San Francisco emergency staff revolt against disaster chief Mary Ellen Carroll

At 1011 Turk Street, where San Francisco’s 911 Dispatch Center handles about 3,200 calls a day, a revolt inside the city’s emergency management office has pushed Mary Ellen Carroll into rare public scrutiny. The unrest matters far beyond City Hall because the department under her command is the one San Francisco depends on when the next quake, fire, blackout or mass-casualty emergency hits.

Employees inside the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management are openly questioning Carroll’s competence and want her removed, a sign of deep strain inside an agency that is supposed to project calm, discipline and readiness. Carroll has led the department since August 2018, and her official bio says DEM now has more than 300 employees.

DEM is not a narrow bureaucracy. SF.gov says it is the city’s lead department for planning, preparedness, communication, response and recovery for emergencies and disasters. Under Carroll, the department oversees disaster preparedness and planning, the Emergency Operations Center, 9-1-1 communications and the Urban Areas Security Initiative. In 2025, DEM also took on new responsibilities coordinating street response and large-event planning, expanding an already broad portfolio.

That expansion has come with heavy operational stakes. San Francisco opened the renovated 911 Dispatch Center at 1011 Turk Street on April 24, 2024, after a voter-approved, bond-funded renovation. City budget documents show DEM had $84.8 million in General Fund support in fiscal year 2024-25 and $86.7 million in fiscal year 2025-26, with about 97% of its operating budget reliant on the General Fund. In other words, the department sits squarely inside the city’s core public-safety spending, not on the margins.

The leadership fight also lands after the city pointed to gains in emergency call handling. On April 15, 2026, Mayor Daniel Lurie said San Francisco was meeting state standards for answering 911 calls, with more than 90% of emergency calls picked up within the 15-second threshold and 85% of non-emergency calls answered within one minute, above the city benchmark.

But DEM has also been under pressure on other fronts. In March 2026, Carroll testified before the San Francisco Board of Supervisors about Waymo emergency operations after a service outage and the city’s difficulty reaching the company. That episode underscored how much now flows through DEM, from traditional disaster planning to coordinating with private operators when systems fail.

For San Franciscans, the significance is straightforward: a department that must be trusted in a crisis is now fighting an internal revolt over the person running it. If that trust breaks down, the city’s emergency response system becomes weaker exactly when it needs to be strongest.