general public on. members of the public address the commission for up to 3 min. on any matter within the commission's jurisdiction and does not appear in the agenda. speakers shall just for most of the commissioner. the lack of response to the commission or department personnel does not necessarily constitute agreement or support of statements during made during public comments. >> any public comment? seeing none, >>[closed session] >>[gavel] >> mdm. sec. >> item number three approval of the minutes. approval of minutes from regular meeting arcade 2017. >> so moved. >> any public comment on the minutes? seeing none, public comment is closed. >>[gavel] >> commissioners? >> second. >> all those in favor say, aye. [chorus of ayes.] opposed, say nay. >> item number four certificate and indulgent of appreciation. public information officer jonathan baxter 2% certificate and acknowledgment of appreciation of herman duron or guerra, arun ran over, jennifer diego cervantes for the quick and decisive action they displayed on february 21, 2017 at 1453 hrs. with help save an adult male life was being pulled out to the bait to due to strong ties. >> was going to make a presentation on this? >> good afternoon president madrid ominous jonathan baxter to begin our presentation on this item. >> welcome. >> commissioners,, chief hayes-white, numbers of the command staff and everybody present i want you to welcome you today. today i'm honored not only to give this presentation but a few minutes before this event i had the pleasure of meeting aron and jennifer cervantes prior to this event and talking to the three of them nine years old, 19 years old, and 20 years old, me, a professional public servant at the last quarter of my career, looking at three young people the - i'm sorry - two young men and young lady you're about to meet gives me a piece of mind to say the least that our future is safe because we have people like this. i know there's a lot more that are going to step up and do the right thing at the right time for the right reasons. on 2-21 2017 at 3:53 pm in the afternoon, mr. michael shanahan was enjoying a swim in aquatic park in san francisco. weather conditions on this date due to recent storms yielded a very strong tide. which attribute to mr. shanahan been swept out into the san francisco day. esther shanahan was able to grab hold onto a be pure piling and begin to yell for help. fortunately, three young adults were fishing nearby. nine-year-old aaron durrant, oliveira, heard the yell for help and quickly notified his brother firemen over and from his girlfriend, jennifer cervantes. the three were together very quickly to locate nearby rope to throw to mr. shanahan. within our rope now securing mr. shannon from and called 911 and provided very descriptive details of the incident. aron and from and: to the rope with mr. shanahan opened onto the other end of the rope, while being pulled out due to the current, jennifer had the wherewithal to make herself visible and direct responding san francisco fire department and san francisco police department units to the exact location of mr. shanahan. i want to stop your for a moment and really explain to action zero. aron oliveira had an amazing [inaudible] on the phone copied earlier cummings being a little humble when he said that it was the dispatcher that did a great job just ask the right questions. i know for my 27 years of experience with the majority of the rescues and surf rescues and water rescues we have had, one of the problems is usually not having descriptive adequate pinpoint locations and information. all of that was given by erin on this phone call. secondly, when we arrived >> i want to correct you i think was by furman width you are correct. by furman. second of all jennifer was able to get the wherewithal in earlier she stated that just kind of came to her to do this and we would ones that were directing. that is not true. jennifer walked out, grabbed literally the fire department and walked as to the exact location where mr. shanahan was having his tragic moment and that saved so much valuable time and possibly his life. continuing, san francisco fire department and san francisco police department units were able to locate rescue assess and transport mr. shanahan to a hospital without delay. the san francisco fire department believes that the quick thinking and levelheaded actions of thurman, aron, and jennifer resulted in a successful outcome for mr. shanahan. instead of this incident being a search and recovery operation, the san francisco fire department was able to quickly rescue mr. shanahan from the waters. these three young individuals knowingly or not, save esther shanahan's life that day. now, with the permission of the commissioners i would like to invite mr. shanahan up to the podium would like to say a few words before we present the certificates. >> absolutely. thank you. >> mr. shanahan. welcome. >> thank you very much and first of all, just it so wonderful that the city fire department and police department recognize this kind of behavior and response.. aron, furman and jennifer you saved my life and [inaudible] the great fire department we have and the please of him and copy off that piling but if you had not reacted in the time you did this quickly as you did, what wasn't discussed was the fact that the hyperthermia was really setting in with me and i did not have much time left. so i will never be able to thank you. parents mother, great job raising my kid and i kid. thank you so much. >> [inaudible/off mic] please. >> [applause] [applause] >> commissioners, thank you very much. joann hayes-white fire chief. i always say the city small-town so when i found out about this story that are pil brought to us as walls are responding crews from pd and fire department, i, too, like jonathan sort of in a back nine of my career was very inspired to hear the three people out having a nice afternoon fishing to assist someone. did no total stranger. for me, i sign allow certificates every illustrated her about mr. shanahan. to my great surprise, i wanted i said to mr. shannon, who i met and know from over the years, i said you are the mr. shanahan. it's amazing like i said big city small-town. so we are forever grateful for the great work that you did and i'm glad your join us are able to join us today. congratulations i like you on behalf of the fire department and as was the commission michael each of you up individually and then you can stay by me and maybe if one of you were all three of you want to say a few words i know the commission would be very open to that. so furman, i'm going to read each certificate. they're slightly different so, on up, furman. it's a certificate we are presenting a meritorious conduct in appreciation presented to you from and ran all the era on february 21 while fishing with aron and jennifer, you are notified of calls to help from a swimmer would be in the waters of aquatic park and swept out to the date due to the rough waters. with your assistant to quickly work together to find a rope and throw to the swimmer to the swimmer was able to hold onto the for you and aron held the other in tight despite the treacherous currents trying to call the swimmer away. once the swimmer was secured you called 911 and provided as doi baxter said. just into detail about the swimmer and location to your quick actions contribute to the successful outcome to this one. so we want to say thank you and congratulations. [applause] >> before i go on, i also have to say, and it knowledge presence of your family here and i think all great children come from great parents. the tickly, great mom so thank you much mrs. olvera for what you did. [applause] >> next i'm going to call little brother, aron durand all there. come on up. [applause] >> if similar but i want to read the bulk of it for you. on february 21, 2017 while fishing with furman and jennifer, your aquatic park, calls from help from the swimmer who been in the water swept out into the bait due to rough waters. with your assistance you quickly work together to find a rope and throw it to the swimmer mr. shanahan. the swimmer was able to hold onto the ball you and your brother of the other intake despite the treacherous currents trying to both the swimmer away. your click actions contribute to successful outcome for the swimmer and understand your brother is interested in the police department but we would love to see you be a firefighter sunday. congratulations. [applause] >> next, i like to call jennifer cervantes up. congratulate you. [applause] >> was certificate also reads on february 21 while fishing with aron, and ferment your aquatic park you are notified of calls for help from a swimmer who had been in water and aquatic park and swept out into the bay. your assistance to quickly work together --through rope to the swimmer in the swimmer hold onto the tie to the local aron and ferment held the other anti-. during this time, you, jennifer wiggled to direct the arriving san francisco pd and to the exact location of the swimmer's seconds or minutes counting the situation. your quick actions contributed to the successful outcome for mr. shannon so congratulations and thank you. [applause] >> we just want to say thank you. it's really great mr. shanahan are very glad we could [inaudible] >> we are so glad we were there to help you. >> i am, too. [laughing] [inaudible/off mic] >> i'm really grateful [inaudible] and i'm grateful for being here. [applause] >> commissioners, in closing i just want to [inaudible] although i like to see everybody become a firefighter especially for the san francisco fire department, furman mentioned that he wants to be a police officer so i thought what better opportunity than what the finer applicant and to have our san francisco fire department recruitment down team here tonight to give him some information hopefully be able to recruit him. so thank you very much. [applause] > [photograph] >> [applause] >> isn't any public comment on the previous recognition? seeing none, commissioners, did you wish to say anything? yes commissioner covington >> thank you mr. pres. again i want to thank mrs. olivera and also, jennifer's parents for raising such wonderful children and children learn kindness and have big hearts because of their parents. so, ms. oliveira, your setting such a wonderful example and we are all the beneficiaries of it. mr. shanahan, we are glad you're still here with us. i want to say, to aron and furman and jennifer, you are so on the right path. please, stay on the path. you are really really good people, young people and we so often have complaints about how young people are conducting themselves. so, thank you for reminding us that there are some wonderful young people who have such care and kindness and who are so very very clear in their minds and in their hearts that not only do they jump into action, but they are able to give the information that is necessary for people to get to the point of rescue. so thank you, again. >> thank you commissioner covington. any other commissioners wish to say anything? i would just like to say, job well done. he rose, at all ages and i think it was a marvelous thing and thank you very much for your heroism and saving a life. so, without further ado, mdm. sec. next item >> item five k-9 badge ceremony for sffd k-9 search team. assistant deputy chief chief jane francisco k-9 program manager to introduce capt. peter gross program training coordinator who give a brief overview on the sffd k-9 program and present the badges to their handlers to pin on the k-9 search teams. >> hokum chief francesco >> thank you. i'm very excited to be here for the same francisco assistant of the cheaper the homeland security division i'm also serve as the k-9 program manager which means on the liaison and point of contact to california urban search and rescue task force number three down and speed menlo park it am very excited today to indoctrinate and bring it to the department are for newest members. our four k-9 from k-9 search teams. first, i want to say these teams have given tremendous time and dedication to getting these dogs trained in providing the service they do provide. typically, it takes 12-18 months to get dog certified in this task. our members here through their hard work did this in about six months. so tremendous amount of work they did. to the town of time their own time to care entering these canines constantly always having to do that when these canines. so without further ado, i would like to bring up capt. peter gross are training coordinator for the canines breed of the other k-9 search ons and he will introduce them and give you a little brief about what they do. >> thank you, chief. >> hello. commissioners. i'm going to invite the k-9 search teams to join me here so i can present them to you. chief hayes-white, commissioners, and the command staff on for allowing me this opportunity to present to you the san francisco fire department k-9 search teams. i presented the proposal to you to the commission to develop a research k-9 program towards the front san francisco fire department impact on the 20 13th and today i am pleased to report to you that the san francisco