John Upton San Francisco Profiles Bay Bridge eyebar fix Hetch Hetchy series Earthquake anniversary→ Cosco Busan oil spill Power plant debate Radioactive air pollution Gas pipeline safety johnupton@gmail.com latest at sfexaminer.com			Repercussions: 20 Years After Loma Prieta This five-part San Francisco Examiner series ran 20 years after the 6.9-magnitude Loma Prieta earthquake struck the Bay Area. Complete coverage is at www.sfexaminer.com/loma-prieta. Crippling quake opened avenues  original / top By John Upton San Francisco Examiner, Oct. 13, 2009 When Art and Sherry Agnos walk their chocolate Labrador from their Potrero Hill home to the Ferry Building farmers market on weekends, the former mayor and his wife take the waterfront route, passing AT&T Park and following the T-Third Street light-rail track to the Bay Bridge. The couple has a special appreciation for this sunny, open, Bay-facing roadway: Two decades ago, a deadly earthquake gave Art Agnos, then mayor, the unlikely opportunity to create it. Transformation of the waterfront from a freeway-shaded thoroughfare to the pedestrian-oriented stretch it is today gained traction at 5:04 p.m. Oct. 17, 1989, when the Loma Prieta earthquake rocked The City. The eyes of the world were already on the Bay Area when the 6.9-magnitude temblor hit, with television viewers tuning in to watch the third game of the World Series between the Giants and A's that was being played at Candlestick Park. "I tell you what, we're having an earthq-" TV announcer Al Michaels said before the live feed cut out. Agnos, who was 21 months into his term, was riding in the mayoral car and just pulling into a stadium parking lot when the ground moved. "I felt the car shake rather strongly and said to my bodyguard, 'Do we have a flat tire? A couple flat tires or what?'" Agnos told The Examiner. "She said, 'No, I think we had an earthquake.'" It wasn't until he was inside Candlestick Park - where players were helping loved ones from the stands and fans were still milling around - that Agnos received word about some of the damage, including the collapse of a portion of the Bay Bridge. As shaking from the quake, which was centered 56 miles south of San Francisco, spread outward, it damaged homes, buildings and roadways, including the double-decker Embarcadero Freeway that ran along the waterfront from the Bay Bridge to North Beach. Agnos used the damage from the quake as a reason to move ahead with plans to raze the overhead freeway and replace it with a surface-level street, even though voters just years earlier had decided against tearing it down. The demolition - which was eventually used by Agnos' political rivals in defeating the former state Assembly member during his 1992 re-election bid for mayor - was completed, but not before a fight from several groups. After heavy lobbying against the demolition - including from Chinatown merchants who wanted to ensure access to the area for customers - the Board of Supervisors voted 6-5 to move ahead with tearing down the freeway. The removal in 1991 led to the revitalization of the waterfront, including the restoration of the Ferry Building, the construction of AT&T Park and the burgeoning of the Mission Bay neighborhood. "Would I do it again?" Agnos said. "In a heartbeat." "It's been 18 years since I left office," he said. "What I do have is the memory that I left The City better than I found it. All I have to do is walk down that Embarcadero and I see it. "I see thousands of San Franciscans and thousands of tourists enjoying a part of The City they never had until I said, 'We're tearing it down.'" Following disaster, 'instincts' took the reins In the aftermath of the deadly Loma Prieta earthquake, then-Mayor Art Agnos said he abandoned The City's emergency plan and relied on his instincts to deal with the disaster. With traffic snarled due to collapsed roadways and power outages, a convoy of motorcycle-riding police officers cleared a path for Agnos' car from the canceled World Series game at Candlestick Park to an emergency operations center near City Hall. When he arrived, Agnos was told the disaster coordinator had collapsed and been hospitalized. Agnos was handed a large, loose-leaf binder filled with emergency procedures. "I had only been mayor for a year and the last thing on my mind was an earthquake," Agnos told The Examiner. "We hadn't gone through any kind of disaster protocols or preparedness or anything. I didn't have time to be looking at a loose-leaf binder, so I just put it aside and started going with my instincts." The damage in The City included power outages, the collapse of a SoMa building facade that killed five people, homes crumpling and burning into the soft sand and landfill of the Marina district, and sections of freeways that bowed and cracked. Agnos declared a state of emergency, arranged for soldiers from the Presidio to be dispatched to