Reducing Our Risk

SF CARD

San Francisco, CA, USA
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An Overview Of Our Solution

San Francisco Community Agencies Responding to Disaster (SF CARD) – connects nonprofit, faith-based and private organizations with the network and knowledge they need to continue providing critical services after a disaster. SF CARD’s function is threefold, Preparedness, Response and Recovery.

San Francisco residents are beginning to experience extreme-heat wave events on a yearly basis with our seniors, young children, and the poor disproportionately impacted.  The solution we propose has been tested over the years and offers other communities a solution that is practical and is proven to work. Through the use of planning templates and documented guidance, anyone interested in preparing their organization or community can use our materials for free.  Furthermore, our solution provides guidance to develop and maintain a response network if an extreme-heat event happens.  Based on our experience, most communities spend a lot of time playing catch-up after an event takes place. Our solution will expedite the process and help save lives through leadership empowerment, training, and inclusive pre-planning activities. 

Who is this solution impacting?
Ecosystem
Urban Built Environment
Urban/Built Environment
Community Type
Urban
Urban
Additional Information
  • Population Impacted: Roughly 800,000 San Francisco Residents
  • Continent: North America
General Info

Address

1800 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
United States

Email

Brian@sfcard.org
Problem

Hazard

Extreme Temperature

Identify the likelihood and frequency of this hazard

Currently, the City of San Francisco experiences an annual average of 12 extreme heat days. According to a San Francisco Department of Public Health 2014 report, San Francisco will expect an increase in the number of extreme heat days to over 20 extreme heat days a year. This will increase the likelihood of heat-related illnesses and deaths, which will disproportionately impact seniors, young children, and the poor.

Explain how vulnerable the community is to this hazard

According to the San Francisco Department of Public Health, the frequency and severity of extreme heat days has placed our community in a vulnerable position for two leading reasons: (1) San Francisco does not experience many extreme heat days so most residential buildings do not own central air conditioning, and (2) the human body takes roughly two weeks to adapt to temperature extremes. San Francisco has a temperate climate which makes it difficult for residents to thermo-regulate.

List the potential affects of this hazard

Heat-related illness and death is preventable, but because of the vulnerabilities mentioned above, extreme heat waves could potentially increase cases of heat exhaustion and heat stroke. People vulnerable to extreme heat experience many medical conditions caused from tiredness, cramping, weakness, dizziness, fainting, dehydration, nausea or vomiting. These medical conditions can lead to heat-related death if intervention does not occur. Compared to all other natural disasters, heat waves kill more Americans and this is easily preventable.

Identify how sensitive the community is to these affects

Our community in San Francisco is very sensitive to extreme heat days for several aforementioned reasons . Furthermore, what makes San Francisco unique is that neighborhood temperature can vary depending on the location in the city. For example, residents west of the City are more impacted by fog and coastal effects than residents downtown. In the Mission neighborhood, temperature can be six degrees warmer than the Outer Sunset. San Francisco is an urban heat island!
Action

Preparedness Goal

Use best practices to drive whole community preparedness that give tools and guidance to leaders so they can professionally respond during an extreme heat-incident. ie - What did you do to reduce this risk?

Implementation Actions

We provide technical assistance and training services directly to the leadership and front-line staff. Our staff help those human-service organizations become better prepared, so they can continue providing their services to their most vulnerable clients. Human-service organizations are in the best position to identify and respond to heat-related illness because they work with the most vulnerable populations in San Francisco on a daily-basis.

Our solution is a two-prong approach: (1) to provide preparedness activities based on best practices and (2) to provide an administrative infrastructure to coordinate a whole community response and recovery through Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD), which is a national model. 

(1) Specifically, our services include consultation, training and exercise facilitation, and coordination with government and other organizations.

  •  Consultation– SF CARD helps agencies’ create and develop their emergency plan and staff preparedness.
  • Training and Exercise Facilitation – SF CARD helps agencies’ to design and coordinate regular disaster exercises and drills for the organization.
  • Community Coordination – SF CARD provides an extensive community response network before and after a disaster to share ideas and resources. We developed our network over the last 22 years to include community and faith-based organizations, private businesses, and local, state and federal government resources. 

(2) San Francisco Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (SF VOAD) is our local model on how community organizations in San Francisco can coordinate response and recovery activities.  Because government resources are limited, it is important to collaborate with community-based organizations. Not only can they share resources, they also have the expertise and staff to work with specific vulnerable communities. Our solution provides the framework and direction to help those agencies gather to prepare for, respond to, and recover from hazards of all kinds.

Solution

Describe Your Solution

Over the last few years, SF CARD has developed and tested best practices, methodology, and a solution comprised of two key activities.

