Earthquake Legislation

An April 18, 2013 Los Angeles Times article entitled "Sweeping earthquake safety rules imposed in San Francisco", should be of particular interest to emergency managers.  The article describes new legislation that requires wood frame buildings, such as those which became an icon of infrastructure damage in the Marina District during the 1989 Bay Area earthquake, be retrofitted to make the supporting structural elements seismically resilient.  This action is iconic of the public policy tightrope we walk between enabling legislation such as this which can in some cases amount to an unfunded mandate, and simply doing the right thing as a measure of life saving mitigation.  The bottom line is that the goal of legislation such as this appears to be the reduction of structural collapse risk and loss of life, and to reduce disaster recovery costs in a post-earthquake period.  The question of who is paying for this is afoot as one would expect. The article suggests that after a long period of debate, to their credit, property owners endorsed the measure which led to an 11-0 vote by the city board of supervisors.  If this is accurate, this is sound public disaster policy and something emergency managers nationally should take notice of as we work to design public policy associated with local risks and hazards.

Steven Kuhr
Emergency Management Nexus
skuhr.blogspot.com