the Marina and elsewhere, and ordered all bars to close. Agnos said law and order generally prevailed in San Francisco, although one shooting death and some looting were reported amid the chaos. Quake cracked freeway-focused policy  original / top By John Upton San Francisco Examiner, Oct. 14, 2009 The tectonic shift in the Santa Cruz Mountains in 1989 led to a corresponding shift in San Francisco's transportation landscape, prompting the replacement of freeways with boulevards and freeing up land for new buildings and homes. Cracks that emerged in freeways during the Oct. 17, 1989, Loma Prieta earthquake added fuel to anti-highway sentiments in San Francisco, leading to the demolition of roadways and a new downtown skyline taking shape. The earthquake-damaged Embarcadero Freeway, which ran between the Bay Bridge and North Beach, was not repaired after the quake. In the process of tearing it down, a lattice of ramps that connected it with the Bay Bridge was also removed. Then San Francisco Redevelopment Agency began wooing developers to build shops, office space and homes on state land that was cleared when those ramps and connectors were removed. Several empty lots that emerged from the shadows of the old freeway ring the future Transbay Transit Center, and the redevelopment will help fund a multibillion-dollar upgrade to the hub. The transit center rebuild will continue an alteration of the area that started just after the quake. San Francisco lawmakers' controversial decision to demolish the damaged Embarcadero Freeway prompted waterfront improvements that included parkland; construction of new piers, buildings and shops; the rehabilitation of the landmark Ferry Building; and the construction of what is now AT&T Park. "The waterfront is now one of the best urban places in the world -- after 150 years, we're starting to reconnect with the Bay," said Gabriel Metcalf, executive director of the land-use think-tank San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association. "Loma Prieta helped San Francisco enormously by taking down the Embarcadero Freeway, but we get the credit for figuring out what to put in its place." In addition to transit center plans are proposed zoning changes designed to extend San Francisco's downtown south toward the transit terminal, where high-density skyscrapers are expected to be built. Farther outside the downtown area lies development that sprouted from another demolished freeway. The northern stretch of the Central Freeway was damaged beyond repair by the quake and torn down in 1992. In 1995, a city task force recommended replacing remaining stretches with a surface boulevard. After fights at the ballot box, in 1999 voters approved tearing down the freeway north of Market Street. That cleared the way for a renaissance of the Hayes Valley neighborhood. Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, whose district includes Hayes Valley and who worked as a legislative aide on early efforts to demolish the freeway, said it's "very dubious" whether demolition would have proceeded without the 1989 temblor. "The cracks caused by the Loma Prieta [earthquake] in our freeway infrastructure prompted cracks in our policy of relying on freeways altogether," Mirkarimi said. Signs of transit-rich future coming forth The Hayes Valley and Upper Market neighborhoods remain sprinkled by weedy lots left vacant since the Central Freeway was torn down after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, but signs of revival are emerging. City officials took more than eight years to craft a rebuilding plan for those lots, known as the Market-Octavia Plan, which was finalized last year before the recession put a dent in planned reconstruction efforts. But replacement of freeway with surface road along Octavia Boulevard has provided an early manifestation of posthighway land-use policies that could eventually lead to a rehabilitated, transit-rich community. Octavia Boulevard was rebuilt in a way that divides faster-moving from slower-moving traffic with rows of trees in its center. "It's still an arterial," said Gabriel Metcalf of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association. "But it provides a transition between the car-centered space of the highway and the pedestrian-centered space of The City." As San Francisco recovers from the recession, Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi said he expects Hayes Valley -- which was "in the doldrums" when it was "eclipsed by the freeway" -- to continue flourishing into a transit-oriented neighborhood housing a mandated mix of income levels. Bay Area gets ready for the next disaster  original / top By John Upton San Francisco Examiner, Oct. 15, 2009 Bay Area emergency officials have used more than $130 million in funds from the federal government to shore up issues laid bare by the deadly temblor that rocked the Bay Area on Oct. 17, 