{"id":146919,"date":"2026-01-23T22:26:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T22:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/146919\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T22:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T22:26:12","slug":"this-emergency-plan-is-coming-to-sfs-ballot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/146919\/","title":{"rendered":"This Emergency Plan Is Coming to SF\u2019s Ballot"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a cold hard fact: the Big One is coming for San Francisco. Or if you prefer, a big one. The United States Geological Survey projects that by 2043, there\u2019s a 98 percent chance<\/a> of at least a magnitude 6.0 earthquake in the Bay Area, and a 51 percent chance of a 7.0 quake or higher.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With that in mind, San Francisco will likely ask voters to approve a $535 million bond this June to spend on disaster preparedness, including seismic upgrades of fire stations, police stations, and other emergency facilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Board of Supervisors president Rafael Mandelman calls the funding critical<\/a> \u201cto prepare and protect our city and especially our first responders.\u201d The mayor and most supervisors support the bond, which means it almost certainly be on the June ballot<\/p>\n

Of that, $92 million is ticketed to fix a critical gap in firefighting infrastructure that\u2019s been delayed for decades. Most of San Francisco benefits from a backup firefighting water system, installed after the city\u2019s plumbing failed in 1906.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But that system doesn\u2019t cover many neighborhoods furthest from downtown, including the Sunset and the Richmond. Generations of west side residents and representatives have pushed to expand it. With this bond measure they should finally get their wish.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But some critics say the design is flawed. \u201cThe thing they\u2019re proposing is a very expensive and very time-consuming water main that will have all sorts of operational issues,\u201d retired fire official Thomas Doudiet tells The Frisc.<\/p>\n

Doudiet and others fear the design will be vulnerable to seismic damage and won\u2019t offer adequate protection.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"aSan Francisco\u2019s backup emergency water system, or AWSS, is separate from its potable water plumbing and covers much of the city with 135 miles of pipe, some 1,500 hydrants, and its own tanks and reservoirs. (Courtesy AGS)<\/p>\n

Normally, infrastructure and other expenditures to keep SF running get a rubber stamp from voters. But these aren\u2019t normal times. A previous bond to finish the emergency water system expansion fell short due to cost overruns. And SF\u2019s geographic politics mean more in 2026 than they have in perhaps decades.\u00a0<\/p>\n

An upgrade deferred<\/p>\n

After the 1906 earthquake, which seismologists have placed between a whopping 7.7 and 8.3 magnitude<\/a>, the fire department tried to fight dozens of fires with a water system laid low by more than 300 breaks. Only a single working hydrant remained. Approximately 80 percent of the city burned over four days.<\/p>\n

(A quick geology lesson: for every 1.0 increase in magnitude, a quake is 10 times bigger and about 30 times stronger, based on energy release. If the 6.9 magnitude Loma Prieta packed a punch, the 1906 quake packed 10 to 30 punches.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"San\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

In 1908, a city engineer drew up a backup plan: the Auxiliary Water Supply System (AWSS). If the primary water system fails, the AWSS, a separate network from SF\u2019s regular water delivery plumbing, would pump nonpotable water from the bay and shoot it great distances under high pressure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The city financed it with a 1908 bond of $5.8 million \u2014 about $190 million in today\u2019s dollars.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe AWSS remains the only high-pressure network of its type in the United States,\u201d writes Steve Van Dyke<\/a>, superintendent of SFFD\u2019s Bureau of Engineering and Water Supply.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AWhat color is your fire hydrant? Any hydrant with a non-white top, like this blue one on 16th St. in the Mission District, is part of SF\u2019s emergency water system. (Photo: Adam Brinklow)<\/p>\n

The original build featured 72 miles of pipe and nearly 900 hydrants; upgrades have extended it to 135 miles and some 1,500 hydrants. But it still doesn\u2019t cover the entire city, with large gaps to the west and south.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very expensive system, and there\u2019s competition for dollars,\u201d Doug Jacuzzi tells The Frisc. Jacuzzi represents the Sunset District on the SF Public Utilities Commission\u2019s Citizens Advisory Board (and couldn\u2019t have a better name for a discussion of high pressure water systems).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Before It\u2019s Too Late\u2019<\/p>\n

