big, citywide event, but also for a personal emergency current we have begun to look at that analysis. the city in general, there are challenges. when the conditions, the roadways, 1-way streets, and, like i said, the wood frame construction. also, the density of our city. president chiu: there appears to be a pattern in certain neighborhoods. as much as i love to see them working with them, if there are ways that we can focus on certain neighborhoods -- >> one of the things i've noticed over the years is that when we do have a fire, it can be a one alarm fire. because of the damage that is not necessarily related to the fire, especially water damage, we see a large displacement of people that have the tendency to be low income and do not have an easy way to find affordable

housing within the neighborhood and it would like to stay in. those are challenges for us. those are challenges that we always somehow rise to meet, but it is a population that is adversely affected. >> i would echo that. i have worked from south central los angeles to new jersey to washington d.c. and georgia. that statement can be made in those vulnerable communities in each and every one of those metropolitan areas. it is one of the things that we know. we have a program that is focusing on the 50 most vulnerable neighborhoods in the bay area. a lot of time and attention into that. it does not prepare the entire metropolitan area, but it does focus in on those communities. president chiu: i probably

attempts to separate my district. i think every single one except for one was in a chinatown. if there is something we can do more, that might help to cut down. >> thank you. are there other comments or questions? that you all for your presentation. that was excellent. moving on, our next agenda item is a recap of humanitarian mission that we took to van, turkey, right before christmas. rob dudgeon is going to kick this off. >> thank you. there is a bit of a back story.

for some, it might seem a little random, eastern turkey as a destination. it did not get a lot of play in the news here. there are some questions i have heard about how and why. the back story is that members of the san francisco community that are from eastern turkey brought this to our attention and asked, it was interesting because they asked how would they get in touch with the mayor? our mayor is a friend of ours and our family is there. how would we get in contact with the mayor to see if the city of san francisco would be able to provide any assistance? interestingly, we said we could help with that. i told them the first thing we would need is a letter from their municipality from the mayor of requesting such a system. two days later, it was in our in box. that told me they were pretty serious about this. the more research was started doing into the situation,

realizing just what the needs were, even from what we could learn on the web, let us to believe that this was probably a worthwhile trip and we could learn a lot from it and there might be some opportunities to where we, as a community, could help another community. we have done a lot in the way of disaster preparedness. we want to take every opportunity to learn and help others whenever we can. members of our team and other city department personnel have gone to haiti, japan. this is not an unusual thing for us to. we started looking at how we would do this. we approached our partners at the san francisco association and we have a couple of representatives here. as we go through this, i will ask them to chime in with comments whenever they feel so inclined. >> would you like to come up and join us at the table? >>, up. -- come on up.

>> uh, sure. [laughter] >> this is louis, for those who do not know him. it is an interesting partnership that we have because a couple of years ago, when then mayor newsom had asked a group to form the fleet week association, it has grown. they decided they wanted to do more around disaster and highlighting the role of the military and disaster relief. this partnership has grown. when we needed a partner to make this a reality, they were our first thought. they were great partners. and they are great partners. there were able to raise the money through private sources so we did not have to spend any

taxpayer funds to make this a reality. we went to a van, spent a few days on the ground area. i am not one to go in detail of the highlights. but was done sometime in with their city engineer, there director of public works, there mayor, some of their city council. we got a firsthand look at what the conditions of work. the take away from that was that he there are some things we can do, as a community, and that i think can help them. in a very broad sense, i have started some work with colleagues in fire ems services to help on that front. some of the things they need in our things that we can do. not the least of which, at this point, is a need things like food. the economy has tanker it is not that there is no food, there is

no money to buy food. there are not a lot of jobs. a lot of people were displaced. it is a largely tourism-based area. with that kind of damage, i can relate to that area we are largely tourism-based area. we're going to have profound effects like they are. they're looking for assistance. we are trying to corner with an organization which, those of you who know what it is, will probably slap me around and for doing this simplified explanation, but it is like craigslist for humanitarian 8. -- aid. there are some challenges. it is in turkey, so there are logistical challenges that along with that. it is possible and i think we will be able to move ahead with that. we left them with a number of suggestions, recommendations.

i will not go through them point by point, but i will say they are acting on some of them as appropriate. some of our takeaways, i'm going to be a little bit selfish and talk about some of the things we learned and we are loyal to apply in san francisco -- one of the things that was really illustrated to me was the mental health aspect. i come out of the first response world and they tend to be thinking in that mode. you get into the emergency management, where it is a different lens. it is not so people-focused. our partners in the health department have been saying this for a long time and they are right. seeing it firsthand in that environment, it is wanting to know it and another thing to see it. the effects of aftershocks not just on or structures but your population. we were there and there were a few aftershocks. it does have an affect on you when you are around some of these buildings. logistics, obviously a huge issue maybe they are not on a

peninsula, but i think there are challenges because there are -- they are hard to get to. we will have the same challenges. medical care -- i'm not talking about the acute care, that is something you deal with and can move people around by air if you need to agree but the continued care of maintaining the health of the population when your acute care facilities are damaged beyond repair. it went from having university- level tertiary care and be in the tertiary care destination for their region to essentially clinic care. the nearest possible 400 kilometers they can actually do surgery. these are things i look at and i am very keen on exploring them. the bay area will have similar problems carry weirton of hospitals reduced from being a world-class, tertiary care facilities to clinic and d.r. care for a time until they get things back in order.

