how to use a toilet when there's no sewage and water flows down. and the owners of the building should be proactive in that regard as well. >> so, george, thank you so much for joining us. that was really great. and thanks to spur for hosting us here in this wonderful exhibit. and thank you for joining us >> hi, i'm with building san francisco and we have a special program of stay safe today. but we're going to talk about what you can do to your home after an earthquake to make it waterproof and to be more comfortable. ♪ ♪ >> we're here at spur in san francisco, this wonderful exhibit of safe enough to stay. and this is an example of what your home might be like after an earthquake.

and we have today with us ben latimer. thank you for joining us. >> my pleasure, good to see you. >> we're going to talk about things that you might do ... >> hi, i'm with building san francisco. and we have a special program of stay safe today where we're going to talk about what you can do to your home after an earthquake to make it waterproof and to be more comfortable.

we're here at spur in san francisco, this wonderful exhibit of safe enough to stay. and this is an example of what your home might be like after an earthquake. and we have today with us ben latimer from tvan. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> we'll talk about things you can do you don't have to be a professional contractor to make your home more livable after an earthquake. >> i want to talk about things a homeowner can do. we have comfort and we have things like a little bit of maybe safety if your front door is ajar and waterproofing if you have a leak in your roof, or if you have broken glass on the window. >> so unr, one of the most important fib use is keeping outside out and inside in. let's look at windows. >> let's assume this window is broken in the earthquake. we have wind and rain blowing in. one of the most important things you need to do as a homeowner is secure the plastic

properly. if you just take staples or nails and put them into the plastic, we're going to get a strong wind and rip it right off. what i'm going to have somebody do is they're going to have -- this is an old piece of shingle. you might have -- everybody has a piece of wood in their basement. it doesn't have to be fancy. they take out this rusty screw begun, and hopefully you have one of these. >> there is one at the neighborhood support center. >> at the neighborhood support center. you're going to wrap this plastic around this board, take your screw. and then screw that in. >> you need a permit for this? >> you do need a permit for this. and you can contact the former head building inspector to get that permit. that's it. now when the wind blows, it's tight and it's not going to pull through, having a single point of contact. >> great. what about this door? take a look at this door. what can you do? let's say it doesn't shut

tight. what can you do? >> for the sake of argument, we're on the inside. i can't lock my door at night. i have a very similar, very similar idea. i'm going to take my 2 by 4. i can put it across the jamb in the door. one. two. maybe i want another one up here, maybe another one down there. but i can go to sleep. and that quickly, i can get it off in the morning. >> terrific. what about the roof up here? we see people throw blue tarps over their roof after an earthquake. that seems reasonable. >> i think the blue tarp is reasonable. the things that people want to know that they need to know is if you have multiple tarps, how you overlap. starting from the bottom and moving up so that you're overlapping this way. so, rain running down doesn't slide under your tarp. >> right. >> and the same technique we did over here, as silly as it may sound, wrapping the end of

that blue tarp with your board and then securing that if you can underneath, if you have to on top is fine. but making sure that you don't have an area where the wind is going to get under and bill owe that tarp. >> the wind can rip it right off. >> and then you're back up there again. >> let's go inside and check out what we can do inside. >> old fun. here we go. >> so, ben, i see you have nails, universal tool right here. >> man's best friend. duct tape. let me show you a couple things we can use this for after an earthquake. this window right here, because it's off kilter, we have open seams all along. i have a lot of air coming through. i want to stay comfortable at night. i want to keep that air out. it's as simple as that, all the way around. >> excellent. >> now i don't have any air coming in. let's say this one is one that would annoy me. everything is a little off. my doors won't stay closed. i take a piece of my favorite duct tape here, close it up. and at least it will stay out

of my way when i'm trying to live throughout my day. if we're not talking about pressurized water, we're talking about just the drain, sometimes they're going to get a crack here. >> right, sure. >> and you're going to get a leak. duct tape around that is going to help us get through until we can get a plumber out and get that fixed as well. let's say we only have electricity in one room, so we're running extension cords across the house. if i'm going to run an extension cord from one room to the other, i don't want kids tripping on it. i don't want to trippon it. i take my trusty duct tape, tape it to the floor, and i don't have to worry about it getting kicked. >> great, great. look at this. let's look at the duct tape here because we see a big -- >> yes. in the event of an earthquake, i don't think we're going to have too many -- too much debris that's safe to put into a plastic bag, even as strong as it might be. these are called vice bags. this is what they use to put rice and things when they ship it. this is something where i take my glass, i can take broken

