Transcripts For SFGTV Government Access Programming 20240714

On disability for further information or to request accommodations at mod sfgov. Org. Our next regular meeting will be on friday, november 15, 2019 from 14 in this hearing room. We thank you for joining us today. We will now proceed with roll call. Chair denise . Present. Stephen perman . Here. Alex madrid . Here. Lily marshallfricker. Present. Helen pelzman . Present. Orkid . Helen smolinski . Here. Kate williams is absent. Council member tiffany yu. Present. Ms. Senhaux chair thank you. Well go to action item number 2. Reading approve. Reminder to the guests to speak slowly in the microphone to assist captioners and interpreters. Public comment. Items not on today agenda but within the jurisdiction of the mdc. We welcome the publics participation during the Public Comment periods. There will be an opportunity for Public Comment at the beginning and end of the meeting as well as after every item on todays agenda. Each comment is limited to three minutes and the council will respond to your comments following the meeting if you provide your contact information. You may complete a speakers card, or call our bridge line at 14155549632. Where a staff person will handle requests to speak at the appropriate time. Cochair report. Report from the Mayors Office on disability. Pg es Public Safety power shuftoff program. Council questions and Public Comment is welcome. Break, the council will take a 15minute break. Dahlia housing portal, building a Digital Product that supports access to information. Council questions and Public Comment is welcome. Curb management strategy. Public comment. Correspondence. Council member comments and announcements. Adjourned. To receive notices of the meetings and electronic copies of the agenda please contact the Mayors Office on disability. Ms. Senhaux chair thank you, heather. I would like this move a motion for the approval of todays agenda. All in favor . I dont see any abstentions. So moved. Thank you, Council Members. Were going to move on to Public Comment number 3, items not on todays agenda but within the jurisdiction of the mayors Disability Council. I believe we have a couple of speaker cards. Nicole we do. The first is elka. My apologies, first time here at the meeting. Ive been a caregiver for disabled sister for four years. Shes not here today because she passed away last year because her disability was used against her to continue her medical treatment. And she passed away because of that denial of treatment. And im here to raise your attention to how discrimination can impact the disabled community when theyre dealing with an organ transplant. And i dont know if your office has ever had to deal with a situation like this. I only recently learned of your council over the summer. And i spoke with heather in your office. And, heather, you were wonderful and provided a lot of information. I, unfortunately, didnt know about your office over the past four years. When i was faced with having to deal with a decision that my sister was being removed from a transplant wait list because she could not speak and could not move half her body, i felt trapped and there was nobody i could talk to. The hospital made the decision. It was only one hospital in this city that performs lung transplants. And we had no choice to take her to another hospital. And i just dont want what happened to my sister to happen to another resident of San Francisco. And i have some ideas as to what we can do to perhaps give a voice to this very vulnerable patient population. And i certainly have more time to do that since im no longer a caregiver. But i just wanted to raise this issue to your attention. It is shocking that it could happen in this city. And i remember feeling so trapped in that situation and i hope there is a way that we can help this population. If you have any questions, im happy to answer. Im on the mailing list as well. Ms. Senhaux chair thank you. I have a question. Is that how this works . Ms. Senhaux chair not during Public Comment. Go ahead real quick, helen. Remind me of your name. Alka airy. Through the chair sorry. And did you have any insurance . Yes. Can you share with us what that was . Ms. Senhaux chair excuse me. I apologize. Can we talk offline to get this information . Okay. Nicole thank you for coming. Did you complete a speaker card today . I did. Great well have your information and we can follow up after the meeting today. All we have is your name, but, heather, you have an email. Ms. Senhaux chair thank you. The next speaker is zack kay. Hi, thank you. Id like to speak slowly, but im going to speak fast because there is a threeminute time limit unless the Council Gives me another minute. Ms. Senhaux chair if you need it, we can give it to you. Id like to speak slower so everyone can hear me. Im here today because, for a few reasons, i have concerns about recent changes in this council. I received an email in Early September that response times for issues around disability from this council will be five days. And i was five business days, which is quite a long time. I asked about that and was told in an email that we are short staffed, almost working on bare bones. When i received that, i sent email this is september 9 or september 10, that i would be open to volunteering