Providing impetus to this expanded planning activity has been the
emergence of the FEMA Region IX Earthquake Response Plan for the San
Francisco Bay Area. This is a site-specific FEMA plan based on a 1974
draft that provided for a full range of Federal assistance during the
emergency lifesaving phase following the earthquake. Although this
plan never proceeded beyond the draft stage (because of evolving FEMA
disaster field operations policy), it served as the basic guide for
the development of the Sixth U.S. Army Plan, and has remained a core
document for identifying expected Federal agency activities for
earthquake recovery in the San Francisco Bay area. In 1979, the
emergency response portion of the 1974 FEMA Region IX draft was
restructured. The conduct of the post-event response program was
shifted from being a centrally directed FEMA activity under the
operational control of the Regional Director to a decentralized
operation which provides for functional disaster support activities to
be assigned by the Regional Director to certain Federal agencies by
Mission Assignment Letters. Table 1 indicates functional task
assignment areas. Those with the designation "Emergency Support
Function (ESF)," have been assigned to other Federal agencies. Table 2
reviews the principal and support agency assignments for each of the
ESF functions.

On the basis of these anticipated mission assignments, the tasked
Federal agencies participated in the development of operational
annexes in the 1979 version of the San Francisco Earthquake Response
Plan. Upon completion of the annexes, all agencies were then required
to develop the necessary agency support plans and standard operating
procedures for accomplishing the mission assignment tasks.
Additionally, those Federal agencies designated in the plan as
principal agencies were tasked with the responsibility of organizing