1989. Since the 6.9-magnitude Loma Prieta earthquake, leaders in cities around San Francisco Bay have made vast strides toward being ready for the next large-scale disaster by establishing communication between emergency responders, preparing centers for victims of a disaster and pushing for people to prepare their homes for a calamity. One move has been a major public relations push to teach people to get ready to survive without basic services such as water, power and food. There were widespread power outages for three days following the earthquake. Since there can be no guarantee that services such as water, electricity and sewage can be immediately restored after a disaster, officials have pushed for people to be ready to do without them. San Francisco officials warn that residents should be prepared to be without any aid for 72 hours. San Mateo County officials say everyone should plan to be self-sufficient for up to one week. "The Department of Homeland Security is looking more at making sure locals are ready," said Vicki Hennessy, acting director of the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management, which oversees disaster planning for The City. Radiating outward from the individual, the first government response to a disaster will likely come from local municipalities, according to officials. Former San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos told The Examiner that he had tossed aside the disaster manual after the 1989 temblor rocked the region. Today, however, city leaders are exhaustively trained and prepared to deal with catastrophes, according to Hennessy. "Now we have plans and everybody knows what their roles are," she said. "We also have much better infrastructure in our emergency operations center, so we have the infrastructure in place, as well as having the people in place." Since 1989, efforts to improve the disaster preparedness of local agencies includes the San Francisco Emergency Communications Center on Turk Street in the Tenderloin neighborhood. That's where high-ranking officials will gather after an earthquake or other large disaster. The center was rebuilt in 1999 to withstand a major temblor. After a disaster, the new center will offer a place for police, fire and other vital emergency services personnel to gather and lay out their plans to respond based on the needs of the situation. The mayor and other top city officials will also be able to communicate with each other through satellite phones or special, red landline phones in their homes, offices and at the emergency center. Officials will coordinate street cleanups, emergency health care, sewer and water main repairs, and other tasks with police and fire officials. In San Mateo County, there are plans to set up an emergency response center that will coordinate with the various cities on the Peninsula, according to Bill O'Callahan, a supervisor in San Mateo County's Office of Emergency Services. Plans in San Francisco have also been put in place for emergency shelters to be open with cots, kitchens and medical provisions for anyone who is newly homeless. Residents will be notified of shelter openings through AM radio broadcasts and community hubs, which are likely to be formed inside branch libraries, according to Hennessy. In terms of communication, there's been improvements in communication between emergency responders, though gaps still exist. During the Loma Prieta earthquake, fire departments and other first responders such as the police could not communicate because of jammed radio signals. Though investment from the federal government and the switch to digital television started to clear valuable communication for emergency responders to reach one another after a disaster, emergency responders in cities and counties across the Bay Area cannot currently communicate with one another on the radios they have. Along with preparing to keep people safe in their homes and communities, plans have been put in place for evacuating large populations in cities. If there were to be an emergency so large that swaths of any Bay Area city needed to be taken to safer locations, the San Francisco Bay Area Water Emergency Transportation Authority could ferry people across the water. That plan, however, shows one shortcoming in the disaster plans across the region. Though thousands of people could be taken to safety on ferries, the infrastructure of the region would not withstand the influx of people if several Bay Area bridges were to collapse. Digital switch boosted communications Knocking analog television off the air freed up space for emergency officials in the Bay Area to communicate after an earthquake or other large-scale disaster. San Francisco's emergency radio system became jammed after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, prompting the Fire Department to recommend expanding the number of emergency radio