Newsom accepts recommendations
from San Francisco Disaster Council

Bay City News Service

December 7, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) - San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday that he has accepted a recommendation from the San Francisco Disaster Council to adopt the council's new Earthquake Response Plan Enhancement.

Initially presented for members' review at an October meeting of the Disaster Council, the document supplements San Francisco's existing Emergency Operations Plan with specific response planning for a catastrophic earthquake, according to the Mayor's Office.

The document also includes input from all city departments and data gathered from past urban earthquakes around the world, the Mayor's Office reported.

"This plan enhancement provides our city with an unprecedented level of planning and readiness in the event of a major earthquake,'' Newsom said in a statement. "By any objective standard, our emergency services team has made incredible progress over the last two years readying our city for a major catastrophe.''

According to Newsom's office, the citywide Emergency Operations Plan was updated for the first time in 10 years in 2005 and now provides for emergency response to multiple kinds of disasters, including earthquakes.

In order to prepare for the plan enhancement, Newsom's office reports that the Emergency Services Division reviewed research of reports and reviews of large, urban earthquakes, including the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the 1994 Northridge earthquake and the 1995 Kobe, Japan earthquake.

The details of the plan enhancement were not immediately available.

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