fire department has for fema certified urban search and rescue k-9 search teams that are integrated into our operations and report to our fire stations on a regular basis. commissioners, allow me to introduce to you lieut. gareth miller and his k-9 partner, [inaudible]. firefighter ed martinez, k-9 fritz. firefighter eli thomas, k-9 beta. i have my search partner. k-9, angus, who you about before. i want to take this opportunity to thank the chief. chief hayes-white, chief gonzales, chief williams and she francisco for your tireless support of the developers of the program and your continued support today. i also want to take this opportunity to it knowledge the commitment and effort of these three gentlemen and their dogs. they have taken on this commitment with dedication, hard work, and passion. all three of our newest k-9 search teams were paired with search dogs back in october 2015 the computer large amount of training specific to urban search and rescue and disaster response and also dog handling. completing the process and becoming a fema k-9 search specials, which is the highest level of certification in this discipline. all three k-9 search teams were fema certified in april 2016 by completing the rigorous evaluation and they continue to train weekly commuting high level of readiness. these firefighters in the k-9 partners not only become great ambassadors [inaudible] by participating in community events such as fleet week ending 150th anniversary but also become valuable operational resource not only large-scale incidents like we saw in the earthquake and 89 but also to local incident such as complete or partial building collapses or auto rollovers were victims ejected, the search canines will not only help locate the trapped are missing survivors, but they will also help rescuers were victims are not. this will help us to focus our efforts appropriately. therefore search canines are also known as california task force three as chief francisco mentioned it located in california task force please located in menlo park is one of the 20 fema past forces that make up the national response system for disasters. whenever they deployed, they deploy with four of these fema certified search teams. so they put great value in this resource. it takes those teams 40-72 hours to reach us to assist us. having this valuable resource here at home will help to about trapped victims of better chance of survival after earthquake or incident. closing my thank you for knowledge in our efforts today. certainly i cannot discern the today's beginning of the canine gradual further the pride, help our handlers for the hard work and accomplishment. thank you very much. >> i like to take a quick moment to thank capt. peter gross for the work he's done to get the program off and running to get the program where we are and i can't thank you enough for what he's done and the members themselves for the commitment been shown to this program. at this time like to ask chief to come down to present the badges to the handlers. >> on behalf of all the numbers about san francisco hardbound we are happy to give you badges to your canines indefinitely in appreciation for your efforts above going above and beyond providing additional service. so special night for you. i know number of you have your family zero, to so welcome to your families and also for your support. i know the canines are living at home with all of you. so, thank you. the first badge will go to capt. gross and angus. [applause] >> the second handler is firefighter eli thomas k9, leader. [applause] >> next is lieut. gareth miller and k-9, vida. [applause] >> last have firefighter ed bikinis and k-9, fritz. [applause] >>[applause] >> if you have any questions will be happy to answer them at this time. >> thank you very much, chief. do we have any public comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissions, commissioner hardeman >> thank you vista president. well it's great to see this time around. four years ago this commission was presented this idea and we were just really encouraged and excited now to see this succeed and hopefully something we never have to use but when you need it gets there. so i just a couple of questions about how you the dog stay with you 24 hours a day? to the rotate if you're off or do you keep them at your house? >> so commissioner, to address your question, the dogs are part of our families. they join us to our assignment so whether we are going to regular assignment or detailed assignment, we get sent to our regular station the dog accompanies us at all times with these dogs might develop the really tight bond with her handler they probably join them too much of their activities throughout the day but they do return home with us at the end of the day whether it's from duty where they live with us as part of our family >> do they get ever get an opportunity to play with each other? >> these dogs are all pretty serious. i know: the might of a little side relationship going on. i'm not sure but they're all pretty serious and competitive because these dogs are carefully selected to do this kind of work and usually makes them they were really strong focus and >> thank you very much. thank you to all the >> commissioner nakajo >> thank you and much. thank you so much for this opportunity to witness this badge pinning. i want to thank all the family members because certainly, in terms of the training but also the love and support it's got to be part of the family and it's pretty evident in terms of [inaudible] as well. i know san franciscans and particularly myself and many of us are dog lovers but to be able to see a dog that can potentially rescue lives is a great feeling. so thank you so much for all your work and we are looking forward to a long relationship. >> thank you mr. vp commissioner covington >> thank you very much mr. pres. thank you very much, first of all, to francisco for serving in the capacity of being the head of the k-9 units. i have had the pleasure of being with capt. gross in the south bay and watching the canines go through their paces and was very very impressed. it's been about two years now i guess since i was down there and as many of my if any of my fellow commissioners have not had an opportunity to the canines in action with her handlers, i really do want you to do so. it's a very rewarding to see them be, four-legged professionals. they are as acting capt. gross said, they're pretty serious about their work. and very eager to do their jobs. so thank you all . thank you to firefighter thomas and lieut. miller and firefighter martinez. this is a wonderful program and i know it has been through the efforts of capt. gross, that we have got to this point. so he has been very steadfast and communicating with the chief of the department as well the commission regarding his vision for the k-9 division. so thank you all so very much. >> thank you commissioner covington. thank you, capt. very good program. you guys are all terrific and what you are doing is saving lives and it's important program. so thank you for all you do. i know you go above and beyond your daily jobs just to take care of these dogs to make sure that they can perform. when they need to get so thank you for the extra hours in the extra effort and the extra love that you put into this program. because i know that's what it takes to make it-it's a good program that it is. so thank you all, each of you for doing that. and for continuing to build the k-9 program-k-9 rescue program. thank you chief francisco for bringing them to tonight and having us giving us the opportunity to thank them personally for what they do. it's a lot of extra hours and extra cost that you aren't families are bearing to do this so thank you on behalf of the city and behalf of this commission. >> thank you phrenology not, thank you, chief. >> chief francisco final words? >> yes if you want to see training or demonstration or come out and watch old search a rubble pile, they take care of a football size field in a matter of minutes you anytime you want to see that were happy to arrange it. >> thank you so much. mdm. sec., next item >> item six chief of department's report report from chief of department joanne dwight on current issues activities and events within the apartment since the fire commission meeting of march 8, 2017 including budget academy, special benz communications and outreach to other government agencies and the public. report from administration, deputy chief ramona williams on administrative divisions facility status finance report services homeland security and training within the department. >> good evening president cleaveland. i want to get right into my report since our last meeting march 8, regarding budget as i reported in the past two cycles, we are on track for revenue and expenditures this fiscal year. we will enter into further discussion with the mayor's budget office could i've yet to get involved since we submitted our budget on february 21, but her deputy director mark corso is in regular contact with the mayor's budget office. i did want to remind you that we will be presenting an overview of our department budget to budget and finance committee on april 27 at 1 pm. the chairman of the budget committee this year is supervisor melia cohen and she has been projected after the mayors commit the balanced-budget on june 1, presentations by our department the week of june 19. your presentation on june 18 as well as a follow-up presentation on june 22 both at 10 am before budget and finance committee. regarding academies, when on 21st academy chief williams would probably go into further detail but during our 17th week. my understanding is all kept local and state tests have been passed and so we will be graduating 49 members from that academy. on april 14 10 am bearden high school. we are in the process of selections for the 122nd academy scheduled to begin on april 24. be comprised of 54 members, 42 off the list and 12 coming from station 49. eight of those well-being peaks three level to paramedics and her being each three level i and the and emt singles final selections are being made. at this, we have 35 conditional offers, meeting people that have been selected and pending final passage through the medical component will be in those seats and i've another 14 alternate officers out of which seven will be selected to join the group of 35 for a total of 42. we did conduct some interviews last week at the director of human resources and i,. we anticipate more meet and greet interviews in the june timeframe for placement in the september class and we will also be because this is a question, the list-the referral we are working off of is from january,, so before we make final selections for september we will probably refreshing given you this a new referral to capture those that may take the test after january, before june. moving right into activities, since march 8, on march 9, i did announce one on march 8 the unfortunate and untimely passing of our active-duty member firefighter joe walt [inaudible] who passed away on march 8. his celebration of life and variables on march 9 and i would like to knowledge deputy chief williams assistant deputy chief francisco and rpi oh jonathan baxter further assistance and putting together relatively quickly we had about 24 hours notice, the proper and fitting tribute to firefighter-as well as her deputy chief tony rivera and his crew from the yearbook for the apparatus we needed there and so forth. there was a service here in the city and a final resting in livermore. so in order to pull this off in a fitting tribute to firefighter -who dedicated 12 years with the san francisco fire department we hired him in 2005- we also had phenomenal assistance from the san francisco police department with sister with a motorcade, motorcycle escort, california highway patrol, alameda county fire department truck livermore pleasanton fire department and livermore police department to effect a safe secure passage from the city the couple of our rigs through and to livermore. i did one make you aware of that and have the opportunity again to thank mayor lee who visited just a month before he passed away. he was traveling in vietnam but nevertheless extended his condolences and was appreciative of the opportunity to have met him. on march 10, there's a newly formed under the deputy director chief of staff, david, kate howard, she is working closely in the mayor's office and she's putting together working group of which i'm a part of. regarding it's called the street working. basically, it's regarding a number of situations and complaints coming in from 311. some 911. just about street behavior, safe streets and so forth. there was a kickoff meeting. she has several departments participating the director public health, the police chief, myself, director of public works and the new homelessness department director, jeff kosinski. to talk about goals, further collaboration, and achieving those goals and just that would be the kickoff meeting in then, also i attended a meeting-another follow-up meeting because the priority for mayor just on the 20th with the same parties to talk about the steps in