for this council or working for this council to help people with disability earn more rights. I had to send multiple emails before i got a response. I didnt get a response until this morning and it told me that m. O. D. Is not looking for volunteers at this point. Im wondering why a council that has a fiveday response time, working on bare bones, is not accepting volunteers that only want to help people with disabilities. Im also concerned that these meetings i mentioned this before are happened bimonthly. That feels like a real slap in the face for those of us who are part of the public and dont get our voice heard. We only get three minutes once every two months. If were sick or cant call it, its four months before we can share what is a serious usually a serious access issue. In my case, there has been multiple access issues that ive brought to the attention of the council, the secretary. One of them is the accessibility of notices that are put on trees by department of public works. Theyre doing this to hundreds of trees. Im asking that disabled people have an option for those notices. Because if youre blind, low vision, disability mobile struggle with mobility or sick in bed for a long period, you come out of the house and 30 days later, a dozen trees could be gone from the block and you have no say in it whatsoever. I asked m. O. D. If they would ask d. P. W. To respond to suspend cutting down the trees until the notices are accessible. Ive been waiting for five weeks for a response and m. O. D. Told me that they might be in meetings. For five weeks . That seems to me a strange unwillingness to protect the rights of disabled people. All im asking is that we have a right to see these notices and file a protest if we want to save a tree. Im not saying that m. O. D. Has to agree to save the trees or not. I just want disabled people to have the option. And i just im concerned because, you know, people with disabilities, we dont have the energy to be filing lawsuits and we dont want to make enemies and be, you know, arguing with people. Were sick. I should be in bed right now. And im just asking for help from this council. Thats all. So that you know we can get the rights we need. Thank you. Ms. Senhaux chair thank you. Any more Public Comment . Thank you very much. Were going to close Public Comment and move onto Item Information item number 4, cochair report. First of all, id like to make a couple of announcements. We have two Council Members that have decided not to reapply to the council. Nicole would you mind speaking into the microphone . Ms. Senhaux chair sorry. Thank you. Id like to repeat my announcement. There are two Council Members that have decided not to be reappointed to the mayors Disability Council and they are jim blacksten and Sally Coughlin macdonald. So they will be missed. I want to thank them for their work on the council for the last couple of years. And im sorry to see they werent able to reapply to the council. Id like to welcome our new Council Members that are here today with us. And let me theyve already introduced themselves, but id like to give your names again. Stephen herman. Lily marshallfricker. Helen pelzman. Id like to welcome the new Council Members and give them an opportunity if theyd like to say something. If not, thats okay. But i wanted to give you the opportunity. Okay. Go ahead and move ahead. We look forward to working with you. And again, congratulations. Okay, were going to move on to information item number 5, report from the Mayors Office on disability. And id like to welcome our director, nicole bohn. Nicole thank you for the introduction. Hello, everyone. Thanks for being here today. Thanks also to everyone watching on sfgovtv and to folks listenings on our bridge line today. I have a number of updates and announcements that i want to draw to your attention. Its been a very busy month for us and a lot of the work weve been doing since the last Public Meeting youll hear about today through our presenters who are here to give us more information. But there is a few other items id like to draw your attention to. One, on august 29, we had our first city meeting regarding the response that is specific to people with disabilities and vision zero. And so on that particular agenda we began conversations specifically addressing our bike lane strategy and accessibility and the citys strategy for accessible pedestrian signal installation. And this is the first of a serious of meet series of meetings were working toward vision zero strategy 2. 