replace those things if they are jeopardized in an event. that is the post-disaster financial management recovery. the other program i wanted to highlight is one of our of one priorities -- one of our number one priority, how to use resources efficiently. i'm happy to introduce dr. johnson, who will be working with us on the governance project. she is an international expert on post-disaster recovery, and she will be helping us figure out how to make decisions in a disaster event. one of the things we're looking at, which is very exciting, is the concept of using our incident command system principles to extend into post- disaster recovery. this is laurie's expertise, so we will be national leaders on trying to figure out the best possible model for using ics over a long time, and we hope to really instigate best practices

in the federal government and fema, department of homeland security, so we can be using these best practices principles, so i'm really looking forward to some of that. as you know, one of our key successes is the life lines council, which is a group of 25 to 30 of our life line providers, includes communication, transportation, power, water, sewer, debris management, and we recently have added our financial institutions. organizations of banks, which are definitely lifelines. we have had three meetings that have featured major providers, and our next meeting will be about transportation and looking at independency analysis. this is again the only lifelines' council of its scope that we can discover anywhere, so everyone is really excited about this, and a lot of folks are looking at the way we go

about our discussions of into dependencies and networks. i also want to say we have been doing some really great stuff around mitigation, especially with the mandatory stuff stored program. dem has recently gathered work group of all the folks involved in mitigation projects in one place so we can be doing mitigation management together, and that has been doing a great collaboration together. it is really an example of what the recovery initiative is supposed to do, which is get people to the table but not used to necessarily being involved in emergency management response and engaging them in a way that we can talk about all of these projects, and we will all be in it together. finally, i wanted to let you know about some of the work we're doing around community engagement, which is a very exciting aspect. dem has created a readiness and recovery work group, which involves small businesses. boma and chamber of commerce and hotel council and lots of groups

that engage us. of course, under the direction of my tireless colleague, we have the neighborhood empowerment network, which is a neighborhood group process that includes communities, as well as a resilient community initiative, in gauging merchant corridors into the resiliency conversation. i think that is all that is on there. next up, we have a bunch of important projects, which is a housing project, which we definitely have to figure out what to do about mid term and long-term housing. we will be engaging all kinds of people with our governance project, so that is going to include pulling in members of the attorney and members of the board of supervisors, the mayor's office on some of these conversations. it will be really interesting.

we want to increase cooperation with the planning department, making sure it reflects planning recovery, so we will be working closely with the planning department. the other thing that is coming up is doing more work around climate tethers, how we engage in hazard mitigation. it will definitely be leaders in this area, adding those issues to post-disaster recovery. the last thing i wanted to let you know is very exciting, which is the recovery initiative is, as i said, a partnership of these organizations, and we have discovered over the last year that the project that we've you are very integrated. there really is no way you can separate post-disaster recovery from mitigation, planning, preparedness response. with the department of emergency management, we have decided that the of great of the all-hazard strategic plan will also be included on the merger strategic initiative. we are very excited about that.

and you will be seeing that, and we will be bringing the initiative which has some assets of, again, national leadership, and what really does resilience mean. we hope to be able to define that for the world. that is what is going on with the recovery initiatives. i thank you all so much for your support over the last year, and you will be seeing lots of changes coming up, and some additional collaboration. do not be surprised if your phone is ringing and a disney on the other end saying, "guess what, you get to go to another meeting." we really appreciate your support. thanks, i will take any questions you have, especially on the summary you just received. >> [inaudible] >> we will be in recess until

the meeting is done for a few minutes, and then we will reconvene. >> welcome back to the disaster council meeting for september 10, 2010. mayor gavin newsom is joining us. this was the summary of the san francisco responds to the san bruno fire. please remember to pass the

microphone to the set table when you are speaking. thank you. mayor newsom: thank you all for being here, and i appreciate the outstanding leadership represented here on this table. let me begin by recognizing the obvious or fortuitous in some respects that we had you here today under different circumstances, but nonetheless, now more difficult circumstances. i want to underscore the purpose of this disaster council was always rather self evident and oftentimes needs some elimination -- some illumination to be reminded of its importance. as much as i was reminded of the presence today, it really reinforces the contribution of the commitment to the future because there's no question that we live in interesting times,

and the tragic incident of yesterday and the incident that is still unfolding today, and that will continue to impact the lives of hundreds of people and their families for years to come just becomes a testament to the collective wisdom of this room and the need to continue to be vigilant and were collaborative with. it is in the spirit of collaboration that i wanted to walk through and ask a number of us to give a presentation of exactly what happened. i want to just begin by thanking the fire chief and her team for her outstanding job and their outstanding job. i want to thank john martin for his work, his team, and his outstanding job. i want to thank the key and -- vicki and dem for their outstanding job.

