From Sichuan to Oregon - Schools at Risk
By Andrew C. Revkin
An inspector examines a school in Oregon (Oregon Dept. of Geology and Mineral Industries)
I’m doing a fresh story examining how to cut chances that more schools in known earthquake zones will crumble and kill in years to come. Yumei Wang, the geohazards team leader for the state of Oregon, sent me a cautionary note saying it’s important to remember that such risks are not confined to poor countries or emerging powers, but also face parts of the United States and other industrialized nations. She cited a 2007 survey of the vulnerability of schools and emergency-services buildings in Oregon that provides a chilling hint of the dangers. The bottom line? More than a thousand schools in Oregon are ready to fall in a Sichuan-style quake.
Yumei Wang (Credit: Oregon Dept. of Geology and Mineral Sciences)
I first met Ms. Wang early last year in an office on the 12th floor of a building in downtown Portland, at a meeting on inevitable disasters. There was a very unnerving moment when she looked out the window at a wing of the building and noted, almost in passing, that it was built of unreinforced masonry and would be “history” when the city is struck by the earthquake everyone knows is inevitable at some point in coming decades. Here’s what she wrote last night about Oregon’s vulnerable schools:
Ms. Wang:
I hope that the problem with seismically unsafe schools in the U.S. does not get overlooked. Although California has had school safety laws since 1933, other states have not. As you know, I work in Oregon . Last year, we conducted “screenings” on 3,300 public schools and emergency buildings. Our results, which are available online, indicate that 1,300 have high to very high probability of collapse. We will apply another screening “filter” to reduce that number; however, in the end, Oregon will need to mitigate about 1,000 school buildings.
I asked her and other experts for examples of successes as well as examples of actions that are not taking place that could cut losses in inevitable disasters. Here’s what she wrote:
My “favorite” example of what’s not happening? Well, what I think is sorely needed is long term, institutionalized, government funded programs to help school districts mitigate their high occupancy, collapse prone schools. Oregon is establishing a grant program to do this.
What else? The engineering profession needs to break “out of the box” and start empowering school administrators. For example, (1) develop very inexpensive mitigation solutions that can be applied to lots of schools in immediate future, (2) communicate risk in a persuasive, non- technical and understandable manner, etc…. Let’s hope that the recent tragedy in China will help spur much needed school safety.
She stressed that, whether in China or Pakistan or the Pacific Northwest, no one should expect instant change. The retrofitting and replacement of vulnerable schools and other critical infrastucture will take decades, she added. Her rough best-case deadline for fixing buildings needed in emergencies in Oregon is 2022, for schools 2032.
How much would it cost? She said: “I don’t know how much is ‘needed’ but we have constitutional articles that ‘allow’ us to spend about $2 billion of state funds. Today [5/20], the state earthquake commission voted to request $200 million from the governor (but we won’t get anything like that amount).
I asked her how things are across the border in Washington state. Her response: “They are still sleeping (except the city of Seattle has done stuff).”
One challenge: While the vulnerability is global, the solutions are mostly local — at the level of individual school districts and a slew of national, state, and local government agencies.
Ms. Wang wrote this in a report on lessons from the Sichuan earthquake for Oregon that was presented on Tuesday to the state’s seismic safety advisory commission:
Perhaps the most important lesson from this earthquake is that critical facilities such as large chemical plants and dams require safeguards that will ensure public safety in the case of earthquake-triggered failures. Critical facilities built long before modern understanding of seismic hazards should be reevaluated for public safety. By applying lessons learned from recent earthquakes, such as the East Sichuan earthquake, we can increase the effectiveness of risk reduction measures. Three recommendations, which were developed from research findings, lessons learned from the E. Sichuan earthquake as well as from other earthquakes, should be adopted to help manage Oregon’s significant earthquake risks.
o Important facilities including schools, fire stations, police stations, and hospitals, especially those on poor soils prone to liquefaction, landslides, or amplification or in tsunami zones, should meet modern building codes and should be able to withstand strong earthquakes. Any existing important facilities at high risk should be mitigated. Inexpensive mitigation solutions that can be applied to hundreds of schools in Oregon should be considered.
o Critical facilities with large occupancies, that contain significant hazardous materials, that serve important functions to society (e.g., energy facilities), or that have other sensitive parameters should meet modern building codes and should be able to withstand strong earthquakes. Any existing critical facilities at high risk should be mitigated against severe socioeconomic and environmental impacts.
o Major lifelines that are co-located and/or are interdependent with other lifelines should require special performance consideration to avoid multiple and/or cascading failures. Any existing lifelines at high risk should be mitigated to meet acceptable performance standards.
Can we figure out how to be resilient in the face of inevitable hard knocks? The science pointing to long-term threats from human-caused global warming is laced with probabilities and some uncertainty, so it’s not surprising humanity is taking its time responding. But understanding of the tectonic forces ramming India into Asia or the Pacific plate beneath the northwest coast of North America is crystal clear.
And, according to an awful lot of disaster experts, we still don’t get it.