0. There will be additional opportunity for Public Engagement on this, but i wanted to encourage the council to invite our vision zero colleagues to come and give an update on where we are regarding our response to vision zero, especially as it pertains to the request that came from the vision zero coalition. And also in terms of our response to the safety and wellbeing of people with disabilities. We have also, this month, as denise mentioned, welcomed our new Council Members. I want to send my thanks and congratulations on behalf of the city and on behalf of the mayor to our new members for your appointment. And thank you very much for being here today. Were very glad to have you. The next few things that i want to talk about are upcoming engagement opportunities. And all of this information has either gone to and through the Mayors Office on disability distribution who have signed up to receive alerts, or will be shortly. First event id like to announce we just learned today is happening monday, september 23rd. And what that is, the update on the work with the development of the Disability Community cult cultural center. There is a webinar you can take part in on monday at 2 00 in the afternoon. For the purposes of Public Information, im going to give you a phone number today which is 415 3386010. If youre signed up to the Mayors Office on disability distribution, through our website, you will have received that as of this afternoon. The next item that i want to draw your attention to is actually an item that is happening simultaneously with our Public Meeting today at the high i cant tell hyatt. The reason i bring it up here today, is to encourage Council Members to remain engaged as this plan at the state level is developed. I know several of you have already gone to a few Public Meetings about this. So i encourage you to remain engaged regarding this state master plan. Next id like to announce an opportunity for another its another Community Meeting from our colleagues at sfmta on the mobility permit harmization plan. This meeting is happening this coming wednesday, september 25 from 6 00 to 7 30 p. M. At 1 south van ness. And the purpose of this Community Forum is to give the Public Information about mtas permit program and the purpose of this is to make sure that as more new and emerging Mobility Services and mobility devices are engaged with our public rightofway, that were developing a plan to address the issues and the maintenance of the public right of way and our safety in a way that is coordinated. I encourage you, if youre interested, to also attend that meeting there specifically, encouraging feedback from people with disabilities. Next there are two engagement opportunities happening the following evening on september 26. The first item that i want to bring to the councils attention is the transit reliability presentation focused on equity, which will be happening in the Public Meeting of the Human Rights Commission on september 26 in this building, at city hall, room 416. The Human Rights Commission will be hearing from sfmta on communicating service updates, language access, access for seniors and adults with disabilities, and latenight muni access in particular. And the commission has asked the mayors Disability Council specifically to attend. If youre interested and if you would be available to let the Mayors Office on disability know so they can acknowledge you publicly in their meeting. Also on the evening of the 26th, is a followup to an event that happened last week at the San Francisco Arts Commission. Im pleased to announce that this year, for the first time, our San Francisco Arts Commission has included people with disabilities, specifically in terms of targeted outreach for their grant recipient program. It has been available to people with disabilities before, but this year they identified people with disabilities specifically as an Underserved Community when it comes to the arts and our focusing attention this year and in subsequent years on more strategic outreach for folks with disabilities. I had the privilege of moderating a Panel Last Week of artists, where the theater attendees learned quite a bit about accessibility and access to the arts. Thanks to our panelist who were representing the community. As followup to that, if youre interested in learning more about Art Commission grant opportunities, there is going to be an informational session on thursday, september 26, from 6 00 to 7 00 p. M. At the contemporary jewish museum. You are welcome to attend that as well. There are a couple of more announcements. Public events happening. Next i want to announce that the following week, thursday, october 3rd, there will be a meeting specifically for Disability Community members regarding an update on the better Market Street accessibility plan. This meeting is going to is cosponsored by the department of public works. Sfmta, and with the generous contributions from the white house for the blind and support for Mayors Office on disability. So this meeting is happening thursday, october 3rd, from 4 30 to 6 00 at the lighthouse. If you would like to r. S. V. P. For this meeting, you can contact miss jennifer blut. And this information went out to the Mayors Office on disability distribution as well and will be posted to our website. Finally, i want to announce that speaking of the lighthouse for the blind, in conjunction with the Longmore Institute on disability, is announcing their festival. Another twoday, really great event that is happening saturday, october 12, at the salvage in berkley. And day two is sunday october 13, at the contemporary jewish museum. For those of you who dont know, these are all jury selected films that talk about the disability experience and its a very wonderful process that features films for and by and about people with disabilities. So i highly encourage you to attend that very exciting and Engaging Community event. And those are all of my announcements for today. Ms. Senhaux chair thank you, director. Before we move on, can i ask a question . Ms. Senhaux chair sorry. Thank you. Were going to