to those that may not be recognized, a lot of those that i just have from animal welfare and control to the coroner's office, the medical examiner's office, and others for their responsiveness and job well done to ed lee and the city administration office will play an even bigger role, which you will hear about in a moment in terms of providing support, as well as mitch katz in the department of public health, and those represented in this room and to the trauma teams at sf general in particular, our hats go off. that is the frame of the folks i want to talk, and then, we will ask as our representatives from pg&e made their way up from san bruno, and i think a number of folks have walked in, and i will ask that they give us an update. i wanted to start with chief hayes-white. you had a number personnel that

made their way down to the scene. we have a state rig that is just been procured. we had over 50 apparatus that were there at the scene, and perhaps, she can update us and connect the dots to what john martin and his team did and pass the baton to john to underscore some of the work that was done. >> thank you. good afternoon. i thought for everyone i would give just an overview. as you are aware, last night, approximately 6:24 there was a report of an explosion in san bruno, sort of where highway 35 is just about to meet 280, our neighbors to the south. at 6:36, a unit from the airport, even though the airport is located in san mateo county, the sanford's is the fire department is responsible for the international airport, and we have specialized apparatus.

initial reports came in as possibly a plane went down. with the cooperation of mr. john martin and his staff, we made a decision to take a specialized apparatus out of the airport and assist up at san bruno in the event that there was an airplane or aircraft that had gone into san bruno. we fully staffed the airport. we have back up equipment, but these are large pieces of apparatus, and it is pretty incredible to me that within six minutes, we had units deployed in san bruno from the airport. six members from our department and three apparatus. shortly thereafter, we made the decision -- i'm here with my deputy chiefs -- to work with the department of emergency management. we certainly wanted to assist, but it is a chaotic time, so we did not want to self-deployed. with our partners at the department of emergency management, we reached out to san mateo county dispatched to

offer our services. they took us up on our offer, and at 6:53, we sent a complement of three engines, a truck, a battalion chief, and assistant chief, safety chief. we directed them -- instead of going down the airport, we directed them to where there was staging. once we checked in, we were redirected up to the side of the explosion. many of our units were providing structural protection within 45 minutes of the explosion. i would like to first and foremost extend our condolences and our sad and hearts for what is happening down at san bruno, and the fire department remains committed to assist our neighbors to the south. city family, under the direction of mayor newsom could not have worked more seamlessly. i appreciate the partnership we have with the airport and the trust the grumman has with the airport to utilize the resources from the airport to assist our

neighbors in san bruno. at this time, most of the apparatus that were supporting down in san bruno have been released from the command post. as you stated, we do have a fuel unit that remains down there. the fuel unit has a capacity of approximately 1,500 gallons of unleaded fuel for the rigs that are operating down there and 2,400 gallons of diesel fuel. additionally, we have a state asset rig, emergency management #361, and we have four members staffing that rig. they are currently providing assistance right at the scene. glenview and claremont right at this time. they are assisting with some recovery effort down in san bruno at this time. as you stated last night, we had approximately 15 apparatus. 40 personnel. today, we continue to have two

apparatus and six personnel. again, express our sympathies to the citizens and residents of san bruno, and also, to make sure we work closely -- and i know you're going to talk about that a little bit later -- with the investigative agencies to make sure that here in the city and county of sanford's is good, we want to make sure that our utility infrastructure is up to the standards it up -- it ought to be. mayor newsom: did you have anything to add? you guys got their within six minutes. >> [inaudible] re corp. 25 apartment, the airport, the faa. they determine quickly that an aircraft had not gone down. they assign an air-traffic controller just to manage emergency response aircraft. there was no impact on airport operation.