Firstly, we empower the leadership of organizations by providing best practices and guidance on organizational preparedness.  

This is accomplished because :

  • Templates and expert knowledge is provided to leadership.
  • It saves time because the templates and knowledge has been fleshed out over the years and is made easily assessable.  Our sample disaster plan is only 15 pages and walks the user through the plan development process.
  • In addition to the templates and sample documents, we provide a live person to consultant with the leadership and staff if they face any hurdles during their preparedness efforts. 

Secondly, we provide the response and recovery infrastructure driven by the VOAD model.

This is accomplished because :

  • SF VOAD provides the avenue for local organizations to work together post disaster to continue delivering service and share precious resources.  
  • It leverages local knowledge and expertise from people who know the community and its residents the best.
  • It helps provide administrative infrastructure to help lead a community response and drive the long-term recovery activities.
  • SF VOAD helps local community based organizations better connect with local government during the response and recovery phases.  This is accomplished by administrative procedures have been developed and relationships between all parties have been pre-established.
Results

Economic?

According to multiple studies measuring the economic benefits from preparedness activities, every government, business and organization that spends $1 on preparedness activities could help to save $5-$11 on future loses. 

Our solution helps organizations pursue preparedness activities’ in a formal and planned out manner. Furthermore, the process can help organizations budget for disaster preparedness activities.

Environmental?

At this time we are unable to measure the environmental impacts.

Social?

One of the primary benefits of using the SF CARD solution is that it increases the amount of face-to-face interaction and relationship building opportunities. It encourages people to work together as a community.  Many times people work on preparedness activities in isolation and struggle through the process because of the lack of knowledge and resources.  

Throughout the years, SF CARD has hosted “Coffee Talks” where a specific disaster preparedness or response topic is discussed by a local expert. Individuals from a wide-variety of community organizations and local government came together for two hours to learn and spend time with one another. As people say in our business, it's better to exchange business cards before an event happens. 

What were the negative or unintended impacts (if any) associated with implementing this solution?

Our solution does not impose any negative or unintended impacts when used.   

Replication/Scale

Return on Investment: How much did it cost to implement these activities? How do your results above compare to this investment?

The main factors needed to successfully replicate our solution in other communities are willing participates and community champions, and an ongoing commitment to use the guidance and to drive preparedness. If individuals and organizations prioritize preparedness and continue a yearly preparedness program, the results we experienced in San Francisco can be achieved in any community.

To implement our solution, each community can determine the amount of budget.  SF CARD employs highly skilled and experienced staff to provide the guidance and technical assistance. Our yearly budget for 2.5 FTE programmatic staff, on average, is less than $200,000.  Each year we help over 350 organizations with an area of their disaster preparedness program.

If the community does not have the financial means to support our full solution model, we have developed a concise training program for $5,000 per year. Though the "on-tap" technical assistance will not be available, we have developed an eight hour training program that helps accomplishes a framework for organizations to implement our solution, including establishing and maintaining a local VOAD program. For example, in May 2014, SF CARD worked with the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office to deliver our training program to representatives from over 30 community-based organizations. In addition to providing an all-day training session, we covered several preparedness modules from using the Incident Command System, to developing a staff preparedness training program, to how and why it is important to support a local VOAD.

What are the main factors needed to successfully replicate this solution

Regardless of the budget a local community can put together, there are three main factors for successful replication of the model:

  1. Two to three organizational or community champions will need to be identified and supported.  These individuals will drive preparedness activities and continue the momentum. They will help drive preparedness within their organizations as well as in the community. An example of the type of work they would be responsible for chairing a disaster preparedness or safety committee, creating meeting agendas, managing the coordination with participants, and conducting other administrative needs.  Based on our experience, these activities’ can take no more than 12 hours per quarter.
  2. Adapting our best practices to the needs of the community will help motivate those organizations or community champions.  Even though our best practices are based on 15 preparedness elements, the community or organization pursuing preparedness activities must identify specific elements they plan on working on and a timeframe to accomplish those goals.  We call this a documented roadmap.  The documented roadmap helps keep preparedness activities on track and acts as a formality in terms of an agreement to pursue specific goals.  Furthermore, the roadmap helps keep the organization or community champions focused and helps avoid distractive input or whim-based suggestions. 
  3. An intermediary is needed.  Whether it is SF CARD or another third - party, it is important to have an outside entity providing assistance and administrative support.  As most organizations and community champions are working their own day-to-day jobs, it is extremely helpful to have that third-party entity to document progress, help develop the documentation for response plans, and highlight overall key technical areas and functions. 
Overview
Problem
Results