which we can work closely together to address some of the street issues that the city is experiencing. on march 11, many of us never to knowledge president reagan and commissioner covington, attended and participated in the st. patrick's day parade, which was a good celebration here in our city. on the 13th of the month, deputy chief williams and i attended the united fire service women's annual membership meeting. it was about a three-hour breakfast meeting. well attended and a lot of topics were discussed. so that was headed there some changes in their leadership. that was announced and there will be plans-there are plans underway to acknowledge and celebrate 2017 as the 30th anniversary of women coming into san francisco fire department. on 16 march, i did afterward i visited station 1900 the members are still grieving over the loss of their colleagues firefighter-they spent some time with them. just checking in and seeing how they were doing. on the 17th of participated in a [inaudible] a lafayette elementary. on the 20th, the deputies and i participate on monthly labor-management meeting. local 798 headquarters. was a productive meeting. later, that afternoon, with chief scott, our new police chief, we assisted with the delivery of meals on wheels event or delivery to one of their clients on pine street, which is a program that does so much good for a lot of different people. it's the second year i participated last year i participated with chief suhr. as i said and i went to another street working group meeting and then i just want to let you know, upcoming, tomorrow chief tony rivera and i will be participating in the fire boat -i'll be on the panel will be in the audience. listening and contributing. the design criteria panel. in which there are proposals that will be submitted for our review for the new design for station 35 which pier 22.5 that's an all-day review of looking at designs, functionality, and what we feel would work best if i am one of five panelists on that panel. so more to follow on that design and the criteria. then, i know our favorite i believe chief-from the airport has invited all of you on the 29th to the grand opening of san francisco fire department international airport station three. which will be celebrated at 10 am on the 29th. that concludes my report. >> thank you, chief. any public comment? on this item? commissioner covington >> thank you for your report, chief. i just want to know about the budget has the budget committee met recently? >> the budget committee has not met since we submitted our budget on february 21. i believe in anticipation of the meeting on april 27 there will be director course so will reach out to the budget committee and possibly convened a group. certainly, we will bring back-were having ongoing discussions but there's nothing at this point that's been decided so we're kind of in a week and see pattern but we are definitely intending to convene certainly prior to the mayors budget meeting on june 1 possibly before presentation on 27 april >> well, budget committee will be prioritizing particular budget items to share with the commission? >> so if you recall, we did submit our budget can we were asked for 3% reduction, which he responded to that we are open to further discussion. we were asked to reduce-took some issue without giving our increase call volume and so forth. in terms of additional items, we did not submit additional items, if i'm following your question >> i see. will you be submitting additional items equipped >> to to be determined i think at this point we have to fight for remaining status quo because again the ass and still is the asked that we look gatekeeper for reductions. so we have a prioritized list, which should be reviewed again by the budget committee i agree with you. i think at this point our priority right now is to hold firm on where we are at. >> all right. definitely, we need to hold firm and i know that my fellow commissioners feel the same. in my conversations with the mayor, i have pointed out that from my perspective, i think we need to keep the academies going because we have so many people were going to be retiring very soon and i don't want to see any kind of falloff from us having really robust classes in the academy. that's a good segue into complimenting everyone on us having 49 graduates. that is excellent. we need every last person zone looking forward to that graduation. it's just wonderful that we have our audience-our audiences and making up one longing to be in our department and see that some members of our community are having their dreams fulfilled by being selected by the chief of the department to enter the academy then to go through the graduation, it just a wonderful thing. >> commissioner covington, thank you. we are in complete agreement with your comments about maintaining the hiring plan adobe fought collectively sought to get. likewise, with our fleet replacement claim. we know all the efforts that we collectively put forward on that so those are definitely two initiatives or line items that we really don't want to compromise on given the number of retirements and given the fact that prolonged period of time we did not have adequate funding for our equipment and are free. >> yes thank you. so the fire boat ais going to be looking at design and functionality and i'm pretty sure aesthetics as well but will you be coming back to the commission sharing portions of those discussions with us? >> yes. >> okay. i look forward to that. thank you again for your report. >> thank you commissioner covington good commissioner hardeman >> i will be brief mr. pres. thank you for your report, chief. i probably should ask you this over the phone but i just came to me-approximate, how far down the list did you get recently the old tables-i think you got to 850 last time. i don't know i'm just curious >> sure. the list is constantly being refreshed as a people coming off of it and getting onto it. between 3504 three 4000 people on any given time >> so 30 504,000 eligible to be selected if it passed all the criteria? >> correct. if they get for wrinkle 12, which i don't know i can agree with that score equates to, and on the eligible list. since we've use the ntn national testing network, process i have gone down to a score of 840 or level viii and typically commencing the highest score is level iii. so retired from the range between level iii and level viii. >> i knew how couple that's [inaudible] >> correct. i believe in you served in the us military is better points associated with that and that's incorporated into the score >> peabody >> they have their score and then the department of human resources there is that chance points given so in cases they're always going to be there rank is going to be improved by the fact they serve their country and we have over the last several years hired a very high percentage of military veterans. >> very good.. thank you >> thank you commissioner hardeman. chief, thank you for your report one quick question. the working group with kate howard that you are typing that you met with on the 11th, that is different from the ems response working group. is that correct? >> it is >> two separate working groups? >> yes. at some more of the private providers department of emergency management and then there's stakeholders like local 798. this is more about an increase and concerns, complaints, if you will made regarding street behavior, people feeling that not feeling safer trying to get point a-to point b streets being blocked and so forth. the tense situation on the same caymans, that sort of thing. >> what about the traffic and just generally the traffic congestion? >> week i will start bowing. i'm happy to start that one. i know we have several takers on that. the working group on that although we work closely with the mta and there are a number of projects that we-andrew good partnership, have agreed to a compromise on and there are some for the sake of access and her ability to get somewhere in a relatively short period of time. we stress our concern on some of those in the initiative. >> thank you. commissioner covington your final question? >> no. i'm sorry [inaudible] >> okay. all right, thank you. call the next item. sec.'s >> administrative report. >> yes. >> good evening president covington - excuse me - president cleaveland. fellow commissioners, chief, ramona williams deputy chief of administration this is my administrative report for the month of march which covers activities from february 23 -march 22, 2017. i will begin with the assignment office. the assignment office is in the process of implementing the results of the vacancy bid the airport staff. they continue to work with division of training on scheduling probationary members for their six-month and one-year assignment changes as well as prepare for the upcoming 121st academy recruit graduation of their assignments. under homeland security, during this reporting period, chief francisco as always has continued to attend various meetings and training exercises . he recently attended a tabletop exercise at the giants ballpark. he's made a presentation with dem and dx training annie's also produced the event action plan for the st. patrick's day parade. he has also currently working-meeting with vendors regarding updating the fdo see, and he had coordinated the k-9 demonstration for the civil grand jury that are training facility on treasure island. he continues to update the command staff on all real or potential terrorist activities and as always, always like to remind the public to stay ever vigilant and if you see something, to say something. under isp, during this reporting period, the bureau has continued to conduct background testing of candidates for the upcoming academies each-two and h-three academy. there were 34 members randomly selected during this reporting period and all results were negative. on a final note, i'd like to knowledge the hard work and dedication of acting capt. sheila hunter, who for personal reasons as requested to return to the field. she worked very hard and diligently with investigative services bureau conducting investigations and assisting with the background investigations and testing. she is being replaced by capt. michael smith, who is currently receiving his training and will assume the role beginning next week. under the physician's office, they are also very busy administrative preemployment examinations for upcoming cadets for recruits for the academy. privation her he and promotional physical for department members in addition the mud they conduct work-related and returned to duty injuries examinations and administer immunizations for members. during this reporting period, 32 work-related injuries were reported down from 41 the last reporting period. under support services, a total of 146 requests were made for service during this-and process during this reporting period. construction of pump station one located fire headquarters is nearing completion.. there some final work being done on the second floor as we make room for additional staffing. support services chief leave iraq is continuing to work with mta on street designs to ensure that this notice disruption to fire department operations and the ability to respond to emergencies. right now, they been focusing on how our response will alter with speed homes on the speed bumps and speed tables which are just recently learned the difference and how the bike lanes will impact apparatus positioning including muni wireless and how that may alter our operations and ability to ladder various buildings in the district. regarding station five, the construction contract was awarded to alter construction. they are scheduled to start mid-april with a completion date tentatively set for the summer of 2018. station 16 work is currently in progress. unfortunately, there are approximate two months behind. however, the contractors have begun working on saturdays with no additional costs that will be incurred by us. they are currently under pining the neighboring homes to reinforce their foundation before they start the heavy foundation work, and their confidence that the project will be completed by january of 2018. all easter projects continue to move forward and on track and under doe, fleet, the personnel has performed 21 emergency field repairs to san francisco fire department apparatus, including ambulance, during this past 30 days, they resulted in minimal disruption to the department readiness, keeping vehicles in service without the need for a changeover. so that has been an asset. eight engines are in production with a delivery date of for this august, and for more there after, probably 4-6 months thereafter. boe has received for ambulance in january and there in the process of ordering for more new ambulances. post under 18 is now in the field and operational and another [inaudible] currently being outfitted. the final location is to be determined. the aerial ladder truck specifications are complete and the final draft is almost complete and will go out to bid shortly. doe is streamlining the process repairing [inaudible] with the help of puc in central shop for more efficiency and quicker turnaround times. and they are in the final phase of installing cordless extrication tools to all our all our aerial ladder trucks and they should all be outfitted by the end of this month. lastly, under division of training, during this reporting period, chief danaj attended a symposium in san diego last month and they were able to receive training on the latest props as well as meet with target solutions that to update our system we have currently have in place. they also as was mentioned in the previous report participated in assisted with the planning on high raise drill last month. they continue to conduct live fire training for our members. forcible entry training, and as always, planning of upcoming drills for the remainder of the year. under ems, along with our ongoing paramedic and emt certifications we are currently conducting cpr training for our members and a resumes practice your module in the city proper good last reporting period the members of the airport division were receiving that training. during this reporting period, the 12th emc academy graduated 25 emts could we had a one-week h-three level to paramedic academy held for each-eight members for members and seven numbers completed that academy. are paramedic members stationed 49, have also received alternative destinations [inaudible] i training and they have also received preceptor training which will allow them to oversee and evaluate our emt and paramedic members during their ride a longs as a phase of the academy training. under bart lieut.