al
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
and coordinating the activities of Federal agencies designated as
support.

The rationale for this approach was to identify the various functional
areas of disaster response for which a Federal activity could
reasonably be expected to maintain after the occurrence of the event.
With the functional areas identified, the range of Federal agency
talent was evaluated and Federal response capabilities matched to
expected functional demands. By the development of a matrix (figure
2), a total of 16 functional response areas (such as transportation,
mass care, and debris removal) were identified, and 20 Federal
agencies, plus volunteer organizations such as the American National
Red Cross, were designated as having appropriate disaster response
capabilities. Subsequently, all agencies were rated on their
capability for functioning in a principal or a support capacity. These
agencies were then provided specific FEMA Region IX Mission
Assignments or tasking statements which, when triggered by a
Presidential disaster declaration, provide the legal basis for
delivering the authorized assistance in response to State and local
government needs.

The end result of this approach has been to create a much more
effective and reliable capability to respond to the needs of an
earthquake disaster by those Federal agencies from which a significant
response would be required.

+----------+
|Basic Plan| .
| (1) | .
+----------+ .
| | | .
| | | . +-----------------+
| | +----------------------------|Contingency Plans|
| | . | (4) |
| | . +-----------------+
| | Administrative . Operational |
| +-------------+ . |
| |Direction and| . |
| |Control Annex|