move on to our next item, information item, which is pg es Public Safety power shutoff program. I would like to welcome our presenter. I apologize if i dont announce your name bijan karimi, acting Deputy Director of San Francisco department of Emergency Management. Good afternoon, Council Members. My name is bijan karimi. Im assistant acting Deputy Director for San Francisco department of Emergency Management. Ill be talking to you about pg es Public Safety shutoff. Psps. Ill be talking about four things today. Information about what psps actually is and about three different exercises that the city has participated in and facilitated. One with other city partners. One with private sector and also with regional partners. Many people may want to get a better understanding of what psps is. Pg e will turn off electricity transmission lines because of a perceived concern for starting some additional wildfires. There has been tremendous destruction and damage and loss of life that happened over the last two years in this sonoma area and as a result, pg e has explored what are the ways to decrease the likelihood of another event happening . So based on different factors that pg e uses, things like heat, wind, humidity, fuel levels, and individual observations, they may decide to turn off transmission linings. The difference between a transmission line and distribution line, distribution brings power directly to your home. Where transmission are the big power lines we see running across the major arteries of the city and are in the area and are typically on top of large power aframelooking buildings. And one of the concerns that we have is what impact is this going to have on the city . The primary transmission lines that come to San Francisco come through the east bay and up the peninsula. The cpuc, the California Public Utilities Commission have identified tier 2 and tier 3. It identifies two different areas in the bay area. One is those that are elevated and those considered extreme. The elevated is yellow. The extreme is red. And the areas that are transmission our transmission lines come through for San Francisco come through some of the red areas in the east bay, and then may also come up some of the yellow areas on the peninsula. So while San Francisco, itself, does not have tier two or tier three exposure, where we get our power from, does. So thats why were paying particular attention to this. We need to prepare for any potential power outage, whether its a significant one as described with psps, or it could be what happened this morning. Earlier today, a contractor hit a pg e transmission line here in San Francisco. Over 22,000 people did not have power starting right around 8 00. So whether its the entire city because of a psps. Whether its a smaller incident, certainly 22,000 is not small. Or whether its an individual block, the steps were taking in the city and we hope residents and other businesses will take, should mitigate the impact of a loss of power. Dem hosted three different exercises. One in june, it was for San Francisco departments. One in july for private sector agencies in the city, but also some of the nonprofit and Government Agencies we work with to help provide additional services. And the third was in august where we spoke to some of our regional partners, other counties. We also asked the state and some of our federal partners to come to get a better understanding of how theyre planning for this, should the incident happen, and how were going to be coordinating together. For our city workshop this is now moving to the second topic we one of the outcomes with how critically important continuity of operation plans are. Working with different city agencies to identify their essential functions and then identify what impacts loss of power would have on those essential functions. We also appreciated and studied the fuel that is going to be required to run backup generators. And understanding how much fuel we have in the city and how quickly well need to get additional fuel into the city to support backup generation. We also explored the impact to electronic and financial transactions, because we appreciate that the systems we rely on, if theyre not powered, how are we going to continue to Exchange Information and conduct daily business . And we also explored what some of the Communications Breakdowns that may take place and how we will continue to reach out to different populations. In our second workshop, which was our private sector, we also underscored how important Business Continuity is for the businesses we rely on. And one of the issues that we also talked about is the unknown of how long a business may be without power. Communications with staff as what we have in the city, that may also be a complicating factor for private sector partners reaching out to their clients. Are they prepared to reach out and give messages how long the power may be out, how they can still receive services and what Additional Needs they may have. We also discussed the restoration of service time lines. When pg e turns the power on, that doesnt mean everything goes back to normal. It may take time to inspect systems and bring them up in the proper way so they can be up and running. Mta is an example. They may need to inspect their systems so all of the infrastructure