-overseas emergency preparedness for the community and this is along with the k-9 program a vital asset and resource to be realized in the event of a major disaster in the city. in addition to the monthly training sheet continues to make presentation throughout the city at various community events. our fire reserves also continue to be ongoing training weekly at the vision of training facilities, both fulsome on treasure island. lastly, at the chief mentioned, the 121st recruited academies currently their 17th week with 49 recruits. i am happy to say they have completed all the testing as the chief mentioned and is currently receiving specialized training such as wildland, hazmat, firefighter survival training to name a few. that's at the time this concludes my report on happy to answer the questions. >> thank you chief williams. any public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioners? commissioner hardeman >> briefly again which is unusual. were moving along too good. last meeting was three hours. this is pretty quick. i was going to make a comment about chief columbini of those went to san diego. i sent a couple people a photo from my old flip phone so it's not very good but the flip phone about the san diego fire exam which used to be a station. i don't know of any you got to see-have been [inaudible] i was there for meeting and next morning. for walk smoking a cigar and i go by this and i see this my wife was with me so i can smoke -anyway i go by the museum and the doors are open. it's beautiful. with a duo's private events there. it's a museum but fascinating. i should've wrote this down, but i didn't. at that station, the standard thread was invented. that's standardized for all fire department in the united states. effective hose-i don't know what it was but i do know i read that and i thought was pretty interesting. that was her claim to fame. it's a great museum. old apparatuses and all kinds of things hanging all over the walls. very nice. i talked to couple firefighters working with san francisco's public safety attempt to get the museum [inaudible] and they were very encouraged. they like what they saw. so see what happens. it would be nice to get a nice present for san francisco especially after seeing that one for san diego. thanks for the report, chief williams. >> thank you commissioner >> thank you commissioner hardeman. vp nakajo >> thank you very much president cleaveland. thank you for a much chief williams for your conference of report. also thank you very much chief hayes-white on your report chief williams. the semantics it's [inaudible] because of some lunch area of responsibility that you have within your office. again, your responsibility again for me, when you give your reports it just adds education and affirms my understanding of our department administrative infrastructure. so when you talk about the airport chief cost a lot of we are what we are really looking forward to that opening on march 29 which is next wednesday which is a major accomplishment for us and the airport,, city and county. when we talk about the graduation coming up on april 14, chief columbini with commissioner covington and the rest of the commissioners, we are so grateful for the professional training of your training officers. again, the numbers, 49. that's an amazing number. this is a just a recent kind of accomplishment. i think we been on a three-for your home so to speak. so it's really quite significant. point of information. i did notice chief, that you're wearing of gold today. but i will be at our ride along this coming friday and thank you very much for indicating to me that you will be present with me on various formats of that i can see the experience chief liam scum of writing and immigrants in being [inaudible] but i'm really interested in the actually of observing when the supply is replenished through the vehicles and the system that occurs with that as well. i have not heard of for a wild chief williams, anything about training facilities. i guess, at some point maybe that something you might give us a briefing on because as we go through all these classes, i still concern myself with our facilities and what we are going to do with that because we are always proactive within that projection. so, at some point, in your next report maybe could talk a livid about that. i agree and confer with commissioners that the budget and the classes are so important chief hayes-white. i know that they will be reported to the budget committee. my question isn't using frame rate where i can even ask it, but dir. corso, not that the president has committed his budget overall, i know that [inaudible] is no more anticipation some real numbers and how that affects san francisco's budget in our areas and i will be curious as to what that atmosphere looks like realistically for ourselves and i know they were holding the line but i would be interested on the other ramifications that budget cut were adjustments because were all going to be in the same city for this year for sure. i failed to mention the last commission meeting, i wanted to give recognition to our president, president cleaveland, because when we went to visit the mayor on our large long list of discussion, the president was so good to talk about our intake fleet that sitting out there. i think it station on in the parking lot with a storm and with the tarps and so basically again the initiative of understanding that [inaudible] to the mayor to have some kind of sheltering with that and at this point, there aren't representatives and at some point mr. pres., i think you want to maybe regroup with the organizations in terms of again we have a lot of interaction with [inaudible]. i just want to again come in chief and the department to understand, your presence here is always looking out for us in terms of that. other than that, at this particular point looking at my notes,i have nothing us. thank you. >> thank you mr. vp i will pay you later. [laughing] chief, williams for your report i have a quick question. you have any idea you can give us on h-23 program? maybe chief gonzales can step in and give the commission a quick update on the status? >> good evening president cleaveland commissioners, chief hayes-white. debbie is also operations that i can quickly president cleaveland, we met today with dhr pres. o'connor myself. his representatives and we are going to meet one more time. with the chief, the director of human resources, myself. the reason rest of dhr. you're going to talk about steps going forward. as i stated at the last minute classification is official which is great. i think that's a huge hurdle that need to be accomplished. the next, schmidt will be putting those two in good pres. o'connor's convinced i was part of a bundle of other conditions so we will work it out and as i said last meeting as well i'll reiterate in good faith we will continue to negotiate when i want to get it done as soon as possible >> the timeline, about when you might be able to [cross-talking / off mic] it just kind of up in the air? >> i would like to have it done by april. those two positions. i think the concern from the union and from the members we have the concern the workload during the day that is being addressed. we do have as you know the 212 hour shifts to cover a.m. and p.m. but we also [inaudible] to help with the day work load. >> thank you, chief. appreciate. thank you chief williams for your report. mdm. sec. next item please >> item number seven communications received from last meeting of march 8, 2017 e-mail from mr. corgan dated march 7, 2017. >> any public, and on these medications? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioners? okay. and the secretary species next item >> item eight agenda for next commission meeting discussion regarding agenda for the april 12 2017 regular meeting. >> any public comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed... commissioners? vp nakajo >> thank you very much president trying to mdm. sec. do we have something scheduled on the next commission meeting of april? >> yes we do we have the fire reserves presentation. >> thank you very much. >> that has been confirmed width at some point as a discretion at the president and chief, if there might be some kind of presentation update or education in terms the water rescue component of our department. commissioners, we know about the units but again our knowledge base gets so enhanced with various numbers come they give based on your discretion chief, the president, i would not means mine seen something that gives us information about what goes on with that. so those two items but i don't have a date for the water rescue. it's at your discretion. [inaudible] thank you very much >> commissioner covington speed thank you mr. president. i would like an update on where we are with station 49. in terms of the planning? also, if there's been any movement on the location to replace the treasure island facility? thank you. >> thank you commissioner covington good term commissioner hardeman any items? >> [inaudible] >> i would just like to add one mdm. sec., and that's perhaps the program on the san francisco fire museum status update kind of an overview of exactly what the museum has as part of of its collection. what the status is in terms of how well there be a maintained or not be maintained, and just what possibly we need to do in order to create a really first class-which we deserve,-first-class san francisco fire department museum. so i like to add that to the list of upcoming-not necessarily next meeting but whenever the guardians of the city and others that are actually protecting our museum artifacts at this time can put together a program. i think would be very educational and useful for all us not only in the commission but in the audience and at home to understand the need of our department to have a first-class museum. any further items, commissioners? thank you very much. adam secretary, call next item >> item nine adjournment >> >> so moved. >> is there a second? >> >> second. >> all those in favor say, aye. [chorus of ayes.] opposed, say nay. this meeting is adjourned. >>[gavel] >>[adjournment] >> >> >> >> good afternoon, i'm lawrence kornfield. welcome to our brown bag lunch. the fire department as a lot to do with fire escapes in san francisco. we have tens of thousands of fire escapes in san francisco. it's sort of like utility wires, until you start looking for them. you don't even see them. today we're going to look at them and for them and talk a little bit about what they are there for and how they should be maintained. what our standards are. so we are right here in front of building services office at 1660 mission street. we have one of many buildings served by fire escapes. they are typically used when there's a required means of existing or egressfrom the building. this building has a main stairway and all these fire escapes. i don't know about the backside. it probably has more exits that would be typically required to have. >> typically fire escapes are the second. the first is for existing buildings. my guess is the building has been broken up. that's why they add more than one fire escape. >> and in fact one of basis of the building code is to get people how the. how do you get people out safely? >> right and the cold always says, if one is blocked there should be another one in 99 percent of buildings >> and there are limitations on how you exit. you can't exit from one tenant space to another if that space is locked. that's why we have extra fire escapes on this building. let's look up at these fire escapes for a second. the fire escapes have a few specific