finally, i think it really speaks to the issue of resiliency and people in general. this is one of those things where it is a different world and you have to cut through the differences of the environment in the living conditions in another country versus dollars. it really speaks to how people will come together when a half to and how people can be resilient and it just kind of recharged my desire to keep pushing in this direction. it is not about kids, it is about a community. it is about making people stronger as a whole and not just saying, here are some boxes of water and some m.r.e's that you are not going to want to eat anyway. he working primarily with the organizations that are already in the community to strengthen

their constituencies and until that community as a whole. that is what is going to see us through. you see that when you go to places like this ntc with the community has come together. in a lot of ways, quite frankly, because the government is incapable of delivering all of the needs. i know we cannot do it so it is something they cannot either print >> i would like to thank you for having me and thank you for that thank you. it was a no-brainer when san francisco approached fleet week and asked if we could help with the mission. we are not first responders, but we are containers and that is what we can do. i came here many months ago before fleet week to talk about some of the things we were doing, not just the freight ships and all of that, but humanitarian assistance and disaster response programs we have put together. when we talk about this, we thought this was an opportunity to show the world was san francisco values are all about.

we showed up as san franciscans and had a wonderful reception at the airport. we were very enthusiastic about our presence in. i will give you a couple of thoughts -- rob touched on p.s.d. yes, the population was clearly suffering in some manner. but i think it was a take away to think about the leadership. when i look at the eyes of the people we were dealing with and the government leadership level, the head of the dpw, the building department, they were exhausted. there are all camping out in tents at an old park and maintenance building tree that is where they are operating out of. they are eating beans and bread every day trying to make the right decisions, and knowing there is very little money, little resources to help get

things like sewage systems rebuilt. that medical facilities in place. they have to go to hundred miles, 400 kilometers, if there is a real traumatic event in order to get real medical services. there are really struggling. i saw the same thing when i was down in katrina. i remember sitting in the state operations center in that larouche and seeing the firemen -- in baton rouge and seeing the firemen tried to make the decisions, absolutely exhausted. i am not a first responder, but as you do training and preparation for this organization or any of your conferences, really think about the p.t.s.d. issues that the department heads will be going through at these times. the other thing i wanted to tell you is the children. they were just fabulous. if we went into -- we went into

a tent shaped like a hut. they were being well taken care of and there were so happy to see us, kind of a novelty to them. i ask them if they were happier here or if they would rather be in school. i got a resounding they would rather be here. they were being taken care of. when the big one hits in san for cisco, i think that we will probably show the same care for our children. that was very heartwarming. there were a lot of vignettes that were in cadbury -- the were incredibly heartwarming. i'm glad to do as much follow up as we possibly can. >> are there any questions for the -- from the disaster councilmembers? >> what kind of assistance were we able to give to the people of van? >> we are still in the buildup

of that. the logistics of and are rather complicated, as you might imagine. we are in the process of, with our partners in fleet week, planning a fund raiser. the department of public works as an engineer and they put together a report that we have shared. i am working through some networks that i'm involved with. one of my -- that i think is most pertinent to the department of emergency management is there a fire department is in great need. this is a community that is over 350,000 people. they have a department that has a 46-member staff. they have one station. they have not 3 apparatus, one of which is over 30 years old. they do not have food for their newest 20 members. these are all earnings that can

be met. they need things like breathing apparatus, turnouts, boots, tools. i have been beating the bushes and figuring out how we do this. there are a couple of organizations that we will be doing some work with, one is firefighters without borders, they do this on a fairly regular basis. working on how to make that happen. the other side is, we are in the process -- hopefully within the next week or so, we will have the formal set up so that we can connect with some humanitarian needs with things like more beans. they are pretty much out. they went from doing two meals per day to one meal per day to providing just dry stuff every few days. they just do not have it and are trying to get it. there are a lot of challenges. >> we at -- we had the

department of public works architect and civil engineer, thank you mohammed for having him out there, he made some very good observations and offered a checklist on how to do building inspections post-earthquake, what ever met that it is that they use. there has already been an exchange of information from that side of things as well. i think they are going to really attend to prevention in the future by taking a lot of what he brought to the table on what you for building code enforcement, things like that. yes. >> and enforcing them, that was a big deal. >> other questions? no? thank you mary much. we look forward to continuing to hear about our efforts. are there any other

announcements by disaster council members? yes? >> i am of the census and interface council -- he asked me to apologize that he had to leave early, but we are all working for prepared this in the background every single day. the interface council, every two years, recognizing that the faith community plays a huge role in recovery. a disaster workshop is coming up on the second at st. mary's. the department of emergency management, the red cross, this year, with the neighborhood and our network. we are working in the background, preparing our voluntary organizations every single day for large-scale

disasters and trying to work together to bring together this preparedness. it is a half-day event that will be from 8:30 until noon. that is at st. mary's on the second. >> thank you very much. any other announcements? is there any public comment? hearing none, this meeting is adjourned. thank you very much for coming writ happy new year. -- thank you very much for coming. happy new year.