Safety Experts Fear State Isn’t Ready for Big Quake

The decimal point was in the wrong place.

Structural engineer Stanley Mendes caught that simple mathematical error in 1973 while studying how the University of California, Santa Barbara, would stand up to an earthquake. In the final engineering equations, the misplaced decimal meant that North Hall--a large, three-story faculty office building constructed in the early 1960s--was only 25% as strong as the architect had intended.

So the state spent $250,000 to strengthen the building. And when Santa Barbara was jolted in 1978 by a quake that injured 60 people, caused $16.7 million in damage and registered 5.7 on the Richter scale, North Hall was virtually unaffected. If not for the reinforcement, “it’s a pretty good bet there would have been substantial damage,” Mendes said.

That is earthquake preparedness at its best, seismic safety advocates say: turning a potential death trap into a relatively safe place.

North Hall is an anomaly, however. In the recent history of California, earthquake experts say, seismically hazardous buildings have usually been ignored. Sometimes the buildings are studied and the studies ignored.

A flurry of action followed the 1971 San Fernando quake that killed 58 people, injured more than 2,500 and caused an estimated $500 million in damage. Tougher standards were adopted for new hospital construction after the San Fernando temblor, and stronger enforcement of the 1933 Field Act prompted the destruction of many old public schools.

Since then, however, seismic experts complain, the prevailing policy here in “earthquake country” for the last 12 years has been marked by procrastination, ambivalence and pleas of tight money. Low-cost emergency planning and public awareness efforts have inched forward, but the strengthening of existing structures has proved to be a low priority with California’s governors and lawmakers, the experts say. There is a notable exception: The Legislature spent $62 million to refurbish and strengthen its own work space, the state Capitol.

The problem of seismically hazardous buildings is pervasive in California’s metropolitan areas. Authorities say the greatest peril is posed by the 50,000 to 60,000 unreinforced masonry buildings throughout the state, mostly built before codes were adopted after the destructive 1933 Long Beach quake. Many structures of more modern vintage are also suspect.

$1-Billion Estimate

A 1981 seismic survey of 1,350 state-owned buildings rated 250 as “poor” or “very poor,” and cost estimates for correcting those structures have ranged to $1 billion.

“The problem was so huge that everybody threw up their hands and did nothing,” said Ralph Turner, a UCLA sociology professor who was on a campus committee that studied the peril there.

Major quake preparedness legislation “was never sexy enough to get passed,” said Vince Montane, an aide to state Sen. Alfred E. Alquist (D-San Jose), a leading legislator on seismic issues. “Earthquakes are not a hot item unless an earthquake happens, even though they are a historic problem, an inherent problem, in this state.”

Montane predicts that in the coming year, however, quake safety legislation will have more appeal. As Mexico City and Colombia recuperate from geological disasters--and as seismologists repeatedly warn that a catastrophic quake will probably strike Southern California in the next 30 years--a sheaf of seismic bills is expected to be considered--or reconsidered--when the state Legislature convenes in January.

The most ambitious bills will be aimed at saving lives by strengthening dubious buildings.

One bill would require counties and cities to inventory all unreinforced masonry buildings, public and private, in their jurisdictions. A similar bill passed the Legislature last session but was vetoed by Gov. George Deukmejian.

The bill also would require local governments to develop a plan to deal with those risky structures, though no particular plan is prescribed. The state Seismic Safety Commission hopes that a Los Angeles ordinance will serve as a model. That ordinance, adopted in 1981, included a timetable for owners of unreinforced masonry buildings to upgrade their structures. So far, city officials say, 2,200 compliance orders have been issued, and 1,600 projects are under permits for full or partial seismic rehabilitation.

A handful of other cities have mandatory seismic strengthening ordinances, among them Long Beach, Santa Ana, Santa Monica and Santa Rosa.

Another ambitious bill could aim at the costly proposition of strengthening some or all of the 250 substandard state-owned buildings--mostly government offices and state university buildings. The state Seismic Safety Commission, UC leaders and some legislators have discussed the possibility of a bond measure for the November ballot. Although $1 billion is the ballpark estimate for upgrading state-owned structures, engineers say considerable improvement could be made with much less money. Officials are also looking to federal oil revenue due to the state as another possible source of funds.