elements. and we'll talk in detail about what they are. they include a way out on top fire escape balcony. the fire escape balconies. the ladder from the lowest balcony to the ground and a way to get on to the roof. i think those are the main elements of the fire escape. >> yeah. >> okay. and we're going to look at a bunch of different ones. this is a good example across the street. so first of all, how do you get out on to the fire escape? you can't have to climb out on a little window. we can see there are large, openable window pain doors, >> they did allow them to climb out windows and those are grandfathered in. >> as bill mentioned, there's an important part of the codes, they are not retroactive. you had to bring them up to today's standards. it's allowed to be maintained in the original construction. that's one of reasons we have old fire escapes. they are not required to be upgraded. >> if this was built today, a fire escape would not be allowed. they do not meet the second means of egresscode. >> but in all the existing ones like this one, you have to maintain them and keep a second means. according to the codes the building was built under. we are allowed to have fire escapes in existing buildings to provide a new exist from a historic building. it specifically allows fire escapes. we are allowed to have fire escapes for new exits. it's under some circumstances >> right. r3. one and 2 family homes. even new ones, which is not under the jurisdiction of the fire department. we will allow new buildings to have fire escapes if they can show reasonable standard for why they cannot put in a conforming stair sway. fire escapes are essentially providing a legal second stairway. it's not quite a second stairway. that's 60 to 70 degrees. the fire department does to the agree and the more hazardous. >> if it was built, we allow you to maintain them. >> speaking of maintenance. we will get to maintenance later. we have people that do fire escape maintenance. going back to talking about the elements, we have access to the fire escape and then we have a fire escape balcony, they need a balcony to get access. you don't climb out directly on to a ladder. for one and 2 family dwellings, but there are very few of them. we had an exception under there for no balconies. they are almost always required >> jomes are not allowed. they are pole ladders and they open up into a vertical ladder, their product lists doesn't require a balcony. we made a decision that is not even close to provide equivalency to a stairway. how many people. >> yeah, we have a question over here >> what year was this law changes and fire escapes required >> the question was, at who point was the regulations change from allowing fire escapes to second stairs? >> that would be under the fire departments jurisdiction. >> it was actually within the last 10 to 15 years. i started 12 or 11 years ago and there was improvement plans with fire escapes. it came from the state. state farm was the one that came out and said, no no ones. >> yeah. so it's pretty recent. i can remember. i'm not that old. >> you're not. you are a young guy. so we have balconies, i handed out to you a whole set of technical standards. we will not go through that unless you have questions. if you are watching this and you want a copy, call us, our number is 558-6025. we have the ladders that connect to the next balcony, those are regulated under the local, administrative bulletins and there's retroactive provisions in the state building code about how they have to be. >> the angle and width. i believe that's all covered in the handout. >> typically san francisco fire escapes and we will see, had angles of somewhere between 60 and 72-degree ladders. i can't from this angle tell what that is. the state has made it clean that 60 degrees is what they consider to be the maximum safe angle. most of the existing ones are steeper, up to 72 degrees. and these hand rails and they step down on to a landing and you walk around and go down. at the bottom, this is the way to get to the ground. this is great. this has something called a counter balance ladder. it means that as you walk down to the bottom of the fire escape, there's a ladder sticking out horizontally. it will go down because there's a weight. >> it doesn't go all at once. >> so counter balance ladders are what the code currently require. but as we walk around, you will see many of them don't have counter balance ladders, they have drop ladders and accordians and all that. this is an excellent type of ladder. you can see from the end of counter balance ladder, there's a chain. if you follow the chain up. it goes up to a pulley and down the other side to a weight. can you see that? the big weight is the counter balance weight and the code prescribes how many force it will take to operate that counter balance. >> is there a maximum height? >> yes. there's a maximum and minimum. >> it's in the handout >> ladder xdto the ground. on page 6, 2.7. a permanent, 50 pounds. 150 pounds 1 quarter of the way will start to swing slowly down. and no fire escapes will be less than 14 feet above the sidewalk. when any part falls away, it has to be 14 feet. >> the top ladder too, that's a straight ladder. that's for fire department use. that's not for somebody fleeing a fire. you are supposed to come down. we use these things as a second way to get up. we like this, because we can run up those things. we don't have to go in the building. the stamp pipes are on there. or a wet stand pipe. actually for us, it's a convenience. it's a goose neck ladder over the top. but, once again, that's for fire department use. not for civilians. we can always get a ladder up and get them off. i have done that frequently. that's something that happens frequently in the city. >> you don't need a ladder from the roof in it's less than 4 and 12. you need to have a ladder. >> once again, the fire department shouldn't be up there. we are going to walk through this and cross otis street. we will look at sand types and some of the other stuff. >> okay. this is, we are on otis and golf. >> this is serving 50 or more people. this is a really interesting fire escape with these curved balconies. and once again, we have the elements that we were discussing. the balconies, access. this accordion ladder. what does the fire department think about the accordian ladders? >> they got dropped out. it's retroactive. they have to bring them up to today's code. i have a story to tell. when i was in the sunset district. you see a crank on the side, you undue a lever and they are supposed to fall down. we did it, 50 to 75 percent of the time it doesn't work. there's, it's on the owner, the owner is supposed to maintain these ladders and we have a person here who does the maintenance. do you have anything you want to say? >> an escape artist. >> i believe these are supposed to be checked once a year. >> one of my competitors says they need to be checked twice a year. i have encountered those that don't go down because they haven't been checked >> well, after and brush cleaning, and lubrication, we jump up and down on them. i weigh 170 pounds. they don't go down, like we're stretching them. crank them back up. break them free. after we lubricated them. >> what kind of lubrication? if it's a frozen type. we use a penetrable type >> with escape artists, you regularly check them? >> it's all us calling them each year requesting if they would like us to do maintenance service for their drop ladder. each year it's quite simple and easy procedure to do. and we appreciate that people take pride and understand their fire escapes and drop ladders are a part of their building's safety system. just like the sprinkler systems. they are usually located along a fire escape ladder way, platform system. the fire department does use them to approach emergency situations in buildings. >> this is interesting on who's checking them. in san francisco for residential units and motels and hotels, the housing inspection division is required to check every 5 years to do an inspection of the buildings. and the procedures have changed to require they operate the fire escape when they do that inspection. have you gone to those where they require to operate the fire escape? >> absolutely. we got the call from a property owner saying they have been sited or requested by a housing inspector. we will inspect the fire escape before maintenance and do maintenance repairs. i feel confident that the fire escapes are safe. ask we will provide a certificate. that describes what we found and what we didn't. so far, that has been approved by the fire department >> all exterior balconies of wood have to be certified by an architect or licensed pest control every how many years? 5 years and they are starting to get that under way and they requires certification by someone with those licenses as well. this is a different concept. this is not a residential building. they don't do these 5-year or yearly inspection on this. so, does the fire department come out and check these at all >> probably not. we are supposed to come out for assembly permits. we are supposed to come out. actually, you probably walk through and checks the exits . whether they physically do the fire escape. i don't know. >> so assembly occupancies. the fire department has a state mandate to be an annual check. >> we had a question here >> does the fire department have a list of all the different assembly buildings with fire escapes that need to be looked at? >> no. we have a list of all the assembly, whether they know which one has a fire escape. we are obviously trying to discourage that. if you can imagine getting 50 people out would be tough. i said 10 or 15 years that was residential. for assembly, that's 20 years >> you might want to look at the golden gate theater has these enormous counter balance fire escapes that can handle an occupant load of hundreds of people and really wide and actually very low slope. but we do, we have in san francisco, we have assembly occupants and they check those too. >> the american club up here that has the same. fire escape. >> up above cafe nour >> does anybody regulate to see if they are working? >> no. in fact, the housing code for exterior buildings exempt one and 2 family buildings. the building department checks for alteration or repair. it's up to the homeowner to maintain the property. we don't go back and inspect it unless we have gotten a complaint or we see a problem. we will stop and tell them. >> how is the width of the stairs, the fire escape? >> okay. we've got a question. how do we determine the width with of the fire escape stairs >> i think it's 18 inches >> ladders shall not be let's than 18 inches >> if someone was applying for a permit. we would like at the occupant load and how many people are going to have to use this, and the building code has a table for calculating. i think we would look at home people would using it. >> every fire escape balcony 18 inches. >> i wanted to talk to the about the stand pipe. >> tell us what we got here. >> this is a dry stamp pipe. typically, the fire engine would stop here and hook up here. so on any floor, whichever floor, we can have water. like i say, this is even better than going to the building. our guy does a good job and makes sure the balcony is stable. it's so much nicer to be outside. you yell at the guy. we need more water and pressure. in my eyes, it's a better system. this one here is dry. some of them are wet. >> what's the difference between wet and dry? >> wet would be connected to the water system. typically on a smaller building, they would use this as their riser to be their sprinkler system inside. it's wet. it has 60, 65 pounds of pressure. it isn't really enough to fight the fire. but we already have water. we would still need the engine to hook up to get water pressure we needed to that floor. >> how much pressure do they need? >> well we aim at 100 pounds at whatever floor you are at. you lose 5 pounds for floor. it's up 15, you would lose 15 pounds. >> do we usually have a stand fire escape? >> usually. it's probably because they have so many stand pipes. and may be it was one of far ones we didn't see. it's a great thing. on residential, you always see it. >> any questions on stand pipe and connections? >> we're going to walk right around the corner to grady alley. >> we will take a little walk here. >> so somebody said that san francisco's fire department response time is really good. i understand that to be the case too. >> we pride ourselves on a 3-minute response. >> we have 42 stations. we do pride ourselves to get there in a hurry and getting to where we have to go. >> part of, there's a trade off. because we have such great response time, we are able to allow some types of construction and extremely high density that would not be allowed in building construction >> one of the things in the out lying areas, if you build a new house, single family dwelling, you need a sprinkler, they feel it's going to take, 8, 12 minutes and it's only 2 guys. whereas in san francisco, you get at least 4 right away and probably within 6 minutes, you have 12 people. you have the advantage, we in san francisco have not asked for that