At last week\u2019s Budget Committee hearing, City Administrator Carmen Chu made the case for the bond: \u201cThese infrastructure improvements are needed now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A former Sunset District supervisor, Chu didn\u2019t need to reach back to 1906. To drive her point home, she invoked the specter of the devastating 2024 Los Angeles fires and the failures of that city\u2019s water system.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Minutes later, committee chair Sup. Connie Chan, who represents the Richmond, pointed out that $100 million from a big 2020 bond<\/a> was supposed to expand the system into the Outer Richmond, but it wasn\u2019t enough because costs ran higher than expected. It ended up costing $42 million to lay down one mile of water main.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

That previous bond, and the work coming up short, followed a 2019 civil grand jury report with an unambiguous title: \u201cAct Now Before It Is Too Late<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCity leaders have known about this issue for decades\u201d without significant action, the report noted, and it laid out a plan to get it done by 2034. Civil grand juries have no authority over policy, but their findings are meant to give City Hall a push.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, SF\u2019s chief resilience officer Brian Strong assured Chan the new bond would be enough this time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s good news to some on the west side. \u201cThe city is making serious investments in the necessary infrastructure on the west side,\u201d says Steve Shoemaker, a spokesperson for neighborhood group Grow The Richmond.<\/p>\n

But others have reservations that range from the technological to the political.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A freshwater concept<\/p>\n

Rather than expand the existing AWSS further west, the SF Public Utilities Commission (which took over maintenance from SFFD in 2010) has proposed a new high-pressure water main that would tap into the Sunset Reservoir, a catchment between 24th and 28th Avenues that\u2019s part of the city\u2019s standard water supply.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ASan Francisco\u2019s west side. The blue lines are the current emergency water system, or AWSS. The green, yellow, and red lines are the proposed system that would tap into SF\u2019s regular potable water system via the Sunset Reservoir (\u201cSunset PS\u201d) and possibly Lake Merced. (Courtesy SF Public Utilities Commission)<\/p>\n

If need be, the new high-pressure main could also draw from Lake Merced.<\/p>\n

This is what\u2019s known as a \u201cco-benefits\u201d setup. The new plumbing would serve as regular, low-pressure water delivery most of the time, but in an emergency, SFFD could make it high-pressure by closing a series of more than 60 valves.<\/p>\n

On the drawing board for some time now, that double duty doesn\u2019t sit right with everyone. In 2019, retired assistant fire chiefs Doudiet and Frank Blackburn, who was hailed as a hero<\/a> for saving the Marina after the \u201889 quake, published an open letter<\/a> urging the city to abandon the \u201centirely impractical\u201d proposal. In 2021, they did it again, this time with 64 other retired SFFD officials.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Five years later, Doudiet hasn\u2019t changed his opinion. (Blackburn died in 2025.) Using huge quantities of potable water right after an earthquake is also a health and sanitation risk for the west side, say Doudiet and company. And they worry that the new system could run out of water if a quake damages transmission lines to Hetch Hetchy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

(Sections of the lines run over<\/a> the Hayward fault. The Governor\u2019s Office of Emergency Services anticipates that a large quake \u201cwill impact major water conveyance systems in the Bay Area, including the Hetch Hetchy aqueducts.\u201d)<\/p>\n

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Neighborhood groups Way Out West SF and Planning Association For the Richmond<\/a> have seized on Doudiet and Blackburn\u2019s comments to push for \u201cequal protection\u201d \u2014 the same AWSS setup as most of the rest of the city. \u201cThe PUC has given us reasons to be skeptical,\u201d says Way Out West organizer Lisa Arjes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

John Crabtree, also with Way Out West, says an AWSS expansion must happen eventually, but he\u2019s so mistrustful of PUC\u2019s plan that he says he\u2019ll vote against the upcoming bond.<\/p>\n

