Conflagration!

Remembering 1906 is as important today as ever.

[author’s note – One essential critique that I have previously written about regarding Mayor Daniel Lurie’s Upzoning Plan is – “no upzoning density before infrastructure improvements.” I have, therefore, been delving as deeply as possible into infrastructure concerns in The Sunset. I feel I should be as informed on issues I raise as is possible, which in turn allows me to keep you all as informed as possible.

While researching topics around water and fire safety I came upon concerns in The Sunset regarding the Auxiliary Water Supply System (AWSS) and the writings of Tom Doudiet, former Assistant Deputy Chief with the San Francisco Fire Department (SFFD). I have not yet met or interviewed Tom Doudiet, although I hope to do so soon. With any luck he will see this report or someone will share it with him (hint) and encourage him to get in touch with me. In the meantime, I will report here on what I have learned so far and will write on this again as I learn more.]

San Francisco has two types of fire hydrants. Across the city there are approximately 9,000 white-topped, low-pressure hydrants that are supplied by domestic drinking water mains. And then there are about 1,600 hydrants that are supplied by the high-pressure water mains of the Auxiliary Water Supply System (AWSS). The AWSS hydrants have red, blue or black tops, knowing that you can keep an eye out for them as you move about the city.

The AWSS was first installed following the 1906 earthquake and fire. The people and leaders of San Francisco remembered back then something that too many of us fail to understand now, that as much or more of the devastation in 1906 occurred after the earthquake in the conflagration that ensued, claiming over 27,000 buildings and thousands of lives in the firestorm.

It makes a lot of sense that San Francisco and the people that lived there would want to build a seismically robust, high-pressure hydrant system to assist firefighters in fighting major fires after a catastrophic earthquake. It also makes sense that when the original AWSS was built around 1913 it did not extend west of 12th Avenue in The Richmond, west of 19th Avenue in The Sunset or into the city’s southern neighborhoods because, for the most part, those neighborhoods did not exist yet. I mean no offense to the people living in Carville-by-the-Sea, but I doubt even they expected that anyone was going to build the AWSS down to their little cluster of houses built of horsecars and cable-cars just off Ocean Beach.

What does not make any sense whatsoever is that in the 112 years since that time, as The Sunset and The Richmond have filled in with thousands of homes and businesses, the AWSS has not been extended into these western and southern neighborhoods.

“These domestic mains, and many thousands of service connection water pipes leading from the mains into buildings, could break during a major seismic event. The result will be that the SFFD will have little or no water available from the low-pressure hydrants, just as happened in 1906.

In more than 15 neighborhoods of San Francisco, including the Bayview Heights, Crocker Amazon, Excelsior, Ingleside, Little Hollywood, Merced Manor, Mission Terrace, Oceanview, Outer Mission, Outer Richmond, Outer Sunset, Parkside, Portola, Sea Cliff, Stonestown and Sunnyside, there are no high-pressure hydrants.

How will SFFD firefighters stop the spread of fire from building to building and, soon thereafter, from block to block? The simple answer is that they won’t. Conflagrations, as occurred in 1906, will result.”

Assistant Deputy Chief Tom Doudiet (retired), SFFD — Richmond Review, 2017

As with any good story about bad decisions, there is always someone willing to add insult to injury. In this case, quite a number of someones. Not only have 112 years passed but in the last 15 years the voters of San Francisco have passed three Earthquake Safety and Emergency Response (ESER) capital bonds and yet, nary an AWSS hydrant in any of those 15 aforementioned neighborhoods, certainly none in The Sunset where I live.

That is a total of $312.50 million in capital bond allocation that was promised to San Francisco voters, on three separate occasions, to be made available to fund extension of the AWSS into neighborhoods where it was lacking. In 2010, 2014 and again in 2020 San Francisco voters approved ESER bonds. In 2010 and 2014 the official Voter Information Pamphlet included ballot arguments by the SF Chamber of Commerce and SF Democratic Party specifically arguing that AWSS extension into the outer Richmond and Sunset districts would be funded by these and future bonds.

However, after passage of the 2014 ESER bond measure, the SF Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) stated that the city no longer planned to extend the AWSS into those neighborhoods. SFPUC then moved to sell millions of dollars’ worth of materials that the city had procured for extension of AWSS. Despite what was promised to voters, the city had decided to abandon the concept of AWSS extension.

In April 2016, Supervisor Aaron Peskin, then Chair of the Board of Supervisors Government and Oversight Committee, held a hearing to determine whether the selling of AWSS pipe and equipment was a breach of the city’s promise to voters in the earlier capital bond issuances. Representatives of SFPUC and SFFD explained that the high-pressure, seismic event resistant AWSS hydrants were not needed and that the city had determined that they could purchase 15 miles of large diameter hoses that could be dropped from flatbed trucks following a major earthquake.

Before spending any time digging into the foolhardy nature of a large diameter hose-based fire defense system, it merits mention that the 15 miles of flexible hose scheme has also been abandoned by the city. While that might make it easier for me to write this report, it also leaves the 15 neighborhoods mentioned above with zero post-earthquake fire defense system – neither a sound AWSS plan nor a hair-brained flexible hose plan – nothing at all to show for $312.5 million in capital bond money borrowed.

Mayor Lurie, I will just take one more moment to reiterate what I have learned about all of this that you should learn from as well.

1. I’ve said it before and I will say it again, no density upzoning before necessary infrastructure improvements. This story about AWSS makes that point as well as any I have encountered thus far.

2. The Department of Elections Voter Information Pamphlet and falsehoods therein is a recurring theme in my writing, but not because I chose that to be so. Whether it be the falsehoods in the 2010, 2014 and 2020 ESER bond issues or those contained within Prop. K – Lock, Stock and Two Smokin Barrels – the case for increased accuracy and reform in official communications to voters in the VIP is compelling.

3. Addressing the need for AWSS extension in the outer Sunset, outer Richmond and other neighborhoods where the issue has been neglected should become a top priority for your administration.

John Crabtree