amendment. we just go with what the california building code says. >> the new california building code into into affect january 1, 2009. and it relies on fire sprinklers. can you think of any? >> existing building, if people try to implement it. they may have to sprinkler their buildings. you can built the building bigger or more area. or bring your separation a little closer together. there's a lot of advantages to the designer. and i think we may see some of these buildings putting them in they they don't have to get the advantages. particularly the ones downtown. you try to put the sprinklers in and they get to take advantage of the code. >> the new code doesn't consider the post earthquake. we have an unfortunate loss of water pressure after an earthquake. the local jurisdiction are a little bit concerned about over reliance on sprinklers instead of fixed assets because of lost water. >> my main fire protection engineer, he's concerned and wants to implement if you have a tank in your building, you have the water supply, sprinkler system. they have to have some back up water already >> high rises need them. >> except, it's supposed to be 30 minutes for your most demands >> that's a lot of water. >> the minimum is 15,000 gallons. i think 25,000 was the last one i saw they were proposing. it's a pretty good size. >> all around san francisco we see cisterns as well for water supply. there's no one within sight here. but you can tell because right in the middle of an intersection, you see that. that's a symbol for an under ground system. >> we have a lot of them. we can draft out of those. we can put our solid hoses in there and actually suck some water out and put some pressure on it. and we have maps. the guys in the field know where they are. we had a while if you put a swimming pool in, you had to have a connection. that one is being deleted. it was putting too much on people for putting a swimming pool in. >> back to fire escapes, i thought it would be interesting to look down the street and see how many there are. you don't usually think about them when you look around the city unless you are looking at our fire escape repair people probably see. i hungry man sees nothing but restaurants. this particular building has residential uses and i think an apolistry shop. they would require a 5-year certification and they also need their annual maintenance. their fire escapes use this accordion ladder. is that what you call it? occasionally, we see problems where it comes down and there's something obstructing it on the ground. sometimes you even see awnings. >> when they come in, that's something we always check if they have a fire escape. now adays they use velcro. >> one thing we have here, lawrence mentioned, you need a door. if you notice here, each residential unit. these are probably each side is a different residential unit that's going out and it's a case where that code evidently allowed you to use a window. >> there's an exception and it's on page 5. opening for the fire escape. it can be a window and it's 29 by 59 and so on. there's an exception for residential building. and probably, i wouldn't be surprised this serves separate units. they both access the same fire escape out let, you can see the goose net. it's an exciting climb and there's a high rise. i think it's the hastings building and it's really top. it has a vertical ladder on top. you are 200 feet up. >> occasionally they have cornices that stick out. they get quite creative how they build them. >> the old ship where you have to climb up to the top. >> the maintenance guy did a good job. people often wonder why fire escapes don't pose a risk of being loose. they are required to penetrate in their structural system and be attached through the building to the inside. in a wood frame building, they actually, bolts have to go through and they have to have a washer and nut on the inside. i would have to have the whole wall removed. they are quite strong. >> we do and someone asked, what is it that you do. i start off by looking at it. is there rust where it meets the building. that's the first indicator. my primary trick is to pick the railing away from the building and see sturdy is it? does the shake the whole wall when i kick it out? otherwise it's rust or a trail of rust >> do you tighten it up? >> if it looks questionable if i go trying to tighten it, i could allow water and starts to rust out the bolt. that would be bad in the long run >> these are required to be rust resistant? >> yeah. i would hope they are galvanized. there are some made of regular iron. they rust as a complete system. everybody we replace is galvanized makes sense. you get coastal fog. in the mission district. it's dryer. there's less on the eastern than the western. it's good to have it painted. or replace that part and paint it. >> so our handout, page 5, 2.3. it shall constructed of reenforced concrete or hot galvanized steel. and i'm sure they need maintenance. they will rust. >> kind of a slow process. the galvanized coating turns white. so when we see that. we will wire brush it and cold galvanized it and do exterior point >> recently, i noticed the bolts and their diagonal bolts were looking very rusty, so we put our wrench on and it snapped right how far. we went on the inside of the building, with the property owner's permission and opened up the hole and there was the head of the bolt, the washer and we pulled that out with effort and it became the size of 2 or 3 toothpicks. >> water has been coming in. >> any time we do work through the skin, whether brick, masonary we do that to keep out the pests >> any place there is a bolt, you really need to calk or seal that. water will find it's way and it will corrode inside and you can't see it unless you do, as this gentlemen said, do thorough testing. because you can't see it. you can't see it. even small stuff like this will allow water to get in. this is not a structural hazard. >> any comments or questions? >> if you look at this fire escape, you notice the goose neck has been brought out. you have a bridge to cross. if you look at the bottom. it's going to be a real treat for firemen to go up is there. >> that's why i say, this is only for firefighters to use. >> give me a boost. >> you have to realize, the firefighter has an air pack and may be some tools to be walking out there. >> this is an interesting building. i want to point something out. can anybody take a guess as to why we have these 4 beams sticking out of the top? it used to have another story on it. i think it had to do with the enforcement of the ordinance. it was easier to remove than to upgrade the building. those are the elements that used to support the fire escape balcony, you see the parapet support and they replaced the goose neck ladder that went to the top and it goes over the parfet wall here. very interesting and they just finished doing a seismic upgrade. you can see the giant steel tube >> you see remnants where the second story used to be. >> okay. this is really interesting question here and that's how did the department of public work regulate things that stick out over the public sidewalk or road? this is public right-of-way and the sidewalk is also owned by the public. although the property owner has to maintain it. here we have things sticking out. in some cases, things encroaching have to get approval from department of public works. if it's 10 feet, you are exempt. but there are certain rules to follow. making sure you don't stick out. >> 10 feet and 3 feet out. it goes up 1 foot every time you go out so many inches. that's the regulations. so that means you have to increase the height. >> there's a limit to how far can you go out. and there's a really interesting, for those of you who know where the old stars is. hemlock alley. right near mcallister street. red wood alley. and it keeps going up and angling out until it's a couple of feet out. you can almost read the table as to how far it's allowed to encroach. the old stars restaurant. >> i thought we could take a quick look. look at the gigantic frame. this is the one they took the story off. this is the front. it used to have a fire escape above. >> and a second story. you see the enormous steel frame. it's such a little building. across the street is the self storage. you see the fire escape in front and it has to pass that awning. >> what are the regulations about attaching thing to a fire escape? it says available. >> nothing is allowed on the fire escape. >> i know a lot of people like to put their potted plants and turn them into a balcony. >> bbqs are a no no. it's supposed to be for fire response. many, many violations for that. >> one of the things, people always say, this is a hazard. you've don't you do something. how many of you have had to exit a fire escape in an emergency? it's rarely used and we have very few incidences. therefore, based on our history, epidemiologically. we don't have reason to believe they're not functioning. there's no reason. these are working just federal fine. >> it always works at least to get you out of the second floor. the last floor is easy. thank you for coming. our brown bag lunches continue and we invite you to join us. thanks a lot. >> hello and welcome to the department and building inspection lunch program. we are talking today about earthquakes and we are going to talk about the issues that make us particularly vulnerable in san francisco and talk about the policy issues and do earthquake response and hopefully in our earthquake recovery. pat, who is a structural engineer and a guy that has looked at earthquake building upgrades in san francisco, yeah. than anybody and he has his earthquake dog harvey. >> okay. that's enough. and john paxton who is a part of caps and it's a community action plan for seismic safety and sponsored by the department of building. and what are the significant impacts of earthquake and how can we mitigate that to meet the goals we want to make. one of the things we want to talk about are, what are your reasonable expectations? people have different goals about what they expect. a lot of people say, i live in a house, the city wouldn't let me live in a house that wasn't safe, would they? i live in a brand-new house and it's absolutely fine. those are unreasonable expectations and why they are. there's, for example. nothing that the earthquake proof. that's always stuff inside that is damaged and life line connections, telephone and water that make habitability a problem. san francisco's earthquake hazard has a whole over lay of problems. first is our location. by the 2 faults. the san andreas, which is off shore of san francisco, and is about how far off shore? maybe a mile. so it's very, very close to the city and runs up to marin, >> a million years of earthquake movement created. that used to be in southern california. it's an active fault and the other is the hay ward fault. geology and other people say this is a fault that is more likely to have slippage. and the hay ward fault runs through the university of california >> right through memorial stadium, i understand. >> it's one site moving relative to the other >> and downtown san francisco, the heart of san francisco, this is basically almost exactly between the hay ward faults and san andreas. >> although if you live in the richmond district and the hay ward fault goes off, you won't feel the earthquake. you won't be able to stand. >> so what you're saying is the closer you are. >> that's why it's good to be in the middle. if you are on one extreme and the fault goes off, the shaking will be pronounced >> how many people were in san francisco in 89? anyone in the marina in 89? >> if you were in the main portion, the ground excelleration was 90 percent. if you way 100 pounds, the pound moved with 9 pounds. if the hay ward fault goes off, most of san francisco will feel 20 to 25 percent, the marina which will shake 30 percent. so if the hay ward fault goes off, san francisco will shake 3 or 4 times harder than in 89 and twice as long. >> the haward fault has return cycles plus or minus 10 for the last 140 years. the last was 1868. we are 140 years since the last haward fault went off. so, i would say, it's pretty likely it won't slip within the next 10 years. that will give you ground shakesing 3 to 4 times as last time. >> we have, pat and i and i couple of other people have run a program how to prepare in your life and home with problems related to an earthquake. that's not what our discussion is today. it's more of a global policy issues. one is proximity to the fault. how certain are geo technical engineering that the actual proximity of the fault is in fact going to affect how strong the ground motion is? does a mile make a difference? >> it came out in kobe earthquake. >> i was actually there. >> the roof came off. it was hard to stand up. i was 6, 7 miles away. in the city, people couldn't stand up. >> they determined using excellerateom ters. you will have near field effect, the easy way to explain it, if you were standing next to a rail road track. the train makes sound and generates and the sound waves tumble. the same thing happens with an earthquake. those /tkpwraupbd waves tumble upon themselves