functions correctly. One of the things we also recognized, determining the perceived diminished quality of life in San Francisco. San francisco is a wonderful place that people love to come to because of its reputation worldwide. We dont want to people to think, i dont want to go to San Francisco because this is an issue. We want them to know this is temporary and were taking steps to mitigate the impact. What we found out is that few agencies and this is throughout the region they also dont have continuity of operations plans. You can see one key thing is how important it is. Fuel will also be a critical issue. If San Francisco is without power, because were getting our power from somewhere else, theyre also likely affected with some type of power shut jouf. So its not just shutoff. It not just San Francisco impacted, its likely a larger area, so how will we work with the state to get the different resources we need and making sure that the state appreciates areas that may have higher levels of impact. We also talked about if agencies will provide Financial Recovery to businesses. Many businesses have discovered after the private sector workshop, their insurance may not cover a planned outage, which is this is considered planned, because pg e will provide notice. Business Interruption Service doesnt cover someone willingly turning the power off, even if its for a safety kilometreperhour. So thats an area that is coming up. We did talk a lot about and there has been a tremendous amount of work done with coordinated Public Information. The different ways, we, through the bay area, will be exchanging information that is consistent with what were saying, with what other counties are saying and the information were getting to all of our population. We also recognize the dhal enge with health and challenge with health and Human Services committee, especially those with access and functional needs. The department of Public Health and im joined by dr. Jan gurley who will be here to answer questions, how do we make sure we know where some of these individuals are that need additional assistance . How do we help them prior to the outage taking place . Pg e has let us know they hope to give us 48 hours of notice. We hope that, too. If its less than that, its much more important or equally important for us to make sure that the populations that may be impacted more significantly, that they have the tools and resources they need. So specific impacts to the access and functional needs population. Loss of power. We understand that will be a significant concern, particularly with some of the durable medical equipment. Loss of refrigeration, both for individuals with medicines or for businesses, if there are other refrigerated items that individuals may need, that may not be available. Disruptions to public services. I mentioned senior centers, dialysis clinics. They have different requirements on them versus a hospital in terms of backup power generation. And the loss or degraded communication systems. We use a lot of electronic means to communicate with individuals, but if those degrade, once 0 the power goes out, were looking at ways to continue to communicate with the population. One that was raised during the citywide meeting and this also came up during the private sector was challenges with evacuation. And if there is no elevator access. There may be individuals relying on an elevator to get to and from where they work, or a service they require, or their homes. What messaging are we giving to these individuals so they can be confident if they need assistance, they will be able to receive it. Continuity of operations plan. This is something that mayor breed after the first exercise we had recognized the importance. We are now gathering all the information. But it talks about i mentioned earlier essential functions. What are those things you do, or depends on you to do . Linings of succession. If the power outage happens in the morning, who makes the decision . I can make the decision, but i have to authority to do so. Who are those essential personnel . And the overall plan for revising the plan. We dont want to do it just once. We want to make sure it is continued. For Business Continuity planning we provided resources to private sector and the nongovernment organizations directing them to the ready, business, power outage tool kit. This is provided by fema. Weve also partnered with the Community Agencies responding to disaster, making sure that they are ready to respond as well and they have their own plans. The volunteer organizations and the california resiliencesy alliance. All different partners we work with, but its making sure, they, too, are prepared for an incident if it comes up. And the psps awareness campaign. This links back to the regional coordination. We understand how essential it is to preparedness. Weve developed messaging in multiple languages and well use partners to spread the message. We dont want someone to get a message one way. We want it multiple ways. It may even be a neighbor knocking on the door. Neighbors helping neighbors. And focusing on populations that may be medically dependent on electricity, nicole participated in a mayors policy Group Exercise that we had. And one of the topics that came up, how do we prioritize if we have power charging