frequencies available for use during disasters. Additionally, as the Bay Area grew, its public safety agencies adopted different communication technologies that broadcast information through different radio frequencies, according to Michelle Geddes, a San Francisco Department of Emergency Management program manager. As a result, San Francisco officials rely on complicated patching tools requiring extensive training and experience to radio the California Highway Patrol or counterparts in Marin County, according to Geddes. To improve emergency communications, the federal government is freeing up radio frequencies for public safety agencies that were previously used for analog television broadcasts. San Francisco expects to start using the 700-megahertz frequency by June, in part by drawing on a $14.9 million federal grant awarded to Bay Area governments to improve interoperability of communications, according to Geddes. The money is being spent on new radios, networking equipment and mountaintop antennas, she said. Quake exposed buildings’ weaknesses  original / top By John Upton San Francisco Examiner, Oct. 16, 2009 Little has been done since 1989 to protect thousands of vulnerable residential buildings that were built like those that fatally crashed and burned in the Marina district during the Loma Prieta earthquake. Pushes to mandate seismic retrofitting of so-called soft-story buildings have failed, leaving about one-third of San Franciscans living in the dangerous structures and The City at risk of losing rent-controlled apartments. A soft-story building is wood-framed with above ground-level garages or shops that are structurally weaker than the upper stories and prone to crumble in an earthquake. Seven such buildings collapsed into the soft sand and landfill of the Marina district after Loma Prieta struck - six of them on corner lots. Soft-story buildings on corner lots are especially vulnerable to collapse if their ground stories contain garage openings or storefronts on two walls instead of one. Another 65 of the neighborhood's 1,400 soft-story buildings were damaged moderately or severely, studies found. The Department of Building Inspection and nonprofit think-tank San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association have both recommended that The City force property owners to reinforce their soft-story buildings to protect residents during earthquakes. Such legislation, however, has not been drafted or introduced. Lawmakers are scheduled to consider legislation by Mayor Gavin Newsom that would instead cut some city fees and expedite permit approvals for retrofit projects to encourage property owners to shore up their soft-story buildings. The old age of San Francisco's soft-story buildings, combined with rent-control laws that limit rent increases in pre-1980 buildings, creates policy challenges for lawmakers who want to protect their constituents from earthquakes, according to SPUR executive director Gabriel Metcalf. "The vulnerable buildings are older buildings," Metcalf said. "If they're rental apartment buildings, then that means they're under rent control, so the revenue streams may not be there to support borrowing the money needed to retrofit the buildings." Under state law, rent control doesn't apply to new buildings built to replace those demolished in an earthquake. That means San Francisco could be unaffordable for hordes of renters after an earthquake. It costs between $5,000 and $20,000 to retrofit a soft-story building, according to Department of Building Inspection Director Vivian Day. DBI is estimating that roughly 10 percent of the owners of the thousands of soft-story buildings will voluntarily reinforce their properties. In a move to help building owners retrofit their soft-story buildings, DBI is pursuing federal grants and investigating whether unused money raised through bond-sales to reinforce buildings across The City can be given or loaned to property owners. Majority of city's masonry edifices reinforced After five people were crushed to death by rubble following the collapse of a building facade in the South of Market neighborhood during the 1989 earthquake, most similar brick buildings in San Francisco were shored up to prevent such deadly incidents. The top-floor facade of a four-story building at Sixth and Bluxome streets tore away from the building as the ground beneath it was rocked by the Loma Prieta earthquake, which fatally dumped tons of bricks on car occupants and pedestrians below. The building was one of 1,700 unreinforced masonry buildings that dotted The City before the quake struck, Department of Building Inspection figures show. Since 1989, 1,432 of the 1,700 unsafe brick buildings have been retrofitted to protect them during earthquakes and 93 have been demolished, DBI figures show. That leaves 175 dangerous unreinforced buildings in The City, the figures show. DBI