pieces of wood, i can take anything sharp and fill it. and it's not going to puncture and come out. it's not going to fall all over the floor. i've not going to have it sticking out, maybe scratch myself, cut myself or anything like that. these are a great thing to have. >> you have a little go-to box for emergencies. that's great. thanks very much for joining us, ben. it's really been interesting. and i want to thank you all for joining us here at the spur urban center. and we'll see you again >> hi, i'm lawrence. welcome to building san francisco. we're doing a special series, stay safe, about staying in your home after an earthquake. let's look at issues related to water and sewer. ♪ ♪ >> we're here at the san francisco spur urban center on mission street in san francisco and i am joined today by

maryellen carol from the puc who is going to talk to us about water and sewer issues which are major issues after an earthquake. >> absolutely. >> so, what are the things we should be concerned about about water? we have no water. >> so, you want to be prepared for that scenario. and the recommendation is to have stored one gallon per person per day that you would be out of water. we recommend that you have at least three to five days stored for each person and also keep into consideration storage needs for your pets and think about the size of your pets and how much water they consume. >> we have this storage which is using tap water. >> yes. >> so, of course at the puc we recommend that you store our wonderful delicious hetch hetchy tap water. it's free. comes out of the tap and you can store it in any plastic container really, clean plastic container, for up to six months. so, find a container, fill it

with water, label it, and rotate it out. i use it to water my garden. >> and then, of course, everyone has plastic bottles of water which we are not really promoting, but a common way to store. >> yes, it's an easy way to pick up a cart of bottleses to store just to make sure you check the label. this one says june 2013. so, that's convenient. you have it and date on it. >> and then there are other places where people have water stored in their houses. >> right. so, if you have a water heater, access to the water heater for your house, your building, you can drink that water. you can also drink the water that is in the tank of your toilet. not the bowl, but the tank behind. >> most people are not very happy about that. >> probably a last resort, but in desperate times may call for desperate measures. in any case, if you're not totally sure about the age of your water or if you're not sure about it's totally clean,

you can treat water at home. so, there's two ways that you can treat your water at home. and one is to use basic household worse, which i think we have some here. * bleach the recommendation is 8 drops of bleach for every gallon of water. you add 8 drops of bleach for every gallon of water, shake it up, it needs to silt for 30 minutes. after that you're good to go. the other option is to boil water, bring it to a rolling boil 5 to 10 minutes. after an earthquake that may not be an option as gas may be turned off and you may not have power. the other thing about that is that the puc will provide information as quickly as possible about recommendations about whether the water is good, okay to drink, or if you need to treat it. we have a number of different ways to get information from the puc through twitter and facebook and our website sf water.org.

>> people should not drink water from pools or spas or other source he. they could use that water to flush their toilets if the water was off, if the sewers are not broken and working. let's take a look at a toilet and talk about those issues. >> sounds good. so, sanitation is another issue that -- and something people don't usually or like to think about, but it's the reality that in very likely, without water, you can't flush. and the sewer system could be impeded or affected during an earthquake. so, you need to think about how you're going to deal with sanitation. the options are fairly simple. we recommend a set up if you're able to stay in your building or your house to make sure that you have heavy duty trash bags available. you can set this up within your existing toilet bowl. and once it's used, you take a little bit of our bleach which we talked about earlier from the water.

you seal the bag completely, make sure you mark the bag as human waste and set it aside, and wait for instructions on how that will be disposed by the puc. be very cognizant and very aware of cleanliness and making sure that you have either wipes or other cleaning solutions to make sure that folks are able to wash up after dealing with the sanitation issue. >> great. so, thank you so much maryellen for coming and helping us out here. and thank you all for joining us on building san francisco and st >> how is it going san francisco. it's springtime in san francisco. here is what's happening around town. this march join