stations . How do we prioritize when they have life dependency on power above other individuals . So were working with pg e to identify the medical baseline customers that register with pg e, how to get that information and working with the San Francisco Public Utilities commission to distribute flyers in the utility bills so people know what may happen to take the steps to protect themselves. For public alert and messaging, pg e intends to do the notification 48 hours ahead of time. At that point the department of Emergency Management is going to do alert sf. Thats our common platform for emergency messaging, sending the Text Messages and emails before a shutoff takes place. Well also be using traditional and social alerts. If this happens, the media market in the bay area will light up and there will be all kinds of information sent out from us, from all the different channels and we want to and radio, and we want to make sure people have that consistent information. Through our partner outreach, whether its the Homeless Outreach teams, elected officials, business associations, many others listed here, Community Organizations for individuals that are homebound, make sure everybody has as much information as they can to get to the individuals. Other options are the emergency wireless alerts. Thats something well be testing during the up coming 30th anniversary of the earthquake. And then also other emergency alerts or the outdoor public warning system. And our continued coordination with pg e, this is not just a oneshot thing. Were participating in regular Conference Calls with them to make sure were getting other information about what theyre planning. And then were also participating, along with nicoles assistance, with the California Public Utilities Commission regulatory requirements. They have a rulemaking process and were reaching out and working with nicole to make sure were providing the necessary information to that rulemaking body. Later in september, actually wednesday of next week, pg e is going to be doing a specific workshop for San Francisco to answer questions from a lot of the different partners to make sure everyone is getting the same information from pg e. Are we taking questions . Ms. Senhaux chair yes, from Council Members. Ill go in order of request. Council member herman is first. Mr. Herman thank you for your presentation. If i could be joined by dr. Gurley, with the department of Public Health, she may be able to answer your healthrelated questions for directly. Mr. Herman you mentioned those people who have signed up for medical baseline with pg e. If you know who they are, which it sounds like there is a way of identifying them, what specifically can you do for them . In terms of notification ahead of time . Or for during the incident . Mr. Herman during the incident. During the incident, pg e have committed to reaching out to as many of the individuals through their customer representatives as they can on the list. We intend on requesting that list from them. We can only we cant have the information ahead of time because it is regularly changing. We want the latest information. So at the 48hour, or first notice, theyll be providing us with information so we can also do directed messaging to these individuals. Mr. Herman thats not answering my question. Your messaging to them, but is there any assistance you can give them if the power is shut off . Hi. Im dr. Jan gurley. I am the director of Public Health Emergency Preparedness and response for the San Francisco department of health. We have been working rapidly to try and address this vulnerability for some of our most impacted communities. We know from discussing this issue with other cities that the pg e list of people with medical needs is actually a tiny subset of the people for whom we would be concerned. Were trying to create rapidly, a response protocol that has several layers. One that bijan karimi mentioned, were working closely with dem around messaging. That seems to be an important opportunity to help many untoward effects. To do effective messaging, though, it has to be appropriate to the recipients, in a timely fashion, and then it also has to give them actionable steps. So were quite aware that for some people, if they knew they would be out of power for four days, and theyre dependent on a Power Wheelchair and they have an elevator, we may need to establish emergency shelters or places that they can go. Thats one of the ways, for example, that we would begin to try to responding as soon as we develop messaging. The second issue is were also working rapidly to get a better handle on who all we could reach in a very short period of time. Not purely based on one subgroup. Each list, or subgroup, has flaws. So the pg e list is actually very difficult, weve been told by colleagues in l. A. , for many people to get onto. Its complicated. It requires providerfilled out forms. It relies on certain diagnoses that may not be the words that many in our communities might use. I mention that because there are many reasons that it may not capture people. We have worked with the federal government to get the steps in place to request something called the empower database. That is a database on the federal side that is based on medicare diagnoses. And it is considered a group of people