Received AUG 2 5 2006 Mayor July 25,2006 Honorable Janis Sammartino Presiding Judge San Diego County Superior Court

Tsunamis pose a significant threat to life and property. Agree.

Inundation maps showing possible San Diego County shoreline which might be submerged by tsunami waters is not adequate. Partially Disagree. The San Diego County Tsunami Evacuation Planning Maps were prepared by the University of Southern California's (USC) Tsunami Research Group under a research grant awarded by the Governor's Office of Emergency Services. In order to avoid the conflict over tsunami origin, inundation projections are based on worst- case scenarios. The inundation projections are intended for emergency and evacuation planning. The flooding is therefore based on the highest projection of inundation regardless of the tsunami origin. As such, projections are not an assessment of the probability of reaching the projected height but only a planning tool. These maps are adequate for San Diego County. The USC team developed a computer model to determine the maximum run-up of a tsunami event. Once all possible events were calculated, the highest run-up was sent to the State Office of Emergency Services Geographic Information Systems Research Analysts who took the number (12.8 meters for San Diego County) and sampled Digital CITY ADMINISTRATION BUILDING. C STREET. SAN DIEGO. CALIFORNIA 92101 (619)2 36-6330 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - D - Pi - ~n~ - edoren - c ycle - d pa - per -- ------ ------ Honorable Janis Sammartino July 25,2006 Elevation Models (DEM) from the United States Geological Survey. Everything on the DEM that fell into the range between zero (sea level) and 12.8 meters was extracted and converted into a run-up area. The maps do not provide "depth of the flood waters for every 500 meters inland" as stated in the Grand Jury report, but rather one 12.8 meter Run-up Line. Funding from the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program for the past couple of years has been limited to about $3 million annually for five states (Washington, Oregon, California, Hawaii and Alaska). This equates to approximately $274,000 for the entire state of California and includes other areas of preparedness in addition to mapping. Production of maps with 50 meter intervals would be cost- prohibitive according to the San Diego County Office of Emergency Services.

The San Diego Police Department needs to be on the same system as the rest of the county for emergency communications. Agree. There are, however, some benefits for public safety communications in the region through the operation of multiple networks. Should a failure occur with the City of San Diego radio system then the County's Regional Communications System (RCS) is available as a backup and visa versa. This level of redundancy has proven to be extremely beneficial when system failures have occurred. Recent major public safety events have highlighted the continued need for radio systems that provide multi-agency interoperability. The implementation of systems that are designed to maximize sharing and interoperability, while keeping up with state of the art technology, provide the greatest enhancement to public safety operations. Public safety workers must be able to communicate with each other effectively, efficiently and securely. Since 1991, the City of San Diego has owned and operated a Motorola trunked and simulcast 800 MHz radio system that provides the primary voice radio communications for city departments including Police, Fire Rescue, Water and Metropolitan Waste Water and partner agencies including the San Diego Unified School District, Community College District and the City of Poway. In addition, there are many public agencies in the region that through cooperative, mutual aid agreements, also utilize the City's radio system including the County of San Diego RCS. The County of San Diego began installation of the RCS in 1995 and completed installation in 1999. Agencies began using the RCS in May of 1998. There are over 200 agencies in the San DiegoIImperial County Region that use the RCS as their primary system for voice radio communications. The RCS was purchased from Motorola through a sole source procurement to insure that based on the available technology at that time, the highest possible level of interoperability with the City of San Diego 800 MHz Radio System would be achieved. The RCS was patterned after, and designed by Motorola to be compatible with, the City's system and does provide this interoperability. Honorable Janis Sammartino July 25,2006 The City and County share "system keys," which is the method used to program radios to operate on the radio systems. Unknown to most people, both City and County radios have the ability to talk both together and to the other's dispatchers, and do so on almost a daily basis. In other words, City Police radios currently have County talk groups and talk to RCS dispatch and other County radios. County Sheriff radios have City talk groups programmed in their radios and talk with City dispatch and City agency radios. The key component missing is the ability of City or County dispatchers, respectively, to be able to dispatch on the other's system. Currently, the RCS cannot support the number of users that the City's network has nor the quantity of radio traffic generated by those users. An almost complete re-design and rebuild of the RCS will have to take place in order to accommodate and provide for the City of San Diego's primary radio needs. Both the City and County are committed to this effort and to merging their respective systems. This will allow dispatch to dispatch and direct communications with the others' field units. This will also allow for either agency to assume dispatch functions for the other in the case of a disaster. Until a new, robust infrastructure can be put in place there are redundancy benefits for public safety communications in the region through the operation of multiple networks.