>> hi today we have a special edition of building san francisco, stay safe, what we are going to be talking about san francisco's earth quakes, what you can do before an earthquake in your home, to be ready and after an earthquake to make sure that you are comfortable staying at home, while the city recovers. ♪

>> the next episode of stay safe, we have alicia johnson from san francisco's department of emergency management. hi, alicia thanks to coming >> it is a pleasure to be here with you. >> i wonder if you could tell us what you think people can do to get ready for what we know is a coming earthquake in san francisco. >> well, one of the most things that people can do is to make sure that you have a plan to communicate with people who live both in and out of state. having an out of state contact, to call, text or post on your social network is really important and being able to know how you are going to communicate with your friends, and family who live near you, where you might meet them if your home is uninhab hitable. >> how long do you think that it will be before things are restored to normal in san francisco. >> it depends on the severity of the earthquake, we say to

provide for 72 hours tha, is three days, and it helps to know that you might be without services for up to a week or more, depending on how heavy the shaking is and how many after shocks we have. >> what kind of neighborhood and community involvement might you want to have before an earthquake to make sure that you are going to able to have the support that you need. >> it is important to have a good relationship with your neighbors and your community. go to those community events, shop at local businesses, have a reciprocal relationship with them so that you know how to take care of yourself and who you can rely on and who can take care of you. it is important to have a battery-operated radio in your home so that you can keep track of what is happening in the community around and how you can communicate with other people. >> one of the things that seems important is to have access to your important documents. >> yes, it is important to have copies of those and also stored them remotely. so a title to a home, a

passport, a driver's license, any type of medical records that you need need, back those up or put them on a remote drive or store them on the cloud, the same is true with any vital information on your computer. back that up and have that on a cloud in case your hard drive does not work any more. >> in your home you should be prepared as well. >> absolutely. >> let's take a look at the kinds of things that you might want to have in your home. >> we have no water, what are we going to do about water? >> it is important for have extra water in your house, you want to have bottled water or a five gallon container of water able to use on a regular basis, both for bathing and cooking as well as for drinking. >> we have this big container and also in people's homes they have a hot water heater. >> absolutely, if you clean your hot water heater out regularly you can use that for showering, drinking and bathing as well

>> what other things do people need to have aren't their home. >> it is important to have extra every day items buy a couple extra cans of can food that you can eat without any preparation. >> here is a giant can of green giant canned corn. and this, a manual can opener, your electric can opener will not be working not only to have one but to know where to find it in your kitchen. >> yes. >> so in addition to canned goods, we are going to have fresh food and you have to preserve that and i know that we have an ice chest. >> having an ice chest on hand is really important because your refrigerator will not be working right away. it is important to have somebody else that can store cold foods so something that you might be able to take with you if you have to leave your home. >> and here, this is my very own personal emergency supply box for my house. >> i hope that you have an alternative one at home. >> oh, i forgot. >> and in this is really

important, you should have flashlights that have batteries, fresh batteries or hand crank flashlight. >> i have them right here. >> good. excellent. that is great. additionally, you are going to want to have candles a whistle, possibly a compass as well. markers if you want to label things if you need to, to people that you are safe in your home or that you have left your home. >> i am okay and i will meet you at... >> exactly. exactly. water proof matches are a great thing to have as well. >> we have matches here. and my spare glasses. >> and your spare glasses. >> if you have medication, you should keep it with you or have access to it. if it needs to be refrigerated make sure that it is in your ice box. >> inside, just to point out for you, we have spare batteries. >> very important. >> we have a little first aid kit. >> and lots of different kinds of batteries. and another spare flashlight.

>> so, alicia what else can we do to prepare our homes for an earthquake so we don't have damage? >> one of the most important things that you can do is to secure your valuable and breakable items. make sure that your tv is strapped down to your entertainment cabinet or wall so it does not move. also important is to make sure that your book case is secure to the wall so that it does not fall over and your valuable and breakables do not break on the ground. becoming prepared is not that difficult. taking care of your home, making sure that you have a few extra every-day items on hand helps to make the difference. >> that contributes dramatically to the way that the city as a whole can recover. >> absolutely. >> if you are able to control your own environment and house and recovery and your neighbors are doing the same the city as a whole will be a more resilient city. >> we are all proud of living in san francisco and being prepared helps us stay here. >> so, thank you so much for

joining us today, alicia, i appreciate it. >> absolutely, it is my pleasure. >> and thank you for joining us on another edition of building >> hi, i'm corn field and welcome to doing building san francisco, we are doing a special series, called stay safe, how you can stay in your home safely and comfortable, and we know that an earthquake is coming and there are things that you can do to reduce the effects of the earthquake on your home. let's take a look at that. >> here at the spur urban center on mission street in san francisco talking about staying in your home after an earthquake. i have guests today, pat buscavich and his dog, harvey and david, and both structural engineers and we want to talk about things that you might do

before an earthquake to your home to make it more likely that your home will be ha bitable after an earthquake, what should we do? both structural and maybe even important non-structural things. >> you hear about how to prepare an earthquake kit and brace your book shelves and water tank and that is important. what you have to be careful is make sure that you are not going the easy things to make yourself feel better. if you have a bad structure, a bad building, then you need to be looking at that and everything that you do to keep your collectables in place is small and compared. if you have taken care of your structure, then there is a lot of stuff that you can do in your house that is non-structural and your chimney and water tank. >> let's talk about what the structural things might be. >> and he is exactly right. you don't want to make the deck chairs safe on the titanic, it is going down, you are going down, you have to make sure that your house is safe.

