Several Southern California cities have adopted programs to retrofit older concrete buildings vulnerable in big earthquakes, but in the Bay Area, only San Francisco has a plan in the works.
that an estimated 16,000-17,000 concrete buildings in California’s 23 most quake-prone counties predate modern seismic construction codes that came into effect by 1980. Those include 3,200 in San Francisco, 1,300 in Oakland and 363 in San Jose.on buildings surveyed in large Bay Area cities listed many well-known landmarks, including San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral and Oakland’s Holy Names University as potential concerns.
Holy Names in December said it will close its 65-year-old campus in May, citing $49 million in debt on the property, declining enrollment and deferred maintenance and compliance upgrade costs that could top $200 million. Spokesman Sam Singer said that while the school currently meets seismic regulations, any changes to the campus and its facilities would require expensive upgrades.
Engineers blame the multitude of nonductile concrete building failures in Turkey and Syria more on a combination of flawed structure designs, poorer quality concrete mixes, and inadequate regulation and code enforcement.“despite our global leadership on seismic safety” and commendable work in Los Angeles, Santa Monica, San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland and San Jose to identify vulnerable structures, “these measures are not enough.
Residents and firefighters battle the fire in theMarina district of San Francisco after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989. Because unreinforced masonry and wood-frame soft-story construction are more widespread and prone to failure in the United States and easier to identify and retrofit, public officials have focused their attention there. But with those retrofitting programs now well underway, more attention is turning to nonductile concrete.
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