Executive Director Vivian Day credited the high retrofit rate with city and state laws that mandate safety improvements to unreinforced masonry buildings and a voter-approved bond sale that loaned retrofit funds to property owners. Nonprofits and faith groups in brick office buildings and churches have had the most difficulty complying with the regulations, according to Day. "Lots of nonprofits out there have had a tough time raising the money," she said. Bay Bridge still awaits replacement  original / top By John Upton San Francisco Examiner, Oct. 18, 2009 Twenty years after the Loma Prieta earthquake caused a section of the Bay Bridge to collapse, more than 200,000 vehicles cross the same span daily while a replacement is being built. The 6.9-magnitude quake that shook the Bay Area on Oct. 17, 1989, caused a 250-ton, 50-foot section of the upper deck of the eastern span to fall onto the lower deck, killing a woman and causing a one-month closure of the bridge. In the aftermath of the earthquake, state officials made the decision to retrofit the western span of the bridge, which runs between San Francisco and Yerba Buena Island. It was also decided to build a new span to run between Yerba Buena Island and Oakland. Following years of political wrangling about the proposed replacement span's design, officials in the late 1990s opted for a radical solution: The eastern span would be rebuilt as the world's longest self-anchored suspension bridge. The retrofit of the western span was completed in 2004, but the rebuild of the eastern section was plagued by controversy and cost. The new eastern span will include four distinct components: A ramp connected to Yerba Buena Island; a suspension bridge; a skyway; and a touchdown in Oakland. The skyway, which is mostly completed, will connect with Yerba Buena Island via an unconventional new suspension bridge. Most suspension bridges hang from cables that are slung over multiple towers and anchored at both ends, but the new Bay Bridge section, which is under construction, will have a single tower, and the cables will not be anchored. But the design of the section, with a $1.4 billion price, will be nearly twice what Caltrans originally predicted. Questions have also arisen about whether the new bridge would withstand a major earthquake. Studies using computer simulations of Bay Area ground movements during earthquakes suggest the suspension bridge could fail during a temblor and snap away from the skyway, according to UC Berkeley engineering professor Abdolhassan Astaneh-Asl. Caltrans officials have dismissed the alarms sounded for years by Astaneh-Asl. But how strong an earthquake the span could withstand is unclear. Unlike BART, which is reinforcing its rail network to withstand the strongest hypothetical quake expected to strike the system, known as the "maximum credible earthquake," Caltrans is rebuilding the bridge to a lower seismic standard. "It would be difficult to determine what [a maximum credible earthquake] is for a bridge that lies between the two biggest faults in a region that has numerous others," Caltrans spokesman Bart Ney said. The new span is scheduled to open in 2013 and last for 150 years. The cost of the retrofit and rebuilding effort is expected to cost $7.2 billion to $8.6 billion - triple the 1997 estimates of $2.6 billion. Underwater BART tunnel attaining upgrade The underwater tube that carries BART trains between the sides of the Bay was largely undamaged by the Loma Prieta earthquake, but the system is still receiving upgrades. Voters in 2004 approved a bond sale to seismically reinforce the main elements of the network that runs between San Francisco and Oakland, which were built in the 1960s and 1970. "The system was very robustly built in its day, but we're bringing it up to modern standards," BART spokeswoman Molly McArthur said. Much of the seismic work involves strengthening 1,918 towers that support elevated train tracks and stations, most of which are in the East Bay. But BART's first priority is strengthening the tunnel beneath Oakland and San Francisco. That stretch of the network was prioritized for seismic reinforcement based on public feedback, according to McArthur. "The thought of being stuck under the Bay in an earthquake is not a pretty thought," McArthur said. Seismic work on the eastern half of the tunnel is complete, and work on the western half is expected to be finished by the spring, according to McArthur. BART's $1.3 billion retrofit project, which is designed to protect the entire network from the strongest hypothetical quake expected to strike, is scheduled to finish in 2013. top				← Crippling quake opened avenues, Oct. 13, 2009 ← Quake cracked freeway-focused policy, Oct. 14, 2009 ← Bay Area gets ready for the next disaster, Oct. 15, 2009 ← Quake exposed buildings’ weaknesses, Oct. 16, 2009 ← Bay Bridge still awaits replacement, Oct. 18, 2009