and increase the intensity of the shaking. it's called near field effect. we probably won't get that on the haward fault, but on the san andreas fault. they will have very pronounced shaking. we will also have more interaction because of poor soils that interact with earthquake waves. you can have a moderately distant waves and it will be higher in the bay area and people don't realize how much of the city has been filled. there's a tremendous amount filled in and in those areas, the ground will shake dramatically harder. there's a lot of interaction that plays into the interaction of the intensity. >> this map was adopted by the state of california after its study of the areas that are potentially liquifiable. they are wet areas or fill areas that amplify the earthquake forces >> you can actually have the ground turn to liquid like quick sand. >> if you look at the map, there are green areas and blue areas, just so you can understand, the blue areas are potential landslide areas. that's a different issue. but we do have potential landslide areas. all the green areas are potentially liquifiable. if pat says, you are going to have.9 g. you could have substantial amp liification of this. this fascinating old map from the 1800's. it shows what san francisco looked like before a lot of it was filled. this is the mission district, the marsh of mission bay went all the way up to 7th and mission. that's how big the marsh is. the bay went up to montgomery street. so all this is bay. all this is bay. all this is bay. do you see these city streets out here? this is a small section of the city. this has all been filled. >> if you look at this map was recently adopted by the state, as their hazhard map. that's what these green areas are. just enormous mission area. >> this is an interesting tid bit. most people don't realize. there was a creek that flowed out of a lake in the mission. the lake was three city blocks large. it was at 17th and valencia. there's a plaque out there. you could sail a boat up the creek that flowed out into the bay into the lake at 7 the and mission and go sailing. it was that big. that land was so valuable because everybody wanted to live east of twin peaks because the weather was better here. warm. they filled in as much land as they probably could. and then they were forceed to building on the other side of twin peaks. where the weather wasn't as nice. >> i live in inner sunset. in 1906. in the big earthquake, that area had dramatic effect. one building settled down into the lake bed. >> the largest loss of life was at 17th and valencia hotel. the fire department came in, drown the people in the basement and the fire came and killed a bunch more people. across the street, there was a 3 story building any after the earthquake, the first floor went straight down. didn't crush. just liquified and created 1 story basement. >> we have unusual soil conditions and then, on top of that, we have built environment. we have buildings built of all different kinds of construction types and dates. when you put those together. maybe you are sitting on rock areas that are built solidly that will have little impact and you have other buildings, soft story buildings and people have essentially the same expectation. >> and the building department would come knock on my door and tell me it wasn't safe >> there are very few retrofitted laws. you have to make brick buildings saver. >> you have to reduce the risk of life lost. >> so the brick building standard is a low standard. it was to prevent catastrophic collapse. the brick buildings, we have 1800 of them. most have been upgraded to prevent catastrophic deaths. it's the lowest possible >> and they might need to be torn john. by the way, this was lori johnson. this is our risk analysis and has done work to reconstruction especiallily in kobe and post katrina. >> thanks for joining us >> you are going to be coming to the caps meeting. >> i am on the advisory committee. >> most of san francisco of densely built and not very tall. >> what is the relationship of hazard between large buildings and the typical san francisco low rise? >> most large buildings are structural steel buildings and they do well in earthquakes. there's a class there were popular in the 50's and 60's, there's a lot of apartment buildings, about 10 or 15 story tall. they are the worst class to be in. those midrise buildings >> how many of those do you think there are? >> about 500 plus or minus 200. >> we have seen how they perform. for example, in mexico city. >> they look like stacks of pan cakes. they built row after row of these concrete buildings and mexico city is built around an island in the middle and a big lake and they filled it in, just like san francisco. the floors were stacked like this. it looked like a stack of pan cakes. >> how did this compare older buildings of the 1920's or 30's? >> they will have more reenforcing in them. they had a tendency to use more round columns with spiral hoops. they don't necessarily catastrophicly collapse. in a perverse sense, the 50's and 60's buildings, you don't want to be in. i am in a 1920 building >> i wanted to clarify, we have beautiful, very ornate buildings they are taller. a lot of apartment buildings. >> those are mostly steel framed buildings. in the 50's and 60's, they wanted to create open floor spaces and they went to concrete spaces and thought it was great until the san fernando earthquake and the earthquake came and the building disappeared. they said, oops and changed the code immediately. >> we look at it and say, it didn't do what we thought. the codes are rarely perspective. how can we make that happen? they wait for a catastrophe and then change it >> just to clarify. we don't have instrumentation to record the shaking and to do a computer simulation is difficult to do without the data. we only learn through events. not all the records we have are indicative of how every earthquake shaking event will be like. >> we have recently amended the code to have instruments in them so we can record and how much the earth has moved. that's terrific. not many existing buildings are instrumented. one the things we will look at, at the caps program is to retrofit them. we can look at other after earthquakes. it had similar types of faults we have here. there are a lot of similarities. >> there is something, of the type of construction. there are debate about how they will perform. we know how soil conditions will affect. how good your building is, is going to be predominated by soil conditions. if you put 3 engineers in the room, you get 5 opinions. there are buildings that engineers can look at and agree there's not a chance in hell it will survive. there are buildings where there's no reasonable belief, matter of fact, we would be shocked the building would still be standing in an earthquake. >> the after earthquakes that are common and then we have the design earthquakes that we use to think about what is the reasonable earthquake and then we have the maximum possible earthquake, like the 1906. >> 500-year retu6-cycle. >> i take it back. most wood frame buildings, probably pre-existed before code >> which was in the early 70's? >> they had requirements in the 50's and 60's. we don't consider building code until 1973. major buildings, was designed by a genious and it was ahead of the time. they required an engineer. smaller buildings, you didn't need an engineer on all of them. >> basically, if your building was built before early 70's. it's likely to have some earthquake resistance and resilience of the cost of construction. it wasn't specifically designed to with with stand and earthquake. >> most of the sun stream homes. these are track homes, mostly built to speck homes. built the way they always built. they have a degree of earthquake resistance. >> they have a tendency to pound together and the buildings in the middle survive because the earthquake isn't long enough. the individual at the end of the block is like the book at the end of shelf. they fall over and the next one falls over. >> in the marina. we saw corner believes collapse. >> there are 2 ways to look at earthquakes. i think each one of us wants to know how our house, where we live is going to perform. we also need to look at how the city is going to perform. pat makes a good point, most the newer buildings will perform better. keep in mind, the studies we have done certainly show is that most the vulnerable buildings will be residential. half of the residential units were built before world war ii. we have a very old housing stock. we have the oldest housing stock this side of mississippi. and that's where our problems are most likely to be. >> i going to test the microphone and ask people how you expect your home to perform. >> anybody who wants to share. tell us, what kind of building. do you live in a wood frame >> yes >> after a major earthquake. what's your expectation. >> i am afraid from last year's earthquake class, you mentioned. the house might pop to the street because my garage is empty. >> is it in the middle of the block? >> middle. >> there's less chance. sir, what kind of building do you live in? >> i live in an apartment if ground floor parking. >> in the middle of the block, corner. >> corner. >> are there openings on both sides? >> yes. on both sides. >> it's a wood framed building? >> it seems to be a hybrid. with concrete and steel and wood frame on top of that. >> we don't often see that. modern buildings have a podium. >> what neighborhood are you in >> dolores park. >> you will hit the lake. if are in the dolores, you are in pretty good shape. >> what is your expectation of what your building is going to be like after a major earthquake? >> i am really not sure. that's my concern. >> i see. this gentlemen is correct. his concern is his building. you have to look at it block by block. you can see that the edges of the fill area vary block by block. let me point out in cole valley, there was an old pond and an amusement park with a trolley. that pond was filled in, that's a potential liquify site. so we have to look at the soil. >> there are area that is are fascinating. westportal, there was a creek that flowed all the way down to pig lake. i think that's what the spanish called it. there was a deep ravine. they filled it in with the tunnel muck and they filled in the ravine and built houses. the other area is really interesting, down 18th street. there was a creek coming from eureka. there is a street called pond. it's not a coincidence. >> part of what we're going too try to do is update this map and give it historical data. there are more significant data. >> how do you know if your individual lot? >> one is these lines are very clearly defined as boundaries. they don't actually mean, this is the exact edge. you could be on one side or the other. it's not okay here and not okay 10 feet away. but, on the other hand, we have taken this map, which was published by the state and digitized it so if any portion lies within these zones. if you tell me your address, i can tell you whether you lie it in. >> there's a book. >> 558-6205 and the clerk or me will take the book and look it up and say, yes, you lie within a particular zone >> i am the manager of a large condo minnium project. it was built in 1963. it's steel and concrete >> there's a difference between structural steel and rebarb. >> it's steel columns. thank you goodness. >> 19 stories and i live across the street in a building that was built i believe in 1920 and i brought my staff here because we want to, as a team, be prepared with our building and the owners who live there. >> so her question is, how can someone find out what they should be prepared for? >> the first thing is to see if the there are original plans for their building >> should they hire someone >> someone need to verify if you are structural steel frame. there's a high likelihood there's a plan. if you are a concrete frame, you have a set of concerns. >> the first thing, i recommend everybody do this. get a complete set of documents for your building from accessor's office and other office in a city and put them in a notebook and you have all your documents. here, you can ask to get all the permits, plans, job cards, sign off sheets. special inspection. get everything. there's no reason why the city should be a source of this. then, if you ever want to be a building expansion, you have the documents. you can have that done as well. >> you said something about getting plans for your building. what if you are in one of the 50 percent that were built a long time ago? i have a 1903 building >> most the plans and permits for pre-1906 were destroyed in the fire. except for the larger buildings. many of the plans are available in berkeley. most of those were destroyed. >> there's not much there. >> you can also go back and get original water department records >> actually, the story is, the city had 2 water companies that were privately owned. spring valley and another one. their headquarters were at crystal springs. that was actually the ceo. he wanted to build his house. their stuff was held outside of the city. after the 06 earthquake, one of the reports by the city was, all the fire hydrants