who are extremely high risk for energydependent medical devices. Including ones like a left ventricular assist device. Thats pretty significant. Its helping your heart beat. Another one is oxygen concentrators or even respiratory. In the department of Public Health, were doing now, and practiced this morning, all of the information so we can do a stratified response for the people in the empower database, working with partners and people in the optin list. That stratified response in addition to messaging, as were working with our First Responder communities, both volunteer and otherwise to figure out how we could stratfy going to check on people in a hippaappropriate way, starting with high priority people first. While were messaging to all people who might be medically dependent. An important thing for all of us to be aware with, with the empower database, even though its been studied and found to be 96 accurate, it only captures medicare patients. It does not capture pediatric. It does not capture private insurance people. It does not capture medical. For those many reasons, as i mentioned, each subgroup has flaws in the information. We in the department of Public Health have also created alliances with our nonprofit agencies and some of our key workers, such as our Inhome Supportive Services workers. We will continue to move ahead as rapidly as we can. Were practicing october 9 for an emergency volunteer practice for how to respond to this empower database, where well create a scenario and move ahead. In emergency work, it always feels like whatever were doing, its not enough. We appreciate your time today to share this. We are very open to hearing from any agency that is interested in helping any one of the many constituents. We want to get feedback how we can practice and improve. We want to include people from communities as we develop these protocols and make sure theyre appropriate. So if you have any questions, i would be happy to hear them. Mr. Herman one followup. Are there any facilities now available to which you would take individuals who are identified at the highrisk level . So this is a question about what is our Response Plan for sheltering in an emergency . Mr. Herman correct. This is more of a dem question. I mention it, because in dph, were responsible for the sheltering. Its a multiprocess. Our job is to have ready the cache and its not that kind of cash, its the cache of supplies. The current sheltering plan for any incident in San Francisco weve identified locations throughout the city that can function as potential shelters. In that collection, weve also identified those that are ada compatible. Not all are. We hope they become so, but we also recognize we want to provide the highest level of care we can at the shelters consistently. Some individuals may have a particular need, so when an event comes up, we have not preidentified shelters, but we have a list of places we can have shelters. And well let the Community Know certainly where those are, so they can come to the locations. Mr. Herman thank you. Ms. Senhaux chair before we move on to the next question. I want to add that in addition to all of this work that is being done so far, we have an active disability functional Needs Working Group that is a combination of many city staff, communitybased organizations and other interested parties that are really working through all of the issues that dr. Gurley mentioned in very systematic way. So thats another very targeted way were really trying to look at the needs of folks with disabilities. Ms. Senhaux chair thank you. Mr. Madrid thank you for coming. I have a lot of questions, but i just want to have a few questions today. When you said in place by now for those people that might need it, just want to clarify when you say this is not shelters with Homeless Population or people might just slip in, right . I want to reframe your question to make sure i understand. The question is, if we open a shelter, will it also include members of mr. Madrid no. My question was, i just want to make sure that when the shelter is open, or opened up, its not homeless shelters. Its just specifically for those people that need to be in there, right . When a shelter is opened in San Francisco, our intention is to serve the needs of the individuals that are coming to the shelter. We recognize that some individuals may have particular needs. There are many Resources Available for individuals who may already be homeless. They may already go and use or go to the locations where theyre already familiar, but they may come to any shelter in the city, if they need assistance. Mr. Madrid the reason i ask is that as you mentioned before, those places are accessible, but we had a meeting a couple of months ago that most shelters are not accessible. Just wondering information on that and possibly recheck your plan. And the second question is that for your outreach, it has the ability and i havent got any notices that i can sign up for this resources that you were informing us. How do you reach out to those people who might or might not know . I didnt mean to interrupt. I was just going to say in answer to that question, which is an important one, it is again our great dem colleagues that do our alert systems. Very important first step that all people in San Francisco can