SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — When preparing for a disaster, San Francisco says it’s ready to respond.

The LA fires have raised questions about the city’s readiness when it comes to an emergency. On Saturday, a unique event showcased the fire department’s innovative technology and water supply.

Water power was on display along San Francisco’s Embarcadero.

The San Francisco Fire Department was showing off some unique firefighting tools like the St. Francis Fire Boat, essentially a floating fire hydrant on the bay.

New Fire Chief Dean Crispen was giving Mayor Daniel Lurie a tour outside Fireboat Station 35, and a demonstration of the city’s high pressure fire hydrant system.

MORE: Daniel Lurie names Dean Crispen new San Francisco fire chief, 1st major appointment as new mayor

It’s no coincidence this demonstration was happening in the wake of the Southern California wildfire disaster.

Many locals are asking: “How ready is San Francisco?”

“I’m getting this question a lot in my first 10 days in office,” said San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie.

Lurie believes the city is ready.

“We have a fully staffed fire department. We have 200 cisterns, including new ones on the west side,” Lurie said.

MORE: San Francisco has an underground emergency water supply: How reliable is it?

In an emergency, the city has an unlimited water supply from the Bay using submersible pumps.

“Right now, you’re seeing essentially a fire engine in the water pumping water to the hose tender,” said SFFD Captain Jonathan Baxter.

The hose tender trucks are new for the department. They can pump 5,500 gallons of water per minute, versus a typical fire truck which pumps 1,500 gallons.

“We’re lucky to have a primary water supply, white fire hydrants on almost every corner of San Francisco. We have a secondary water supply, which is specifically used for firefighting,” Crispen said.

“After two stressful weeks, we decided to come here to stay with friends,” said Elaine Zhang.

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Zhang and her family are visiting from West LA. Luckily, they didn’t have to evacuate their home.

She was very surprised to see this fire drill demo happening.

“It’s the right thing to do. That’s what we need. I hoped LA had prepared better for the wildfires we had,” Zhang said.

The fire department says real time drills like this are happening every weekend across the city.

“And so, we will be vigilant. We will stay on top of it. It’s my commitment to people of San Francisco. We have to keep them as safe as possible,” Lurie said.

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — Patricia Aguayo remembers the day in 1989 she was felt like she was a different class of American citizen.

She was at Club Elegante, a Mission District nightclub, when San Francisco police officers walked in followed by immigration agents.

“They locked the door and said nobody could leave. People were scared. Who was ever to think that this was going to turn into a deportation,” recalled Aguayo.

Immigration agents asked everyone for identification, including the workers and musicians.

Aguayo, who was born in San Francisco, felt racially profiled so she refused to show her I.D.

“I was not going to show them anything because if I were Anglo they would not have asked me for documentation,” said Aguayo. “I was legally here I wanted to let them know that they were not going to just profile people and assume that everybody in that club was undocumented.”

Patricia and the ACLU of Northern California filed a class-action lawsuit claiming immigration agents violated their constitutional rights by detaining and questioning them simply because they were Latino. They won.

The incident shaped the future of San Francisco politics.

At the time, San Francisco was a sanctuary for Central American refugees who faced deportation.

After the nightclub raid, the city adopted a more expansive sanctuary policy and forbid local law enforcement from cooperating with immigration agents.

Immigrant advocates say raids at places where Latinos gather may come back under the Trump administration.

“The last time President Trump was in office, one of the one of the places that was subject to immigration raids were 7-Eleven stores and convenience stores and in relatively low budget stores in neighborhoods where Latinos were heavily populated,” said Kevin Johnson, professor at the U.C. Davis School of Law.

Johnson said the intention of public raids is to make undocumented immigrants so afraid of being apprehended while grocery shopping or dropping their children off at school that they will leave the country on their own, a type of self-deportation.

The United States has had two previous mass deportations of primarily Mexican immigrants in the last 100 years.

The first happened during the Great Depression, when unemployment was high and many people blamed people of Mexican ancestry of taking jobs meant for Americans.

Local and state police carried out the mass arrests.

“People were rounded up who looked Mexican, were put on buses, trains driven by social workers even to the U.S.-Mexico border and dumped,” said Johnson.

It’s estimated up to a million people of Mexican ancestry were removed from the United States and returned to Mexico during what became known as the Mexican Repatriation.

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Some historians say two-thirds of those forced to leave were U.S. citizens, many of them children of immigrant parents.

Johnson called it a form of ethnic cleansing.

“They terrified communities and they violated the rule of law and they are what some would say is a national disgrace,” added Johnson.

A second mass deportation happened in the 1950s. It was called “Operation Wetback”, a racial slur used to describe Mexican immigrants who crossed the Rio Grande and got their backs wet.

