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All posts in category Earthquake Strengthening

City of Berkeley offers retrofit grants for soft story buildings

City of Berkeley have obtained FEMA funding that can be applied towards the engineering fees of up to $5,000 and 30% of construction costs up to the total combined design and construction costs of $25,000.  The funds are available in the form of reimbursements. In order to be eligible for the engineering costs reimbursement, the […]

There Are Still 60% Of Soft Story Buildings In San Francisco That Have Not Complied With SF Earthquake Safety Standard!

In an interview done by KPIX 5, the Director of the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection, Tom Hui, said that only 40 percent of soft story buildings in San Francisco are in compliance with seismic retrofit ordinance.  A map that shows status of soft story building in San Francisco can be found on San […]

Additional steps you can take to secure you home

Additional steps you can take to secure you home.  Have you noticed a continuous stream of news about earthquakes from around the world lately?  I certainly have and it reminds me that we are overdue for one.  There are a number common sense things that don’t cost a lot of of money  that one can […]

Los Angeles Passed a Seismic Retrofit Ordinance!

The city of Los Angeles Passed Ordinance NO. 183893, a seismic retrofit Ordinance which will affect as much as 17,000 buildings in the city. The goal of this Ordinance is to improve tenant safety, lower likelihood of building collapse, and to reduce earthquake damage. This Ordinance will be costly and the city has decided that […]

Check out the recent earthquakes and faults near you and estimate the damage from the potential earthquake to your home

Earthquake damage probability as compared to other risks

Los Angeles Jumps on Board with Soft Story retrofitting ordinance

According to the Los Angeles Daily News (“Apartment retrofit law advances at Los Angeles City Hall,” posted on 10/7/15), the Los Angeles City Council’s Housing Committee passed a retrofitting proposal Wednesday that will affect 13,500 soft story buildings. The proposal is expected to be approved by the full City Council when it meets Friday. Under the law being […]

Berkeley Expands Financing Options for Soft Story Building Owners

According to the Daily Californian (“Expansion of Berkeley financing program to ease costs of seismic retrofitting,” posted on 8/18/15), soft story building owners can now access PACE, Property Accessed Clean Energy, funds to help ease the cost burden of undergoing a retrofit of their buildings. PACE financing allows property owners to borrow the money necessary […]

Berkeley Apartment Building Owners Halfway There

According to the Contra Costa Times (“Berkeley: More than half the soft story buildings retrofitted, city says,” posted on 10/6/15), more than half of the apartment buildings identified as needing to be seismically retrofitted have completed the process since the soft story ordinance passed in 2005.  According to the article 145 soft story apartment buildings […]

EQ IQ (Continued)

Additional steps you can take to secure you home.  These steps are paraphrasing and adding to another New Yorker article by Kathryn Shultz “How to Stay Safe When the Big One Comes” as it relates to SF Bay Area.  See the previous post that talks about earthquake facts and crawl space strengthening and foundation bolting […]

EQ IQ

If haven’t read this month’s New Yorker article about the Cascade fault that spans from Vancouver down to Northern California (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one), you definitely should.  It’s a fascinating read and has a lot of useful information, especially in the light of a little jolt that we had this morning.  Here are some take aways from the […]