have actually approved $362 million in bonds to strengthen our schools, all 16 schools have been strengthened or re paired or reconstructed. the city now has an earthquake-safe emergency command center. they ve given us money to be able to what i really like, it s a really cool thing, an emergency water supply where they take it down to the bay and drop it in the bay and they can pump water all the way up to the hills if need be. or they can go to the lakes behind the city and tap in there and bring water. so when the earthquake occurs, we don t have any water, well, we will have some water because we re going to be able to do that. we ll be able to use that supply. so that s been good. but the other thing that s happened is that we have recognized for a long time, look at as they indicated earlier, 72 hours is what you are going to be on your own. so we have to figure out ways in which we empower those communities and the nonprofit sector to take charge because it s goin
have been strengthened or re paired or reconstructed. the city now has an earthquake-safe emergency command center. they ve given us money to be able to what i really like, it s a really cool thing, an emergency water supply where they take it down to the bay and drop it in the bay and they can pump water all the way up to the hills if need be. or they can go to the lakes behind the city and tap in there and bring water. so when the earthquake occurs, we don t have any water, well, we will have some water because we re going to be able to do that. we ll be able to use that supply. so that s been good. but the other thing that s happened is that we have recognized for a long time, look at as they indicated earlier, 72 hours is what you are going to be on your own. so we have to figure out ways in which we empower those communities and the nonprofit sector to take charge because it s going to be a long time before the city is going to be able to help them. so we have now ab
he and his wife worked hard to make the city of berkeley a national center of disaster resilience. mayor bates will discuss the importance of citizen awareness as loma prieta engaged with the city to address emergency preparedness headon. let s welcome mayor bates to the podium. [applause] thank you, paul. thank you very much. it s a pleasure to be at this beautiful building and i was reflecting back and i was at the baseball game 22 years ago. how many of you were at the baseball game? i am the only one. two of us. i was sitting underneath the canned really stick park underneath second deck when the earthquake happened. the whole deck was like moving over us. i was thinking, that close from being killed because if it came down it would have been a disaster. the trick was trying to get back to berkeley. i come on public transportation and a friend of mine had a tv. as you can imagine one of these portable tv s. we realized that it wasn t running and the bridge was down. s
running and the bridge was down. so it was quite an adventure getting back. what actually happened, i was able to get a bus that was headed down the peninsula and i asked them if they would give me a ride to the airport. i walked to the airport and rented a car and ended up going around san jose to get back. a lot of my friends did not get back for a day or so. it was quite an eye opener to me. i have been an elected public official for a long time. during that time i have been very interested and concerned about disaster and disaster preparedness and how we can mitigate and plan and demand so when it happens we re prepared. and at berkeley i won t give you the whole litany but berkeley is one of those communities that is highly educated. we have 22 nobel prize winners from brerkly. the gentleman from fema, we have more people take the new york times percent-wise than new york city. we also take the chronicle in higher percentage than people? san francisco. i don t kn
disaster. the trick was trying to get back to berkeley. i come on public transportation and a friend of mine had a tv. as you can imagine one of these portable tv s. we realized that it wasn t running and the bridge was down. so it was quite an adventure getting back. what actually happened, i was able to get a bus that was headed down the peninsula and i asked them if they would give me a ride to the airport. i walked to the airport and rented a car and ended up going around san jose to get back. a lot of my friends did not get back for a day or so. it was quite an eye opener to me. i have been an elected public official for a long time. during that time i have been very interested and concerned about disaster and disaster preparedness and how we can mitigate and plan and demand so when it happens we re prepared. and at berkeley i won t give you the whole litany but berkeley is one of those communities that is highly educated. we have 22 nobel prize winners from brerkly.