SAN FRANCISCO — In a move officials say will make the city more resilient in the face of mounting climate threats and overdue disasters, Mayor Daniel Lurie and the Department of Emergency Management are launching “ReadySF,” a revamped emergency preparedness portal built to help San Franciscans — and anyone visiting or working in the city — get ready before the next big emergency hits.
The new portal, SF.gov/ReadySF, went live Wednesday morning, replacing the decade-old SF72.org. It’s the digital centerpiece of a broader campaign to equip residents with real-time data about emergencies and climate hazards. CBS News Bay Area obtained an exclusive first look ahead of the official release.
“We are, very many people say, overdue for an earthquake,” Department of Emergency Management Executive Director Mary Ellen Carroll tells CBS News Bay Area. “We live in a seismically risky area of the country, as we know and we are encountering a lot more risks based on climate change and extreme weather so and we know that statistically, we are seeing that we didn’t used to need a heat plan, and now we do.”
The update comes on the heels of climate-induced shifts that have made the city rethink its readiness for a range of modern threats. From deadly heat waves and wildfire smoke to tsunami warnings and aging infrastructure, San Francisco’s risk profile has changed dramatically in the last decade.
“A safe San Francisco needs a reliable, secure, and effective emergency preparedness system,” said Mayor Daniel Lurie. “While our first responders are always ready to respond to a crisis, ReadySF will give San Franciscans the tools to prepare and keep themselves and their families safe.”
Carroll says no one likes to think about the next disaster but spending the time to prepare now can save pain later.
“We really want to make it so that it’s super helpful and that they feel a place that they can feel good about, that’s easy to navigate, gives them the tools that they need so that they’ll be more prepared and resilient when an emergency happens,” she explained.
The new site includes a five-step preparedness plan: Sign up for alerts, make a disaster plan, gather supplies, connect with neighbors, and get trained.
It also provides access to interactive hazard maps showing the current data on areas at risk for heatwave, flood, storm, and tsunami. The maps show everything from power outages and cooling centers to sandbag distribution points and air quality data.
Though designed for San Francisco’s unique geography and demographics, Carroll says ReadySF is a resource that could help anyone living in earthquake and climate-prone regions.
“Over the last 10 years, we actually have new kinds of emergencies that we’re dealing with in San Francisco and California, including heat emergencies, including air quality from the fires that we’ve seen over the last few years, we’ve had a couple of tsunami scares, and so we’ve learned a lot from that,” said Carroll. “We’ve taken the time worked with all of our partners, to come up with a step-by-step guide for how to get prepared, and it is for San Franciscans, but honestly, it would be helpful to anybody who wants to make sure that they’re ready when an emergency happens.”
The urgency for the new site comes in part by public confusion after a tsunami warning in December sent people across coastal Bay Area cities scrambling. Though the threat was minor, the alert sowed panic across the region and sounded a wake-up call for officials.
“I think one of the events for me that just resonated about how clearly, people are not thinking about the average person is not thinking about emergencies, is the tsunami warning that we had in which the National Weather Service set out a WEA that went really broadly throughout the region and caused a lot of panic, including from the majority of people that didn’t need to be they weren’t close to the water anyway,” said Carroll.
“That was one of the things that I was just like, you know, we have to try to push out more information and make it easily available to the public before the event happens.”
To get prepared, visit SF.gov/ReadySF or sign up for alerts by texting your ZIP code to 888-777.
