Doug Chan
April 6, 2026

I have ancestors whose home and Dupont Street business were destroyed when the 1906 San Francisco earthquake scoured Chinatown from the landscape.

John Crabtree has probably forgotten more than I can opine about this issue, but if my native-born great grandfather were still around, he’d concur with the proposition that the City’s using the equivalent of champagne to douse fires is a bad idea—but that’s how San Francisco’s kakistocracy rolls.

There’s a broader historical point here. In Japan, you can still find centuries-old “tsunami stones” *津波石—tsunami-ishi—literally “tsunami stones”, some more than 600 years old—warning descendants not to build below certain elevations or risk destruction.

The lesson is explicit: Remember what happened here. Japanese disaster scholars have long observed that collective memory of catastrophe tends to fade after about three generations. In the United States, that amnesia cycle is arguably even shorter—and city bureaucracies often exemplify it.

Here’s the substance behind the policy critique:

First: San Francisco’s entire post-1906 firefighting strategy was built on one core lesson: Don’t rely on drinking water to fight catastrophic fires. The City created a separate high-pressure system precisely so firefighting wouldn’t compete with potable supply.

Second: Potable [drinking] water systems are the first to fail in a major earthquake—pipes rupture, pressure collapses, and contamination becomes a risk. Designing around that system for firefighting assumes reliability that history shows won’t be there.

Third: Using drinking water for firefighting creates a direct conflict with survival needs. After a quake, people need that water to drink, to treat injuries, and to maintain basic sanitation. Burning through it to fight multiple fires is a zero-sum tradeoff.

Fourth: Municipal drinking water systems are not engineered for sustained, citywide fire demand. In a post-earthquake scenario with simultaneous fires, hydrant pressure drops quickly and the system can be overwhelmed.

Fifth: Critics of Proposition A point out that it appears to shift emphasis toward potable-water-based infrastructure rather than expanding the kind of dedicated, resilient firefighting systems—high-pressure lines, cisterns, and saltwater access—that were created after 1906 for exactly this scenario.

Sixth: San Francisco already has the right model: separate, non-potable sources like saltwater from the Bay and underground cisterns that don’t compete with human consumption and are designed for high-volume firefighting.

Seventh: Even if you accept the premise, the timeline and coverage gaps mean this approach won’t fully protect the City anytime soon.

The City learned the hard way in 1906 that you don’t fight an urban conflagration with your drinking water supply. Relearning that lesson the same way would be inexcusable.

Complaining about it from your tent in Golden Gate Park will be too late. Send Prop A back to the drawing board.