U.S. Urges Plan to Curb Quake Damage : 5-Year Proposal Calls for Research, Joint Governmental Action

The federal emergency agency Friday proposed a five-year, $363-million plan that calls for federal, state and local cooperation to reduce the nation’s vulnerability to earthquake damage.

“We know as a matter of history that earthquakes pose a very real threat to the United States,” Louis A. Giuffrida, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said in announcing the program. “What we do not know is when earthquakes will strike and how widespread the effects will be.”

The program, which Congress ordered developed by FEMA and three other agencies, urges the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Science Foundation to continue efforts to expand understanding of the causes of earthquakes; to assess the risks of earthquakes in various regions and to develop techniques for predicting the timing, location and magnitude of future quakes.

Under the proposal, FEMA will continue current research with the National Bureau of Standards, the science foundation and the geological survey on development of improved designs and building codes to make all structures--bridges and aqueducts as well as buildings--more able to withstand quakes.

The plan also calls for federal assistance to state and local governments in preparedness planning and development of information programs to increase public awareness of protective measures. It assigns to the science foundation responsibility for investigation of social, economic, legal and political factors that affect the public’s response to earthquakes.

Although California and other states bordering the Pacific have experienced the most severe recent earthquakes, officials who briefed reporters emphasized that 44 states and territories are actually exposed to the hazard of quakes, which they said have cost 1,380 lives and caused more than $5 billion in property damage since 1900.

An announcement by FEMA called attention to estimates that there is a 40% probability of a large earthquake within the next 30 years along the San Andreas Fault in Southern California--with the possibility of 3,000 to 14,000 deaths and 12,000 to 55,000 injuries, depending on the timing of the quake.

It also noted predictions that a heavy quake along the Newport-Inglewood Fault of a magnitude greater than 7.5 (on the Richter scale) could do even more extensive damage and cause up to 23,000 deaths. It cited other danger spots in the Pacific Northwest, Hawaii and Alaska, as well as the historic earthquake areas around Charleston, S.C., and New Madrid, Mo.

The plan calls for intensified efforts to increase public awareness of earthquake hazards and to encourage participation in education programs.

The program will require continued substantial funding for earthquake preparedness, for which $70 million has been appropriated for the current fiscal year. New appropriations will be required, however, to carry out the plan on the recommended scale through the four succeeding fiscal years.