were tied to spring valley. the city said this is crazy. they actually put in a second war supply and municipalized. all the records were transferred to the water department, they are at 1155 market and they are all the way back to 1868. it will be $0.37 to hook up with your water >> also on your question, the cost in having a structural engineer take a look at your building is a very, very small percentage of the building's value. i think whether we have a large condominium, your building is static and the type of soil you're silting on and certain types of deterioration, and once you have that inspection done, you will sleep much better and make rational decisions on how you want to priorityize. >> i totally agree with you, the plans are part of the history. would i be able to get them? >> they have the water hook up and the date your building was legalized. >> if it's an apartment building, most engineers know where you are in the soil conditions and can give you an expectation of the performance. most wood frame believes do well on the first, second and third floors. the upper stores act as a rigid block. but the garage level is an open floor plate. the total drift is a thing you can look at without paying too much attention. if the building is stiff. instead of it being uniform, can all be forced to that lowest story. you are standing there and someone knocks your knees out and you fall down. that's what can happen to soft story buildings. >> i think a lot of us don't pay enough attention to the nonstructural damage. here we are in this room, nonstructural damage can be to the sealing, so here's a story. in the 1989 earthquake, that's the day the marriott hotel opened. it has that little bar at the top. up at the top of building, it swayed back and forth and the ceiling planes shaved off a sprinkler and it flooded the top floor. >> it's a big problem. in north ridge, it was a huge problem. there was tremendous losses because your shoot rock gets wet. it's like having a flood. we are on a group trying to look at all the issue in san francisco and make recommendations. whether it responds and does well. the subsequent issue is fire, which we haven't talked about here. with fire goes gas line breaks and water line breaks not being able to protect the structure once it happens. all those utility things come into play. as a homeowner's association, you have to anticipate as a resident of san francisco, there's going to be a lot of ground deformation ad our utilities will have problems. we recently had window storms and while pg and e has done a wonderful job, there will be breaks. you will be able to camp in your argument. it would be like you went away for a long time for a camping trip. you will be able to change the thinking about where people go. one of the big issues in katrina, people were forceed to evacuate. if we had a large fire. we might have to force an evacuation. >> one the things we're trying to develop is an expectation, this is our bottom line expectation for building performance. your building, while it might not be damaged. will it be sufficient to camp out it? >> we are not quite there yet. >> that's the kind of expectation. >> i think we should pass this along to the audience. there should be design standards. there's a discussion, what should our design standards be for new construction? and the building department, we on caps are going to say, what standards should those be? and there's a group of us that have come up with a concept that hasn't been universally adopted of at some point in the future, this might be 15, 20, 25 years out, where our retrofits and our renovations are implemented at that point. it's not going to happen within next week. but where occupants of buildings, 95 percent of the population can expect to shelter in place within 12 hours of an earthquake. that's where a group of us feel we should be designing towards. who's going to benefit? these are details of what we're trying to figure out and address. >> as a general contractor, i see hundred year old buildings and they have brick foundation or inadequate foundation. minimal concrete. everything is done with stainless steel and granite. but the next door neighbor could have brand-new. you are still vulnerable. i understand on commercial buildings we have umb restrictions. otherwise the city will come in. >> if someone fails to upgrade, we with would make them do it. >> what about residential? if you have a monster next to you? >> there are no retroactive requirements. i think i might take issue with a next door neighbor. >> my client should hire someone. but you have a monster on full bricks. >> you can, if you have a risk, next to a very tall building, that building can give you hazards. you can also be on the other extreme. i would tell you to leave the brick building in place. the performance of your building will be way on down the food chain. i would also say that just because your building survived a 1906 earthquake, >> it wasn't a big earthquake. the building was built in 1989. there are a lot of large buildings that did and there are a lot of didn't. >> i can talk to our insurance agent and says this is a serious one that comes up. we would not have enough to pay with everybody in the area. >> that has to do with cea. the amount of money they have in reserves is based on a 20-year return cycle. they haven't had 20 years >> our buildings are 80 or 90 areas old. our agents said, we will merely pay you $120 per square foot. if that should fall down, we won't be able to pay out every client. it doesn't make sense. that's why we choose not to purchase >> there are a lot of things that come into play with that. when you pay a premium, you are paying into a reserve. so the cea builds up a reserve. they can't build up the reserve otherwise. that's how their building it. the national flood insurance is a public pool. the same thing is true there. they didn't have enough in their reserves to pay out the returns. congress had to pass legislation to authorize the replenishment. that's how these pools are set up. government is involved in how the additional funding comes. i am not specific with how it works in california. part of the reason states are putting this up as opposed to a company that does this. >> so, how do we as a homeowners or renters know who is a sound structural engineer? >> how about i answer since i'm not an engineer. you can take comfort, we in san francisco have the largest community of seismic activity and structural engineers. we have a lot of concerned citizens that aren't engineers that are asking questions like you're asking. i think the essential questions on how your building is going to do, there's going to be a lot of consensus on any group of engineers on how your building is likely to perform in terms of getting on the margins of the issues, the percentage of damage your building might have or specific issues in terms of repair, there might be agreement on that. i think the science and the art are to the point for the big questions and big answers, there's a lot of consensus on that. i would take comfort on that. >> i agree with that. >> i think it was a joke, engineers talking about them. our buildings are not that difficult to access. people would be able to point out 90 percent with clear consensus. there might be differences on details like brick foundation. there are things people would see as unique. you should have comfort, i don't know, if it's the registered structural >> it's abag.gov. within the earthquake section, there's information about retrofitting wood structures and a list of engineers. a lot of these are single family. i think there are engineers listed there too. i might be wrong. it's a great resource and the associations staff went through and looked at them. if you are a contractor, you might want to get in there. it's free advertising. >> i have to say, in san francisco, we have so many difficult buildings. these are all one off buildings. it requires an engineer to take a look. >> not just a contractor >> not just prioritize. >> just going straight to a contractor. >> i said that with a caveat. that's for a single-family, cripple wall, >> yes, i am a contractor. i find in the public, there's a lot of confusion. could you talk about the generally standards of retrofitting. i think people need to understand, the generally accepted standards to which you can strengthen a building. >> basically, there's a spectrum all the way from 1886, whatever their performance might be. meet what the state of the art is or what the future code might be. we have this range of potential. someone says, i needed code. you mean 1908? 1930. or 2007 or proposed 2009. so there's a huge spectrum. san francisco has made a determination. >> officially retrofitted. >> it should be 75 percent of the current 2007 code. okay. 75 percent, we say, we're going to call that collapse prevention standard. >> you can out least stay in your house >> it will be referencing this standard. 75 percent of the current code. it's a real wide range. if you use the special procedures, you could find it for bricks and each type of buildings and structures. >> there are buildings that have been retrofitted and as a group, we say, maybe they are not deserving of being called 104 s buildings. if you are a licensed structural engineer, you can give people some idea. if you retrofit the garage, you can stay in the upper floors. then it becomes an art. you want to talk to a structural engineer. some of the high rise buildings, we were able to accurately model it down to 7 figures. we designed buildings down to that level the accuracy. it's an art and you want to talk to someone that does this for a living. >> i couple of final comments. one the best things is to help you prioritize. pat and i have looked at hundreds of earthquake buildings, may be thousands, the smallest amount of work you do, as an enormous return. >> 89, there was a building, in marina, they built opposite buildings. i went into one, had no damage. not a lick. the building next to it, identical, trash. the difference was the guy put on anchor bolts. just the fact he put in anchor bolts. he was staying there. >> i have seen the same thing with 2 sheets of plywood. i want to mention, typical san francisco buildings. we have a huge variety. we have things in the middle of the midblock held up by adjoining buildings. it's held up. it can't fall down. >> so if you live in the midblock, we have corners and have almost all agreed. wood framed soft story buildings, poses substantial hazards. they have few interior partitions. this is a serious hazard. now only do we potentially lose a believe, but the neighborhood serving grocery store. these have potential for enormous impact. how do we reduce that. here's another example. we have these huge variety buildings. this thing is held up with toothpicks. how does it stay up with wind loads? we have things with marginal maintenance and i think a chimney is a significant hazard. think about how to brace your chimney. we don't want to have people being in there's earthquake shacks. we don't have plans. we don't have a plan what we're going to do for housing. >> we know we don't want to be in formaldehyde trailers. >> i want to use the word plan. i will say, i think one of the things we do in our life. we plan for retirement. you think about social security. your children who might take care of you. any 401 k. you have to look at earthquakes and make a plan. you need to think about the things to have access. backing up your hard drive. have been your family on the east coast have copies of valuable documents so they are not lost and also this issue of risk. how much risk do you want to retain? don't invest in retrofitting if you financially don't need that. if you don't have investment in that structure. it might not be significant for you. take a holistic view. >> the american red cross has a plan. you can get only at red cross.org. they have planning for your family. contact information, making sure there's a central contact. in my case. there's family in the east coast. >> all of the systems get flooded and cell towers are going to go down. they have a limited life. so if you're able to recharge your cell phone. the system might go down texting is quite possible to do. people in katrina were able to do that. having a central point of contact to say, i am okay. that person can receive that information. your grandmother may not be the person to do that. no offense grandma. think holisticly when you think about the future. what it's like to live. imagine living in a disaster for several weeks >> thank you for coming today and we hope this has enlightened you. thank you very much. see you next month. . >> madam secretary we'll make us use of our time it is 2:30 let's rock and roll commissioner vice president adams commissioner vice president brandon commissioner woo ho twooum approval of minutes - march 14, 2017. >> >> second >> all in favor, say i. >> i. >> opposed? . >> item no. 2 - item no. 3 - public comment on executive session. >> seeing none, public comment is closed. >> session. >> >> all in favor, say i. >> i. >> opposed? we're now in executive session. >> okay pledge of allegia