“The US government carried a military type operation where immigration officials went to job sites, schools, and neighborhoods and deported immigrants who were caught there. Their family members often didn’t know where those people had been sent, what happened to them,” explains Anna Raquel Minian, author of ‘In the Shadow of Liberty’ and a professor of history at Stanford University.

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Just like the mass deportation two decades earlier, many of those deported were U.S. citizens.

“They couldn’t leave their children in the United States by themselves, so they were forced to take them with them, even though these children were American citizens. It was absolutely devastating,” said Minian.

Donald Trump has promised a mass deportation when he returns to the White House, starting with immigrants with criminal records or previous deportation orders.

“Prioritizing the people who pose the most danger and removing those people, that’s certainly going to happen. But it doesn’t mean that they’re going to just turn a blind eye to everybody else,” said Ira Mehlman, media director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).

That was certainly the case in mid-January when agents from the U.S. Border Patrol arrested 78 people during a three-day operation in Kern County.

MORE: Post-inauguration ICE raids starting as soon as Tuesday, likely in Chicago, sources tell ABC News

The Border Patrol said among those arrested were a convicted sex offender and others with records or warrants for theft and drug possession.

The agency said “Operation Return to Sender” focused on “disrupting the transportation routes used by Transnational Criminal Organizations.”

But agents were videotaped casting a wider net. Footage from a Chevron gas station in Bakersfield shows agents questioning Latino customers.

“Law enforcement goes through these processes all the time. That’s how they identify the people that they’re going to target. It doesn’t mean that there’s going to be racial profiling,” said Mehlman.

Children born in the United States with undocumented parents could again be caught in the net.

In an interview with NewsNation, Trump’s border czar Tom Homan said U.S. born children of undocumented immigrants could be held in halfway houses if they are caught in a mass deportation.

“As Tom Homan has said, that there is no reason why people have to be separated from their families. They can make a choice. It is their choice to either go home with their entire family, or to go home and leave the parts of their family that are citizens in this country,” explained Mehlman.

MORE: SF legal experts worried over growing waitlist of people in need of attorneys for deportation court

Johnson said these type of mass deportations have left a stain in the country.

“We had citizen children who were in effect deported with their parents and in effect told even though you’re a citizen, you’re not a citizen like white Americans,” said Johnson. ” It had tremendous impact on the sense of belonging of people of Mexican ancestry in the United States and it lingers to this day in certain ways.”

Basketball Hall of Famer Charles Barkley has doubled down on his criticism of San Francisco, calling it a “rat-infested place” during his appearance on TNT’s Inside the NBA. Barkley’s remarks came while discussing the All-Star candidacy of Detroit Pistons’ rising star Cade Cunningham, who he believes is a lock for the event. However, Barkley made it clear that he has no intentions of attending the NBA All-Star Game, set to be hosted by the Golden State Warriors at Oracle Arena.
“He’s going to make the All-Star Team,”Charles Barkley confidently stated about Cunningham. “I’m not going. I’m not going to that rat-infested place out in San Francisco.”
This isn’t the first time Barkley has voiced his disdain for the city. His past comments have created controversy, particularly among Bay Area fans and residents.

Charles Barkley’s previous contempt for San Francisco

NBA HOFer Charles Barkley (Image via Getty)

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Charles Barkley’s latest remarks were prompted by a colleague’s praise of San Francisco as a “beautiful” city. Unwavering in his opinion, Barkley responded bluntly, “San Francisco is not a beautiful city. Rats. Cats. Y’all are not gonna make me like San Francisco. No. Nope, nope, nope.”
The basketball legend has a history of targeting the city. During last year’s All-Star Game alternative broadcast, Barkley compared Indianapolis, where the event was held, to San Francisco, saying he’d prefer Indiana’s cold weather over “being around a bunch of homeless crooks in San Francisco.”

Draymond Green fires back after hearing Barkley’s criticism

Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green has been one of Barkley’s most vocal critics. In response to Barkley’s earlier comments, Green labeled the Hall of Famer “crazy” and declared that he is not welcome in the city.
“Yes, you can walk around,” Green countered, defending San Francisco’s livability. Barkley, however, retorted sharply, “Yeah, with a bulletproof vest.”
The exchange shows that there is a lot of ongoing tension between Barkley and some Bay Area figures, including WNBA star Candace Parker, who has also defended the city.

While Barkley’s comments have drawn attention to San Francisco’s challenges, the city’s newly elected mayor, Daniel Lurie, is focused on addressing its issues. Lurie has committed to making San Francisco’s streets safer, tackling the city’s drug and behavioral health crisis, and increasing affordable housing.
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These initiatives aim to reshape the narrative surrounding San Francisco, but Barkley’s harsh criticisms throws light on the larger issues the city faces. All eyes will be on the event as the NBA All-Star Game approaches, but Barkley has stated that he will not be attending.