Extreme Climate Working Group

Logistics

Date and time: Wednesday, November 4, 2026, 12:00–12:50 PM PT

Meeting format: Online (Microsoft Teams)

Purpose

The Extreme Climate Working Group is a collaborative forum for transportation domain stakeholders to track climate-related challenges, share lessons learned, and exchange best practices through the El Niño 2026 season. It provides periodic updates, incident reviews, and direct discussion among port, industry, and government officials. The group is a Marine Exchange forum. It is not part of the Harbor Safety Committee and it is not an incident command structure. It feeds information and intel to any active incident. The long-term goal is a regional extreme climate intel fusion capability that watches, analyzes, and shares vital information in real time.

Bottom line

• Cal OES and the Coast Guard treat El Niño 2026 as a prolonged incident, not a single storm. Both are standing up scalable ICS structures now.
• Expect Coast Guard harbor patrols to contact facilities, critical infrastructure, and marinas to check moorings and comms.
• Emergency shoreline permits are available on a streamlined basis from BCDC and USACE. BCDC emergency structures must come out by April 30, 2027.
• Sediment and debris are the main navigation threats. Report debris to VTS and USACE. Dredging timing may shift if sediment arrives in pulses.
• Impacts reach well inland: highway and rail flooding, mudslides, and workforce access will affect port operations.
• Prepare your people first: if staff can't get to work, operations stop.

Chair report

• Kicked off the working group and set the format: short, frequent meetings modeled on the Trade Facilitation Committee. Members email Scott Humphrey and Stephen Brown ahead of each meeting with items to report out.
• Framed the season as an ongoing incident and as transportation domain awareness, not just maritime domain awareness. Everything affects everything.
• Past impacts likely to recur: flooding on I-580 and I-680 blocking truck access to ports; flooding over the Carquinez Strait rail line stopping Capitol Corridor and Union Pacific (trains won't run through more than 3 inches of water); Highway 37 flooding; waves over the Sausalito seawall onto downtown streets; flooding at petroleum pipeline pumping stations; and workforce unable to reach work.
• 2017 lesson: the Oroville spillway failure sent a surge down the Feather and Sacramento Rivers into the Delta, disrupted rice exports from the Port of West Sacramento, and drove a year-plus surge of cement imports to rebuild the spillway. Inland mudslides and Sierra rail landslides also reach the ports.
• SFMX will build a working group web page, post agency links, BCDC materials, and NWS videos, and keep a PORTS sensor status board on its website.
• Meeting recordings and transcripts will be shared with participants.

Agency reports

U.S. Coast Guard Sector San Francisco – CAPT Joe Hart, Deputy Sector Commander

• Standing up a scalable incident management team (IMT), organic to sector staff, that can plug into any IMT as conditions develop.
• Focus: waterways management, navigation safety, and outreach to all regulated stakeholders.
• Casualties to prevent: environmental casualties, search and rescue cases, berth overtopping, dragging anchor, and vessels breaking free of bitts, bollards, and moorings.
• Harbor patrols are being set up now. Teams will visit facilities, critical infrastructure, and marinas, check mooring arrangements, confirm comms, and ask what operators need.
• Building a common operating picture: marina and port conditions, vessel arrival queues, anchorage footprint, and response times for pollution response, anchor dragging, and towboat response inside the anchorages.
• Asked BCDC for transparency on emergency shoreline permits so marine debris can be traced to its source if structures fail.
• Questions: email CAPT Hart or his team. Contact info available through Scott Humphrey.

Cal OES – Robert Butchart

• Cal OES treats El Niño 2026 as a prolonged incident, like the 2011–12 tsunami debris incident. The State Operations Center (SOC) runs an ICS structure that simmers for weeks or months and scales up as needed.
• Requests for help follow SEMS: harbor or port to city, city to county OES, county to the state SOC, state to federal partners. Operators in trouble should call city and county OES first.
• Cal OES is a response agency. It has fielded mitigation requests for about four months and refers them to the Department of Water Resources.
• California has a new governor. A transition team has formed for emergency response and disaster recovery, and an early briefing covers El Niño impacts on infrastructure and coastlines.
• Current campaign: individual preparedness. Prepare your house and car. If the workforce can't get to work, no one can do their jobs.
• El Niño is an inland event too: torrential downpours, mudslides, and rivers and creeks rising. Driving in storms is a leading cause of individual casualties.
• State Parks Division of Boating and Waterways released an El Niño preparedness email on Nov 4 that breaks impacts down potential by potential.
• Cal OES is watching dams this season (Shasta County and Oroville noted).
• Recommended the group set objectives and write a Concept of Operations and executive summary. No single agency leads; the group works as a team.

PORTS – Marcus Freeling

• Extreme weather limits PORTS maintenance. Most stations sit on buoys and coastal sites, and crews won't go out during storms unless it's an emergency. Expect possible sensor outages; the team will work to keep stations up.