By Andrew C. Revkin
An inspector examines a school in Oregon (Oregon Dept. of Geology and Mineral Industries)
I’m doing a fresh story examining how to cut chances that more schools in known earthquake zones will crumble and kill in years to come. Yumei Wang, the geohazards team leader for the state of Oregon, sent me a cautionary note saying it’s important to remember that such risks are not confined to poor countries or emerging powers, but also face parts of the United States and other industrialized nations. She cited a 2007 survey of the vulnerability of schools and emergency-services buildings in Oregon that provides a chilling hint of the dangers. The bottom line? More than a thousand schools in Oregon are ready to fall in a Sichuan-style quake.
Yumei Wang (Credit: Oregon Dept. of Geology and Mineral Sciences)
I first met Ms. Wang early last year in an office on the 12th floor of a building in downtown Portland, at a meeting on inevitable disasters. There was a very unnerving moment when she looked out the window at a wing of the building and noted, almost in passing, that it was built of unreinforced masonry and would be “history” when the city is struck by the earthquake everyone knows is inevitable at some point in coming decades. Here’s what she wrote last night about Oregon’s vulnerable schools:
Ms. Wang:
I hope that the problem with seismically unsafe schools in the U.S. does not get overlooked. Although California has had school safety laws since 1933, other states have not. As you know, I work in Oregon . Last year, we conducted “screenings” on 3,300 public schools and emergency buildings. Our results, which are available online, indicate that 1,300 have high to very high probability of collapse. We will apply another screening “filter” to reduce that number; however, in the end, Oregon will need to mitigate about 1,000 school buildings.
I asked her and other experts for examples of successes as well as examples of actions that are not taking place that could cut losses in inevitable disasters. Here’s what she wrote:
My “favorite” example of what’s not happening? Well, what I think is sorely needed is long term, institutionalized, government funded programs to help school districts mitigate their high occupancy, collapse prone schools. Oregon is establishing a grant program to do this.
What else? The engineering profession needs to break “out of the box” and start empowering school administrators. For example, (1) develop very inexpensive mitigation solutions that can be applied to lots of schools in immediate future, (2) communicate risk in a persuasive, non- technical and understandable manner, etc…. Let’s hope that the recent tragedy in China will help spur much needed school safety.
She stressed that, whether in China or Pakistan or the Pacific Northwest, no one should expect instant change. The retrofitting and replacement of vulnerable schools and other critical infrastucture will take decades, she added. Her rough best-case deadline for fixing buildings needed in emergencies in Oregon is 2022, for schools 2032.
How much would it cost? She said: “I don’t know how much is ‘needed’ but we have constitutional articles that ‘allow’ us to spend about $2 billion of state funds. Today [5/20], the state earthquake commission voted to request $200 million from the governor (but we won’t get anything like that amount).
I asked her how things are across the border in Washington state. Her response: “They are still sleeping (except the city of Seattle has done stuff).”
One challenge: While the vulnerability is global, the solutions are mostly local — at the level of individual school districts and a slew of national, state, and local government agencies.
Ms. Wang wrote this in a report on lessons from the Sichuan earthquake for Oregon that was presented on Tuesday to the state’s seismic safety advisory commission:
Perhaps the most important lesson from this earthquake is that critical facilities such as large chemical plants and dams require safeguards that will ensure public safety in the case of earthquake-triggered failures. Critical facilities built long before modern understanding of seismic hazards should be reevaluated for public safety. By applying lessons learned from recent earthquakes, such as the East Sichuan earthquake, we can increase the effectiveness of risk reduction measures. Three recommendations, which were developed from research findings, lessons learned from the E. Sichuan earthquake as well as from other earthquakes, should be adopted to help manage Oregon’s significant earthquake risks.
o Important facilities including schools, fire stations, police stations, and hospitals, especially those on poor soils prone to liquefaction, landslides, or amplification or in tsunami zones, should meet modern building codes and should be able to withstand strong earthquakes. Any existing important facilities at high risk should be mitigated. Inexpensive mitigation solutions that can be applied to hundreds of schools in Oregon should be considered.
o Critical facilities with large occupancies, that contain significant hazardous materials, that serve important functions to society (e.g., energy facilities), or that have other sensitive parameters should meet modern building codes and should be able to withstand strong earthquakes. Any existing critical facilities at high risk should be mitigated against severe socioeconomic and environmental impacts.
o Major lifelines that are co-located and/or are interdependent with other lifelines should require special performance consideration to avoid multiple and/or cascading failures. Any existing lifelines at high risk should be mitigated to meet acceptable performance standards.
Can we figure out how to be resilient in the face of inevitable hard knocks? The science pointing to long-term threats from human-caused global warming is laced with probabilities and some uncertainty, so it’s not surprising humanity is taking its time responding. But understanding of the tectonic forces ramming India into Asia or the Pacific plate beneath the northwest coast of North America is crystal clear.
And, according to an awful lot of disaster experts, we still don’t get it.
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