the airport continues to work with san mateo county in providing any support we can. we continue to have one staff person assigned to the san mateo county eoc to provide that support. >> you actually had fewer 911 calls than one might imagine last night. perhaps you can give a brief update about dm's role in response. >> we did not get a direct call about this for a while, though we did work with different agencies in calling about, the fire department and others, but as you know, we have a fire presence, so they were ready and willing to go. i am going to ask that rob talked about our overall response last night and the situation reports we issued. >> thank you. just a quick reminder, what the department actually does is coordinate resources and help coordinate the response across multiple departments, and share

information and act as a liaison to federal and state partners. we are responsible for the medical aid side of things, so we were doing a little bit of all of that last night. first and foremost, we notified to check and make sure that our city assets were in good shape, which is to make sure that the airport was fine. there was not really a plane. and also to check on the san bruno jail, which everything turned out to be fine there. at that point, really started to look at how the city could help and start to play that liaison role. gather the data, try to get a situation report out. situation reports are definitely slowing things, and if you look at them, you will see where they change over time. there will be a couple more coming out of this incident before we close it out. as i say, numbers are fluid. as we get information from the state, which tried to get what the state is using for the state because in the media, things

tend to change even faster. we try to turn those reports out on a fairly regular basis. we offered assistance to ems. we offered assistance to the medical mutual aid coordinator. those offers are still out there. we have renewed them, and as this event draws on, we even offered to provide staff some relief for theirs. staffing an eoc for an extended time gets to be a challenge for any jurisdiction. with that, we will continue to monitor this and participate with state conference calls, and if anything arises, we stand ready to act. mayor newsom: now back to the fundamental question. we want to start with that, and i will give pg&e an opportunity to update us in a moment, but the human element should not be lost. god forbid, grace of god go any of us to lose a loved one, to wake up and to learn of someone you care about deeply or know

they have lost their life so immediately, so acutely, and so unacceptably. it is devastating, and there are people that survived in addition to those that have passed away, that survive because of a heroic work, because of extraordinary work at sanford says the general hospital, st. francis, and there burn unit, which is as good as it gets to good asucsf and kaiser -- which is as good as it gets, to folks at ucsf. several people were transported in. three were released, and we hope we will have news soon of other people getting released, but i thought i would ask dr. katz to put a face on that and highlight the great work done by you and your team. >> keeping mutual aid in county is helping one another, but -- because any county will be overwhelmed in a multiple casualty incident, especially multiple care beds that can be

relatively quickly stepped up, is always going to be small in any particular county. in particular, san mateo county has no from a hospital. our longstanding agreement, general hospital is the hospital to the north, stanford to the south, so we have a particularly important role. we took five patients last night, four of whom are critical. as you referred, we are lucky that san francisco has said frances, which has a world-class burn unit. they took another four. three went to uc with more minor injuries. one to kaiser. we have told them we are prepared to take additional patients if their resources being used to the south of them become overburdened. we have also offered mental health services, since this is, as you say.8' b besides the physical devastation, it can be

emotionally devastating. we have offered to provide additional mental-health services and translation services, so i think the mutual aid went well last night. mayor newsom: we had a number of representatives from pg&e. i will get to you in a minute because i want to talk -- bring things closer to home in the end, but mark johnson is here. i appreciate you taking the time to get out here. perhaps you can give us an update an overview, and to the extent that i understand we all understand this investigation, what you know and what you can share. >> [inaudible] i want to extend my condolences and my sympathy to all of those families that were impacted. [inaudible]

basically, what we know at this point, and i think many of you have heard from various media, that there was a rush of 830- inch steel gas main transmission line that appears to be the cause of the incident. we are in the process of trying to report service both from electric as well as gas as safely and as quickly as possibly -- as we possibly can. last night we interrupted service here from a safety standpoint, working very closely in conjunction with various fire officials at the site last night. behind we have people who work

