Earthquake, Fire and Conflagration in San Francisco
1906 San Francisco suffered a magnitude 7.9 earthquake causing extensive damage citywide. But 80% of property damage and 2,400 of 3,000 estimated deaths were attributable to fires raging citywide for more than three days.
In the aftermath, city leaders gathered skilled engineers and laborers to build a post-earthquake firefighting water supply that became the gold standard — the Auxiliary Water Supply System (AWSS). AWSS is a seismically resilient, high-pressure system (instantaneously and independently of pump-engines) that provides unlimited volumes of firefighting water sourced from the Pacific Ocean.
When AWSS was built, no one advocated extending it into nearly uninhabited western and southern areas of San Francisco County. But 97 years later, 2010, the Sunset, the Richmond, Seacliff, Bayview and another dozen neighborhoods had become densely populated, making questions about AWSS expansion and equal fire protection for all compelling and common sense.
In 2010, 2014 and 2020 voters overwhelmingly supported three Earthquake Safety and Emergency Response (ESER) bonds, with $312 million allocated to expand AWSS firefighting infrastructure to neighborhoods that were, and still are, unprotected.
AWSS history has been extensively reported, mostly recently by me at Though the Heavens Fall. Greed, corruption, incarcerated department heads, a shadowy ESER Management Oversight Committee, misleading Voter Information Pamphlets, an entrenched SFPUC that cannot envision building anything other than potable (drinking) water mains. And $312.5 million in bond revenues spent with ZERO AWSS hydrants and ZERO miles of AWSS pipes built.
In October, public notice for SFPUC’s 2025 Emergency Firefighting Water System (EFWS) proposal came out. The Westside Potable EFWS is a complex “co-benefit;” low-pressure-to-high-pressure post-earthquake; potable water main in lieu of AWSS. The Westside Potable EFWS is made seismically vulnerable through excessive complexity and water-source limitations (e.g. use of potable water from city reservoirs replenished from Hetch Hetchy).
Joined by Evan Rosen and Eileen Boken (SPEAK), we are pushing back against the city’s finding of “no significant impact” with an appeal to the Planning Commission calling for a full, robust Environmental Impact Review (EIR). We are developing strategies to shift focus back to AWSS expansion.
CSFN has signed an organizational and individual letter – San Francisco Neighbors for Equal Fire Protection for All – that will be unveiled after January 1st.
Contact John Crabtree – 563-581-2867 or johncrabtree52@gmail.com – for more information, questions or to sign onto the Equal Fire Protection letter.