Some San Francisco police and fire stations are faulty and vulnerable to flooding, report says

“Many different groups view climate change as a problem to be solved by someone else,” said Will McCaa, the report's lead author.

The jury found design problems with some recently constructed DPW buildings, as well as high costs and instances of flooding. McCaa said the panel wants DPW to clarify whether flooding from storms or future sea level rise was considered when constructing the buildings and how the department plans to account for future climatic effects.

On New Year's Eve 2022, storms caused the area around the Police Department's new traffic company and forensic services division to flood. Flooding prevented police motorcycles from entering or exiting the premises, “taking the station out of service for several hours on one of the busiest nights of the year for police,” jurors wrote .

For DPW to build a station in a flood-prone area without considering access to the building “seems like poor planning,” McCaa said. The flooding also damaged gate motors and a new Dodge Charger police car, making it “no longer reliable enough to be used as a patrol car.” The jury questioned whether DPW built the facility in the right location and how the city planned to resolve the problem.

The report also lists two buildings and a fire truck that would be threatened by sea level rise: the newly constructed medical examiner's office on Newhall Street; a Mission Bay facility housing the police department's headquarters, SFPD South Station and Fire Station 4; and an engine the department cannot legally install on a floating Embarcadero fire station that was supposed to help deal with rising waters.