Proposal

A civilian volunteer Motorcycle Emergency Response Corps should be formed in San Francisco to augment established NERT programs in the event of a catastrophe.

Submitted By

Thomas Henning, a ten-year Noe Valley resident. I am currently a Physics and Engineering teacher at Thurgood Marshall Academic High School in Bayview (SFUSD), and prior to 1996 was a Mechanical Engineer practicing in Mountain View.

Rationale

A natural disaster or terrorist attack will cause a large number of people to move themselves to safer locales or to their homes to locate loved ones and secure their property. In a dense urban area like San Francisco, the roads have little excess capacity to carry this load. Three personal observations support this conjecture and brought about this proposal:

1. Some of the lives lost in the Oakland firestorm ten years ago occurred because residents, hoping to save their cars and belongings, jammed the narrow roadways leading out of the area.

2. Working in Palo Alto the afternoon of the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, it took me two hours to travel three miles by car from my workplace to home immediately after the quake.

3. Roadways out of the city are inadequate to handle the daily rush hour exodus, and will presumably come to a standstill in the case of a biological or chemical attack in the city center. Similar results can be expected after a strong earthquake, with some roadways and bridges unusable. Also rolling blackout this year have shown how congested surface streets can become when traffic signals are out of operation.

A report issued by the Association of Bay Area Governments in March 1999, excerpted following this proposal, lays out the issue in stark terms. The author witnessed the aftermath of the 1995 Kobe, Japan earthquake and its affect on roadways, bridges, and the mobility of emergency vehicles.

Implementation

Having ridden a motorcycle in San Francisco for the past year, it is clear to me that they will be an excellent way to provide rapid assistance in a post-disaster scenario of gridlock, panic, and citywide damage; they could, for example, assist with immediate damage assessments, call on citizens in the Disaster Registry, assist in the movement of blood and medicine throughout the city, and move rescue personnel into and injured out of damaged areas.

If one can look past the image of the outlaw biker on a Harley-Davidson, one will find a large group of San Franciscans, mostly trades and professional people, who own small, nimble motor vehicles and who are trained, through daily practice, to operate them in the crowded streets of the City with ease. Most of these vehicles can carry a passenger, and some can carry as much as 300 lb. of supplies, all though spaces as narrow as three feet. It would be wise for San Francisco to make use of this unique resource.

Each San FranciscoÕs thousands of motorcyclist has a choice following a natural or man-made disaster. They can either evacuate themselves out of town in 15 minutes during total gridlock, or stay in the city and provide disaster responders with extraordinary mobility that few official vehicle will have.

The second choice is only possible with central coordination and advance training. A Motorcycle Emergency Response Corps, with NERT, Ham Radio, CPR, First Aid, and perhaps SFPD/CHP motorcycle training could be a useful asset to the professionals in the SFFD in the event the worst happens here in San Francisco. With the unthinkable now commonplace, it is the best time to act.

November 12, 2001