San Francisco, CA—Mayor London Breed, City Administrator Carmen Chu, and City leaders today highlighted San Francisco’s commitment to improving earthquake resiliency and furthering investments to safeguard the City’s infrastructure.
In the years since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, San Francisco has invested more than $20 billion in seismic improvements to our public infrastructure. This includes ensuring health centers, emergency services, airports, and essential city services are prepared to withstand seismic events. Through City initiated programs, more than 2,000 unreinforced masonry buildings and over 4,600 wood frame soft-story multi-family buildings have been seismically strengthened, in addition to improving numerous publicly owned buildings and infrastructure.
The Office of Resilience and Capital Planning is partnering with community stakeholders, departments, agencies, and the state to continue this work as part of future planning, including a new program to address seismically deficient concrete buildings across San Francisco.
"In San Francisco, we are always working and planning to protect this City and our residents from the next big earthquake," said Mayor London Breed. "While I am proud of the success of our ambitious earthquake safety programs, we will remain vigilant and continue our efforts to strengthen San Francisco's infrastructure and to make sure we are prepared. Our resilience is built on doing the work in advance to be prepared for what we know will come.”
San Francisco’s work on resiliency is done in part through the Community Action Plan for Seismic Safety (CAPSS), which has informed recommendations to address seismically vulnerable privately-owned businesses since 2010. CAPSS includes recommendations that have guided the development of policies and program to address seismically vulnerable privately-owned buildings. Concurrently, San Francisco’s Capital Plan identifies and funds improvements to our publicly owned infrastructure.
The Office of Resilience of Capital Planning is partnering with community stakeholders, departments, agencies, and the state to continue this work as part of future planning, including a new program to address seismically deficient concrete buildings across San Francisco. These projects and programs are testaments to the City’s effort to prepare for earthquakes since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, a 6.9 magnitude quake that resulted in 63 deaths and billions of dollars in property damage. The City has since used recovery efforts to inform the Earthquake Safety Implementation Program, which is a multiyear workplan to implement stronger building codes and retrofit programs to mitigate the impacts of the next large earthquake.
"At each anniversary we are reminded of the importance of preparing for disaster. San Francisco has a strong history of resilience and rebuilding – from the earthquakes of 1906 where eighty percent of the City was destroyed, to Loma Prieta," said City Administrator Carmen Chu. "I want to thank the City leaders and, more important, our residents who have continued to vote in support of our ongoing capital investments. Through the City’s capital bond program, we have shored up our public hospitals and clinics, fire and police stations and have more plans on the horizon to protect our shoreline and the infrastructure beneath it. Currently 92% of vulnerable soft-story buildings that house over 110,000 people have completed retrofits and our concrete building work is well-underway."
The work to implement the recommendations included in the CAPSS continues, such as addressing seismically vulnerable concrete buildings. With this in mind, the Office of Resilience and Capital Planning is working with the Department of Building Inspection, community stakeholders, and engineering experts to develop the Concrete Building Safety Program. After eight meetings and dozens of one-on-one discussions, the program is set to deliver recommendations to policy makers by the end of this year.
“Preparedness is the first step towards recovery when the next big earthquake arrives,” said Patrick O’Riordan, Director of the Department of Building Inspection. “As a community it is all of our responsibility to ensure that our homes and buildings are ready for these inevitable events. Whether it is through pre-inspections, structural improvements or staff training, San Francisco is doing all we can today so we are ready for what may come tomorrow.”
"The Concrete Building Program is vitally important to the long-term resilience of San Francisco. At the same time, it’s critical that we take a thoughtful approach that recognizes the physical, economic, and community impacts a program like this will have. The best way to do this is to make sure we are closely listening to community leaders, building owners, tenants, business leaders, labor, builders, and technical experts to develop a program that is consistent with San Francisco values and practical to implement," said Brian Strong, San Francisco’s Chief Resilience Office and Director of the Office of Resilience and Capital Planning. "We have made more progress on earthquake safety than any other jurisdiction in the North America, but now is not the time to rest on laurels, it is not a matter of if another Loma Prieta or larger earthquake will happen but when.”
Today’s announcement coincides with the statewide Great Shakeout, a national initiative led by FEMA, United States Geological Survey, and the National Science Foundation that aims to educate the public about how to be prepared for a seismic event.
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