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San Francisco schedules first citywide earthquake drill for Oct. 21; regional 'Silver Sentinel' exercise set for Oct. 23
Summary
Deputy Emergency Management Director Rob Dudgeon and staff described a citywide ShakeUp San Francisco drill on Oct. 21 aimed at residents, schools and nonprofits and a regional Silver Sentinel earthquake exercise on Oct. 23 focusing on resource allocation days after a quake.
San Francisco staff told the Disaster Council on Sept. 12 that the city will hold a ShakeUp San Francisco citywide disaster drill starting at noon on Oct. 21, part of a sequence of exercises that includes the regional Silver Sentinel earthquake exercise on Oct. 23.
Rob Dudgeon, deputy director of the Department of Emergency Management, said the city is taking a "crawl, walk, run" approach to exercises and wants to shift some attention from immediate first-response to the planning and resource-allocation challenges two to four days after a major earthquake. "What would you do in the immediate aftermath of an earthquake?" Dudgeon asked, urging households, schools and businesses to rehearse plans.
Officials said the Oct. 21 drill will engage public educational institutions, parochial schools, nonprofits and residents, and will begin with the sirens at noon to coincide with the city’s regular Tuesday siren testing. Outreach will rely on partner organizations, limited PSA work, and 311 for information dissemination; staff noted constrained marketing budgets and targeted outreach to community groups.
The Dicey logistics of including schools and businesses drew exchanges at the table: officials said they are meeting with school administrators and using nonprofit liaisons and faith-based partners to bring organizations into the exercise. Staff encouraged businesses to sign up and said 311 and partner organizations would help publicize the event.
Dudgeon framed Silver Sentinel (Oct. 23) as a regional multi-day earthquake exercise targeted at the 48–96 hour recovery window: sheltering, sustained operations and allocation of scarce resources. He said after-action reports from a July 17 emergency-operations center functional exercise will be used to refine future drills and EOC practices.
Next steps include continued outreach, coordination with schools and private-sector partners, and publication of after-action reports and exercise materials for participating organizations.
