What it means to serve as San Francisco Bay Area’s maritime emergency operations coordinator
On October 29, 2025, San Francisco Bay Ferry conducted its annual functional exercise simulating the activation of our Emergency Operations Center (EOC). SF Bay Ferry normally operates as a passenger transportation service. During a major regional emergency, this role shifts—the agency is legislatively authorized to operate in coordination with the Governor’s office and the California State Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES), United States Coast Guard (USCG), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) to coordinate and provide emergency water transportation throughout the San Francisco Bay.
During the exercise, SF Bay Ferry staff and Blue & Gold Fleet’s operations team acted as Disaster Service Workers to test EOC
coordination, information sharing, and communications procedures during an emergency scenario. The scenario simulated impacts on the Bay Area region following a magnitude 7.9 earthquake on the San Andreas Fault. During exercise play, staff members operated the agency’s EOC based on the critical hours that initially follow a major earthquake. This included identifying the needs for emergency support based on simulated real-time events and developing plans to protect the public health, safety, and welfare of the region.
Learnings from this exercise will inform future updates to SF Bay Ferry’s Emergency Operations Plan and the implementation of the agency’s Emergency Response Plan. Cam Bochman, Emergency Response & Safety Analyst at SF Bay Ferry shared, “This year’s annual exercise reflects SF Bay Ferry’s commitment to strengthening our ability to respond to a major emergency. With a focus on initial incident response, we worked to ensure our staff, systems, and partners are prepared to rapidly stand up operations and support regional recovery when called upon.”
As a core part of regional water transportation in the SF Bay Area, SF Bay Ferry is prepared to serve evacuees, first responders, and disaster service workers in the event of severe damage or disruption to normal transportation systems. Following this exercise, the agency will continue to develop its emergency operational priorities in close coordination with the State of California and partner agencies.