Today Mayor
Edwin M. Lee joined
San Francisco Bay Area leaders, first responders and the community at the
Exploratorium to mark the
25th Anniversary of the devastating
Loma Prieta earthquake, which struck the San Francisco Bay Area at 5:04 p.m. on
October 17,
1989.
Seismologists predict that a significant
Bay Area earthquake – two to three times as strong as the
1989 Loma Prieta quake – is likely to occur within the next thirty years.
Since
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake,
San Francisco has invested more than $9 billion in seismic-related improvements to critical infrastructure including projects like rebuilding
San Francisco General Hospital and the seismic upgrade work for the
Hetch Hetchy Water and
Power system – a $4.6 billion program to ensure regional water delivery quickly resumes after a disaster through upgrades to pipelines, pump stations, treatment plants, tunnels and dams along the system’s 167-mile long system that brings water to the San Francisco Bay Area from the
Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. Investments also include the voter-approved
2010 and 2014
Earthquake Safety and
Emergency Response bond programs, which pay for seismic upgrades and improvements to firefighting and public safety facilities so that our first responders are prepared in case of an earthquake or other emergency.
With $812 million in funding, the earthquake safety bond programs make crucial repairs and seismic enhancements that will allow San Francisco to quickly respond to the next major seismic event or disaster.
The San Francisco Public Works-managed programs are actively making improvements to neighborhood firehouses and police stations and upgrading the emergency firefighting water system. It also has funded construction of the
City’s new
Public Safety Building, a seismically secure, state-of-the-art facility that by year’s end will be the new home for San Francisco’s police headquarters, public safety command center and a neighborhood fire station in
Mission Bay so that public safety agencies can provide uninterrupted emergency services during and after a disaster.
Other investments include the 2010 and 2014 Earthquake Safety and Emergency Response bond programs which strengthened neighborhood fire houses and upgraded the emergency firefighting water system, and the Mandatory
Soft Story Retrofit Ordinance which requires evaluation and retrofit of some the City’s most vulnerable structures. To date, dozens of neighborhood firehouses have been upgraded and miles of underground emergency water pipeline and tunnel projects are under way along with new cisterns for water storage.
In addition to seismic improvements, programs like San Francisco’s
Neighborhood Emergency Response Team (
NERT) have trained more than 24,700 residents to take care of themselves, their family, and their communities after an emergency.
The
Loma Prieta 25th Anniversary (LP25) began Thursday and featured events designed to bring the many people that felt the earthquake first hand together with the large part of the community who were not in the area or may not have been born when the earthquake hit. The LP25 series started with the
Great California ShakeOut at
Marina Middle School, where Mayor Lee and first responders led a sixth grade class in a “drop, cover, and hold on” earthquake and evacuation drill.
About LP25
The Loma Prieta 25th Anniversary series are interactive opportunities to help Bay Area residents prepare for an emergency. LP25 is brought to the San Francisco Bay Area in partnership with government, non-profit, and private sector organizations whose missions are to respond to and recover from emergencies. LP25 partners include the
City and County of San Francisco,
San Francisco Unified School District, City of
Oakland, California Earthquake
Authority,
American Red Cross Bay Area Chapter,
Salvation Army,
Pacific Gas and Electric, the
California Academy of Sciences and the Exploratorium. For more information, go to: www.lp25sf.org.
- published: 20 Oct 2014
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