through the night last night, and they are continuing to work today. they are performing the survey on both the transition system as well as the distribution system to insure that we can safely restore service to those who have been impacted. we have also been working very closely with red cross with outrage for those families who were impacted by the devastating tragedy that occurred. we're working closely and in conjunction with a red cross to provide assistance. as the mayor has indicated, the ntsb, the national transportation safety board, i believe that approximately 1:00 today, a team of aid arrived in san francisco. they will have lead responsibility for the investigation and cause analysis

of the event. at this point in time, although there has been a lot of speculation about different things that may have precipitated to cause this event, i would caution everyone that it is really premature at this point, and that there will be a thorough investigation. pg&e plans to and will fully cooperate with the ntsb in the investigation process providing all records as well as making available any resources individuals to be interviewed, etc., so we can determine the cause of this particular incident. mayor newsom: again, it is premature to perhaps discuss a response to the question, but

what is your assessment in terms of the investigation? it is really difficult to say. i would expect that this is a process that will probably take several months before it is probably finally concluded, and before we have a real sense of what perhaps the actual route cause was to this particular event. i recognize there is a sense of urgency to try to better understand what caused this event, but again, we are going to work through the process with the ntsb. we are going to fully cooperate with them, and as our president of the utility indicated in some of the interviews that were conducted earlier today, to the extent that it is determined that we have liability or responsibility here, we plan to be accountable for that if in fact that is what the investigation reveals.

>> montgomery street. is that for you? >> yes, this morning, we had a secondary cable failure that impacted a single customer. our secondary cable, and i use that term, operates at 120 volts or 280 votes, depending on what the customer needs. it is kind of like a wall outlet in the building itself. our crews are out there right now. we are pulling the cable to determine what the root cause was and why the secondary cable did in fact failed. we plan to replace all the cabling in the mall as well, and right now, the root cause of that investigation is taking place as the speaker -- we plan to replace all the cabling in that box as well. mayor newsom: nonetheless, yet again, because we have been through this with you guys -- up the block, downtown, mission street, and lead --ed lee led a

task force. important to note, i know you lead that effort in our utility side of this after the last incident on pull --polk street. >> that is correct. i know on the electrical side, we have been working for the last two years since these incidents occurred and caused a number of changes to be made that the genie was cooperative in doing, the latest of which was to take out all the dc lines that were causing the elevator stoppages occur -- a number of changes to be made that pg&e was cooperative in doing. we worked with them to review protocol on how they inspect transformer boxes that are in the vaults, so that when the oil is compromising those balls that would cause an arc in a logical line -- when the oil is compromising those vaultts.

we're able to change the structure and also the way they are inspected, so we have not had a similar incident since that time. gas lines are very different, and we are cognizant of the initial report that we did have a large transition gas line, which we are now in collaboration with the fire department and recommend to you, mayor, that we look at this from a different task force viewpoint. mayor newsom: we will get to that in a second. you are up to clarify that there is no link between what occurred in san bruno and what occurred in san francisco. and that is absolute? >> that is absolute, yes. completely separate. mayor newsom: these 30-inch lines exist not just in san bruno. they exist in cities like san francisco. correct? >> i'm not familiar where exactly the gas line is, but

there are basically three large transmission lines that serve sort of the greater bay area. mayor newsom: and one of those mainlines presumably comes through the city and county of san francisco? >> i believe that is correct. mayor newsom: is there any prospect -- a simple question a lot of folks have asked me -- what happened down there -- could it happen here? is there a cause and effect, anything the connects the systems in a way that creates more vulnerability to other systems in and around the region because of what may or may not have occurred specifically in san bruno? >> on the surface, i would state that i do not believe that will be the case, but obviously, until we have a better understanding of what the root cause was to the san bruno incident, it is really very difficult to completely rule that out. i would be disingenuous if i said that there was no possibility, not knowing what

the actual route cause of the san bruno incident was. mayor newsom: i imagine concurrently, you guys are assessing that as you investigate the root causes in san bruno, you are immediately address unmet concern in other jurisdictions here in san francisco as well. >> that is correct. we are actually looking at all three transmission lines. mayor newsom: ok, and oked -- and what ed lee was alluding to is something that has been formalized, and we are making public -- he has done a very good job, and i appreciate your cooperation in the work he did after that third incident related to the utility side and electrical side. we believe that was an effective process. we believe that process should be replicated for the gas transmission and distribuon