San Francisco Supervisor upset about emergency response times during heat wave
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- A San Francisco Supervisor says the city's response to the record breaking heat wave last week was too slow and inadequate
"In reality, San Francisco was caught flat footed. The emergency operating center was not activated until Friday night long after we reached unprecedented temperatures," said San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin.
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Supervisor Peskin and other members of the Supervisors audit and oversight committee want answers. Among their many questions is why information about the city's cooling centers didn't go out to the public until Friday night.
"They should have let people know far in advance where people could go to stay cool. To tell them that city swimming pools were open for free. They should have done it in multiple languages," said Peskin.
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911 dispatchers received more than 800 calls each of the two days. On an average weather day, they get about 200 calls. Peskin says that overwhelmed the response of ambulances.
"My understanding is we had response times of over an hour. Some of them were transferring patients from one hospital to another. Some of them just to get service for the resident in excess of 20-minutes," said Peskins.
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Mutual aid was called for ambulances from as far away as Sacramento during the heat wave.
But Deputy Director Mike Dayton of the Department of Emergency Management said the emergency operating center did open Friday morning.
"Our operational staff was there. we had a duty officer there. We had our manager on call so we were ready for a busy day at 7 a.m.," said Dayton.
The fire department did not provide a response to our request for an interview.
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