Backups to the backup<\/p>\n

In a statement to The Frisc, SFPUC spokesperson Nancy Crowley says that the co-benefits design is sound and will deliver \u201cemergency fire protection and drinking water resiliency\u201d to the western neighborhoods, even as they grow denser with looser zoning<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The PUC also notes there are other backup systems: hundreds of 75,000-gallon cisterns including 40 on the west side, fireboats (some of the bond money will go to SFFD to purchase more and build a special dock at Fort Mason); a special system to draw water from Blue Heron Lake, formerly Stow Lake; and suction machinery that lets fire engines draw water from the bay and other bodies of water.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nMore backup: In addition to the separate network of \u201cAWSS\u201d pipes, in an emergency the city can tap hundreds of underground cisterns, marked by brick circles on streets. There are 40 on the west side. (Photo: public domain) Fireboats, like this one stationed along the Embarcadero, can pump and spray water. (Photo: Sebastien Bridonneau)<\/p>\n

SFFD is also officially on board. \u201cA lot of people ask why the west side is being short-shrifted, and that\u2019s being addressed now,\u201d Assistant Deputy Chief Michael Mullin tells The Frisc.<\/p>\n

Jacuzzi of the PUC\u2019s citizen advisory board says critics haven\u2019t thought everything through. For example, Doudiet questions tapping freshwater supplies when the ocean is right there, but Jacuzzi points out it would be much more difficult to draw water from the Pacific than from the comparably placid bay. \u201cThe telemetry of the ocean changes constantly, sometimes you have 40-foot waves,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s just not the same.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Going to the political well<\/p>\n

The lack of progress is more fuel for west siders who say City Hall doesn\u2019t listen to them \u2014 a central theme in the Great Highway fight, leading to Sup. Joel Engardio\u2019s recall, and the Family Zoning Plan debate. Arjes gave more than $40,000 to the recall effort and tried to sue<\/a> to reopen the highway.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have always felt like we\u2019re treated as a bit of a backwater,\u201d and the long wait for expanded fire coverage is another example, says Albert Chow, a hardware store owner and Engardio recall organizer. He is running in the special June election for the Sunset supervisor seat. (Chow was also party to the suit with Arjes.) Chow criticizes the west side design and predicts the project will run out of money again, but says he \u201ctentatively supports\u201d the bond.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Natalie Gee, another District 4 candidate and an aide to Sup. Shamann Walton, says there are \u201cconcerns that must be addressed\u201d and criticizes the expansion\u2019s long time coming. But she gives her support because the need to prepare for the Big One is simply too great.<\/p>\n

The west side\u2019s current supervisors \u2014 Alan Wong in the Sunset and Connie Chan in the Richmond \u2014 are cosponsors of the bond proposal. Wong did not return requests for comment. Wong was an aide to former D4 supervisor Gordon Mar, who commissioned the 2019 grand jury report.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many southern neighborhoods are also not part of the AWSS; the bond won\u2019t cover expansion there. Sup. Chyanne Chen, who represents the Excelsior and more, supports the bond but tells The Frisc that \u201cthe southern neighborhoods must be next in line.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Arjes of Way Out West still holds out hope that some lawmakers will change their minds once they hear more detailed criticism. She tells The Frisc she\u2019s even considering running for the D4 seat herself. She\u2019ll have to move fast. The bond now has nine cosponsors, and the board\u2019s first vote to put it on the June ballot is next week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s political and geological clocks are always ticking.<\/p>\n

\n\tMore from The Frisc…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a cold hard fact: the Big One is coming for San Francisco. Or if you prefer, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[45661,73108,8670,73109,2949,3978,3802,405,5409,12462,3607,101,4773,103,102,20272,104,106,105,27669,16505],"class_list":["post-146919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-alan-wong","tag-awss","tag-connie-chan","tag-disaster-planning","tag-earthquake","tag-emergency","tag-fire","tag-government","tag-policy","tag-richmond-district","tag-safety","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-fire-department","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-san-francisco-public-utilities-commission","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-sunset-district","tag-urban-planning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}