Today marks the one year anniversary since San Francisco enacted its stay at home order in response to COVID-19. Though the general public stayed home, many essential workers continued to report in for work, including hundreds of SFPUC employees to keep water, power and sewer services running 24/7.

Since Mayor Breed called a state of emergency in February 2020, over 150 SFPUC employees have deployed as disaster service workers and served in roles outside of their normal duties. These assignments supported the City’s COVID Command Center (CCC), where hundreds of city workers from various departments worked together to fight against COVID-19. The positions at the CCC ranged from public information officers, translators, graphic designers, content developers, project managers, management executive support, community liaisons, delivery drivers, safety officers, Human Services Agency branch deputy feeding unit leaders, inventory control analysts, shelter-in-place hotel site monitors, operations and logistics analysts, CityTestSF greeters, vaccination site traffic controllers, vaccination storage and handling managers, and many other roles. Some individuals have even served multiple deployments.

In March 2020, the SFPUC launched its department operations center to ensure business continuity and ongoing City support. More than 120 employees worked in the department operations center, supporting the many teams throughout the agency that kept the SFPUC’s essential utility services fully operational during this unprecedented time.

A year has come and gone. While COVID-19 is still here, there is hope and the SFPUC stands proud to continue supporting the City’s response and road to recovery.