there are basic things that you need to do including bracing the water heater, not just because of fire hazard but because of the water source and the damage, but basic things are installing anchor bolts, and adding plywood and strapping your beams to column and posts to footings and foundations are really easy things to do and most contractors can do the building department is set up to approve this work, and these are things that every home owner should do, and it is a little harder because you have to get a building permit and hire a contractor. but you want to be able to after a big earthquake to climb in bed that night and pull the covers up and say i don't have to worry about going to a government shelter. >> that is the main focus that it is great to have an earthquake kit to be able to bug out for 72 hours. here is a better idea, stay in your own home and in order to do that you have to be make sure that your structure is okay. if you have a house, the easy things to do with the wood

construction is feasible. if you have a renter or you live in a concrete building, you need to talk to the building own , and make sure they have done their due diligence and find out what the deficiencies are. >> when i have looked at damaged buildings,vy seen that a little bit of investment in time and money and structural work provides great dividends. >> especially if it is the wood frame, typical house that you can do the things that i was talking about, the anchor and the plywood in the first garage area, you know if you refinanced in the last three years, get some of that savings and it is a really good investment. and the other thing that i try to tell people, earthquake insurance is not the solution to the shelter in place, if there is a big earthquake and your building is damaged, you are not in your house, you may be somewhere else, if you work in the city, it is going to be really hard to commute from sonoma, you want to do what is necessary so that your house is

retrofitted and a couple of years of earthquake premium could get you to a level that you could be in the house after a significant earthquake and it may have damage and there is still a shelter in place where you are at home and you are not worried for the government taking care of you and you are living in a place where you can go to work and you want to have your wood frame house is really easy to get to that level. on top of the wood frame house, i mean every wood frame house in the west half of the city have a water tank and the water tank fall over because they are gas fired and start fires. and that is something that you could do for yourself, and for your neighbors and for the whole city is make sure that your water tank is braced. >> if you look at the studies that are predicting on fires, we are going to have a lot of fires and for every water tank that is braced there is a potential of one less fire that the fire department is going to have to fight and we don't want to have any more fires than we need to. so bracing the water heater is the first thing that you want to do. >> and so easy, and you go

on-line and you google, earthquake, water and heater and you google the sites where you can find the details and you can put them out there on the hardware store and you can hire a small contract tore do that for you. that is a couple of hundred bucks, the best investment. if you are in other types of building it is complicated. if you are in a high-rise building you just can't anchor your building down because there are no anchor bolts, but at that point, the tenant should be asking questions of the owner's and the managers about earthquake preparedness >> and don't take the easy answer, oh, our building is safe it was designed to code. that is not the right answer, ask the tough questions and see if you can get a report that has been given to you. >> what is the right question? will i be able to stay in my home after the expected earthquake? is that a good question to ask? >> yeah, you may be more specific if you talk to the owner, if it is not a recent building, if it is ten or 20 years old see if they had an

inspection done and there you will have a written before that will tell you all about the structure. >> thanks, pat. >> thanks, harvey. and thanks david for joining us and thank you for joining us on >> hi. welcome to san francisco. stay safe and exploring how you can stay in your home safely after an earthquake. let's look at common earthquake myths. >> we are here at the urban center on mission street in san francisco. we have 3 guest today. we have david constructional engineer and bill harvey. i want to talk about urban myths. what do you think about earthquakes, can

you tell if they are coming in advance? >> he's sleeping during those earthquakes? >> have you noticed him take any special? >> no. he sleeps right through them. there is no truth that i'm aware of with harvey that dogs are aware of an impending earthquake. >> you hear the myth all the time. suppose the dog helps you get up, is it going to help you do something >> i hear they are aware of small vibrations. but yes, i read extensively that dogs cannot realize earthquakes. >> today is a spectacular day in san francisco and sometimes people would say this is earthquake weather. is this earthquake weather? >> no. not that i have heard of. no such thing. >> there is no such thing.

>> we are talking about the weather in a daily or weekly cycle. there is no relationship. i have heard it's hot or cold weather or rain. i'm not sure which is the myth. >> how about time of day? >> yes. it happens when it's least convenient. when it happens people say we were lucky and when they don't. it's terrible timing. it's never a good time for an earthquake. >> but we are going to have one. >> how about the ground swallowing people into the ground? >> like the earth that collapsed? it's not like