BCDC – Cody Aichele-Rothman

• BCDC has posted El Niño information online and will share the link for the working group page.
• Streamlined emergency permit process for temporary shoreline structures such as riprap. All emergency structures must be removed by April 30, 2027. Contact BCDC early if you may need one.
• Will ask permitting staff about providing a list of emergency permit holders to the Coast Guard and the group, and will report at monthly HSC meetings.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, San Francisco District – Jessica Vargas

• Regulatory Division is directed to use maximum discretion on emergency permits and issue them as fast as possible.
• Debris yard and navigation group are readying vessels and staffing for winter debris. Removal is limited mainly to federal channels, but call them with debris issues.
• Emergency Management Office is focused on levee and flood risk management systems and is in planning meetings statewide.
• Navigation dredging staff are watching for heavy sedimentation that could force dredging earlier than planned in the FY27 program.

MTC / Bay Area Toll Authority – Waleed Aleadelat

• MTC/BATA has started talks with Caltrans on readiness measures for the season, including bridge and highway maintenance.

NOAA – Jeffrey Ferguson

• The National Weather Service issues coastal flood and beach hazard advisories through normal channels. NOAA PORTS shows real-time water levels, which often run higher than predicted, and NWS uses PORTS data for advisories.
• If advisories get buried or you need a different format, tell NOAA and they will adjust. Special briefings are available on request.
• NWS meteorologist Brian Garcia produces YouTube videos on El Niño impacts; SFMX will post them on the working group page.

Vessel Traffic Service San Francisco – Gary Reed

• VTS relies on partner reports. It has no cameras and few sensors in the river and delta area. Keep VTS apprised of changing conditions and debris.
• 2017 was the last major event: prolonged, with heavy debris. USACE removed debris well, but only when VTS knew it was there to report it.

Member stakeholder reports

California Marine Affairs and Navigation Conference (CMANC) – Jim Haussener

• Key dredging question: will sediment arrive in one pulse or several? If the annual dredge (for example, Oakland) runs before a later pulse, channels can face a 5-foot or greater draft restriction for most of the year.
• USACE is working with Army officers assigned to Stanford using AI to model sediment rates. The region is far better prepared than during the 1982–83 El Niño.

No other ports, terminals, or operators reported out at this meeting. Members with items to report should email Scott Humphrey and Stephen Brown before the next meeting.

Action items and requests

• All members: Email Scott Humphrey and Stephen Brown (Marine Exchange) before each meeting with anything you need to report out.
• All members: Keep VTS San Francisco apprised of changing conditions and debris, especially in the river and delta area.
• All members: Confirm your points of contact with the Coast Guard and Cal OES now.
• All members: Prepare your workforce. Home and vehicle preparedness keeps operations staffed.
• BCDC: Share the El Niño web link and ask permitting staff about a list of emergency permit holders for the Coast Guard.
• NOAA: Tell NOAA if advisories are hard to find or need a different format; special briefings are available on request.
• Marine Exchange: Build the working group web page, post a PORTS sensor status board, share agency links and NWS videos, and schedule the next meeting within the next week.
• Working group: Develop objectives and a Concept of Operations (recommended by Cal OES).

Intel items by speaker

Attendees

Built from the transcript and the RSVP list as of Nov 2. (SP) speaker. Verify against the Teams attendance report.

• Scott Humphrey (SP) – Marine Exchange of the SF Bay Region
• Stephen Brown – Marine Exchange of the SF Bay Region
• Marcus Freeling (SP) – Marine Exchange of the SF Bay Region
• CAPT Joe Hart (SP) – USCG Sector San Francisco
• LCDR Clark Sanford – USCG Sector San Francisco
• Gary Reed (SP) – USCG VTS San Francisco
• Robert Butchart (SP) – Cal OES
• Cody Aichele-Rothman (SP) – BCDC
• Jessica Vargas (SP) – USACE San Francisco District
• Jeffrey Ferguson (SP) – NOAA
• Michael Zamora – California Department of Fish and Wildlife
• Waleed Aleadelat (SP) – MTC / Bay Area Toll Authority
• Jim Haussener (SP) – CMANC
• Nguessan Affi – California State Transportation Agency
• Ben Nguyen – Caltrans
• Patrick Forrester – Port of San Francisco
• Jeff Vezzali – Port of Stockton
• Ron Barley – Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District
• George K. – The Marine Mammal Center
• Andy Hwang – CargoSprint
• S. Lee – USIM Oakland
• S.W. Lee – SW Logistics
• E. Listherby – Norton Lilly International
• C. Mourgos – Norton Lilly International
• Leo – PCC Logistics
• Brandon – PCC Logistics
• C. Schaeffer – Levin-Richmond Terminal
• R. Wilkins – IMC Bay Area
• Stas Margaronis – Affiliation not listed
• Hash Harshvardhan – Affiliation not listed
• Connor Revay – Affiliation not listed

Next meeting

Scott Humphrey will post the next meeting before the end of next week. Meetings will be short and frequent. Join when the agenda benefits your operation.

Prepared by the Marine Exchange of the San Francisco Bay Region from the meeting recording and transcript. Items reflect speakers' statements as transcribed.