Today Mayor Edwin M. Lee joined San Francisco Bay Area leaders, first responders and the community at the Exploratorium to mark the 25th Anniversary of the devastating Loma Prieta earthquake, which struck the San Francisco Bay Area at 5:04 p.m. on October 17, 1989.  

“We remember and honor the lives of those whom we lost and those lives that were changed forever by the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake,” said Mayor Lee. “For those of us who were in San Francisco during the earthquake, we saw our City come together and rebuild, and as a result we became a stronger, more resilient and more connected City. San Francisco has come a long way since 1989, but we also need to make sure our residents, businesses and our City can rapidly respond and recover quickly. That means preparing ourselves in City government, making sure our buildings are built and retrofit to the highest seismic standards, and continuing to train and educate our residents to be prepared when the next earthquake hits.”

Seismologists predict that a significant Bay Area earthquake – two to three times as strong as the 1989 Loma Prieta quake – is likely to occur within the next thirty years.

www.test.com Since 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, San Francisco has invested more than $9 billion in seismic-related improvements to critical infrastructure including projects like rebuilding San Francisco General Hospital and the seismic upgrade work for the Hetch Hetchy Water and Power system – a $4.6 billion program to ensure regional water delivery quickly resumes after a disaster through upgrades to pipelines, pump stations, treatment plants, tunnels and dams along the system’s 167-mile long system that brings water to the San Francisco Bay Area from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. Investments also include the voter-approved 2010 and 2014 Earthquake Safety and Emergency Response bond programs, which pay for seismic upgrades and improvements to firefighting and public safety facilities so that our first responders are prepared in case of an earthquake or other emergency.

With $812 million in funding, the earthquake safety bond programs make crucial repairs and seismic enhancements that will allow San Francisco to quickly respond to the next major seismic event or disaster. The San Francisco Public Works-managed programs are actively making improvements to neighborhood firehouses and police stations and upgrading the emergency firefighting water system. It also has funded construction of the City’s new Public Safety Building, a seismically secure, state-of-the-art facility that by year’s end will be the new home for San Francisco’s police headquarters, public safety command center and a neighborhood fire station in Mission Bay so that public safety agencies can provide uninterrupted emergency services during and after a disaster.

Other investments include the 2010 and 2014 Earthquake Safety and Emergency Response bond programs which strengthened neighborhood fire houses and upgraded the emergency firefighting water system, and the Mandatory Soft Story Retrofit Ordinance which requires evaluation and retrofit of some the City’s most vulnerable structures. To date, dozens of neighborhood firehouses have been upgraded and miles of underground emergency water pipeline and tunnel projects are under way along with new cisterns for water storage.

In addition to seismic improvements, programs like San Francisco’s Neighborhood Emergency Response Team (NERT) have trained more than 24,700 residents to take care of themselves, their family, and their communities after an emergency.

“In San Francisco, we believe in connection, not catastrophe,” said Department of Emergency Management Executive Director Anne Kronenberg. “That means being connected within our community networks, interacting with our neighbors, and knowing how to get and share information.”

The Loma Prieta 25th Anniversary (LP25) began Thursday and featured events designed to bring the many people that felt the earthquake first hand together with the large part of the community who were not in the area or may not have been born when the earthquake hit. The LP25 series started with the Great California ShakeOut at Marina Middle School, where Mayor Lee and first responders led a sixth grade class in a “drop, cover, and hold on” earthquake and evacuation drill.

About LP25
The Loma Prieta 25th Anniversary series are interactive opportunities to help Bay Area residents prepare for an emergency. LP25 is brought to the San Francisco Bay Area in partnership with government, non-profit, and private sector organizations whose missions are to respond to and recover from emergencies. LP25 partners include the City and County of San Francisco, San Francisco Unified School District, City of Oakland, California Earthquake Authority, American Red Cross Bay Area Chapter, Salvation Army, Pacific Gas and Electric, the California Academy of Sciences and the Exploratorium. For more information, go to: http://www.lp25sf.org.