in berkeley -- elissa harrington, abc7 news. >> wow. new information. that's great to know, huh?elissa. >> back in the studio with me right now -- abc7 meteorologist mike nicco. and, mike, they were talking about dangers, and the thing we always think about -- flooding, of course, and mudslides. >> right. >> so, how do we prepare? >> there's a couple things to think about. first thing is there's a saying, "turn around, don't drown," you know? so if you can't see the bottom of the water where it's crossing the roadway, don't even drive into it. just turn around. the other thing is mudslides. when we get so much rain because of el niÑo, sometimes we get mudslides and rockslides. and one of the best ways to know about that is to just sit here and watch us on abc7 news. but we know you have a very busy life, but you carry around a phone with our app on it, hopefully, and we'll send you those push alerts. as soon as a flood watch or a flood warning -- a watch means it could happen. a warning means it is happening or it's imminent and you need to take action immediately. we'll send tha

abc 7 news reporter elissa harrington explained how dispatchers worked without it. >> so you said your took your car or you don't know where it is? >> those who called 911 yesterday afternoon might not have realized on the other end of the phone, san francisco's department of emergency management was having a bit of an emergency of its own. the computer-aided dispatch service was down. the office gets ruflt 3,400 calls a day, everything from fires to medical emergencies. the failure forced plan b. >> we had to resort to our manual mode, paper and pencil, the way things used to be done. >> notes were carried across the room. fire dispatch used an ageing peg board to track engines. >> we have a board with all the engine companies and truck companies on it with peggings. that's highway we -- pegs. it's 50, 60 years old. >> the battalion chief says the system moves slower but it works. the new software was installed a year and a half ago. #. >> we have a lot of things in place to make sure we can immediately respond and not let it compromise the service we provide to the public. >> the i.t