do. And if you feel like youre overmessaged, you can sign up just for your zip code. That is an important first step. Mr. Madrid i didnt get any information. Thats what i was saying. So if you dont know about it, how do you know what you dont know . The second, there are barriers to getting into the pg e medically dependent program. Many people dont even know about it. Their providers may not know about it. It is an optin program, so its another way which we want the message to get out, including important forums like this, that these are available. The third reason and the reason i sort of stepped in, we have found in investigating the empower database that people dont know theyre in it. It is pulled from their medicare medical records. Its tightly controlled by the federal government. Including whether they think its a significant enough emergency to release it, because it is hippa level information. So when we had the geary fire and we were worried about the power shutdown in that neighborhood and how long it would go on, we were told by the federal government that was not a significant or long enough disaster for us to get those names. And i believe that was true. And it was a reasonable control. I mention that because, if youre in the empower database, its because you have a medically qualifying need and youre on medicare. It does not, however, include peoples phone numbers. So we will and are creating a robust approach to contacting people who do not know their name may be asked for by the city in an extreme emergency. So you cant actually ask to be in the empower database. Mr. Madrid thank you. I hope that answers your question. Mr. Madrid it does. Thank you. Ms. Sassouni hi. Ill try to keep this brief. Just a few things. I just received an alert through the system about the outage this morning, so that was good. I use alert sf, but also for my sons school and other things. Next door, all of these neighborhoodwide events i try to sign up for all of these alerts. As much information as possible. And these are very general. But in terms of access, i dont know. For me as a deaf person, i do feel like were responsible to prepare ourselves in advance by having extra batteries at home and things that may last a minimum of 72 hours, so if the power does go out and were not able to access the news and so on, we may or if the gas goes off and we dont have enough food, so planning for the earthquake preparedness activities, can be part of preparing for a power outage. I think its also a good lesson for everyone, but in terms of the access part, not sure. I mean the Community Outreach and partnering with different organizations is going to be so important. Some deaf people dont bother to reach out because were so used to being on our own and taking care of ourselves in those regard. And deaf people may sleep through audible fire alarms. Others are barely alerted to their own house on fire, and barely able to get their three children in the car. Rental landlords often dont provide ada accessible alerts, even though theyre required under law. And there can be alert animals, but thats not always a flawless system as well. I think there are so many things that we can do to prepare ourselves, but i think having the battery backup is really significant. And again, not sure if people can carry it, what is convenient for people . So just another approach i encourage you to consider. Thank you, council member. I appreciate the comment. One thing about Public Safety power shoutoff and prepare willing shutoff and preparing for that, if we have a large earthquake, there will be a public outage with everything else, with debris, with many other issues. So the efforts that people are going through to prepare themselves for Public Safety power shutoff are the same things they need to do for any type of disaster. I mentioned earlier we had 22,000 people without power earlier today. We could have many more in a Public Safety power shutoff. If something happens to the phone pole in front of your house, like it did mine, five residences were without power for five hours. That was tough. I had my dog inside. My spouse who works from home. And i had a refrigerator that was off. Ive taken steps where she now knows how to turn on the generator and get it going, much to my chagrin as i keep drilling to her do so, but this is how we prepare for an incident that happens to us. But it was small. It was only five. So whether its five, 500, 5,000 or more, the same steps were taking are what help us prepare. Ms. Senhaux chair thank you. Three more Council Questions to go. Thank you for waiting. Ms. Pelzman thank you for your comprehensive approach to this. It makes me feel a little bit better about what is going to what we could anticipate happening in both the disaster and also in turning off the power. Im going to follow up again on outreach. Especially as it relates to pg e as a renter, i dont have a pg e bill. And im not sure how you all have incorporated renters or folks like myself who dont pay the utility into your calculus of how to get inform us. As somebody who has done a lot of outreach in the past, i would encourage you to report back to us to let us know how you are going to be expanding both the method and person to person outreach if thats what it takes. [please stand by] [please stand by]