Apart from the sheer magnitude of the problem, seismic safety advocates say their efforts have also been frustrated by bureaucratic sluggishness and concerns about legal liability.

Donald Eagling, plant manager of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, directed a much-praised seismic upgrading of that facility, which is on the edge of the Hayward Fault. Although part of the UC system, the lab is federally funded, thus enabling Eagling to avoid some of the bureaucratic snarls that officials have encountered elsewhere in the state, he said.

“When officialdom becomes aware of a problem, it . . . tends to rely on expertise. And there are a lot of experts out there,” Eagling said. Bureaucrats “are prone to have one study after another before they do anything.”

Eagling said, however, “You don’t need a super-sophisticated analysis to find out you have a problem. Most are pretty obvious to a good structural engineer.” In many instances, he said, the corrective work is not difficult or expensive.

Legal concerns pose a paradox in the seismic debate. Such concerns were voiced by opponents of legislation that would require cities and counties to do inventories of seismically hazardous buildings. “They say, ‘We can’t identify our hazardous buildings because then we’ll know where they are and we’ll be liable when they fall down,’ ” said Peter Stromberg, a legislative specialist with the Seismic Safety Commission. “What can you do about that argument?”

‘Campus at Risk’

UCLA, in some ways, epitomizes the risk throughout the state--and the practical problems in dealing with the hazard. The UCLA seismic committee on which Turner served issued a report in October entitled “A Campus at Risk,” warning that up to 2,000 people could die and 4,000 more could be seriously injured in a major quake on campus. Twenty-nine buildings at UCLA were identified as seismic hazards.

Several of the UCLA’s seismically dubious buildings--including Royce Hall, Powell Library, Moore Hall and Haines Hall--date to the 1920s and ‘30s and are constructed of unreinforced masonry.

Others structures considered risky were built in the 1950s and ‘60s, including Rieber, Hedrick and Sproul dormitories, Bunche Hall Tower and Franz Hall Tower. Most probably were built to the prevailing standards of their time, but that was before more recent advances in seismic technology and the hard lessons of the San Fernando quake.

For example, it was learned in the 1971 temblor that among the buildings prone to collapse were high-rises with a “soft story”--a popular design in which the ground floor, often featuring setbacks and large expanses of glass, is structurally weaker than the rising stories. Olive View Hospital in the San Fernando Valley was one such building. It was brand new, but it was badly damaged in the 1971 quake and had to be razed, redesigned and rebuilt.

Problem at UCLA

“Several buildings at UCLA are in the same mode of Olive View,” said structural engineer Loring A. Wyllie of H. J. Degenkolb Associates of San Francisco, which performed the state seismic survey.

Part of the UCLA campus, from the Franklin Murphy Sculpture Garden south through Dickson Plaza toward the Botanical Gardens, is an old canyon that was filled in 1947 to allow for expansion. The UCLA committee noted that there has been no investigation of those soils, which could conceivably amplify quake vibrations, much as the dry lake-bed foundation of Mexico City amplified the tremors there. Bunche Hall Tower is among the structures on the fill area.

In some ways, the approach to seismic preparedness in the UC system since the 1971 San Fernando quake reflects the approach statewide, which is not surprising, since UC owns about half of the state’s seismically hazardous buildings. There was action initially at UC, but soon progress slowed to a halt.

Stanley Scott, a UC Berkeley government professor who sits on the seismic safety commission, believes that the impetus must come from the UC president’s office or from the UC Board of Regents. “There does not seem to be a lot of urgency, that is correct,” he said.

UC officials say they have made consistent attempts to get major seismic funding since the 1971 San Fernando quake, and a low-cost but important program of anchoring bookcases and other potential hazards has been under way for years. Even so, some critics question whether there is a genuine commitment to earthquake preparedness. The recent UCLA report has prompted a campus petition drive urging the administration to post warning signs and deemphasize the use of high-risk structures while working toward structural improvements.

Scott and other seismic safety advocates point out that the UC policy allows the chancellor of each campus to decide whether to have third-party review of building plans by structural engineers--checks that in theory would prevent errors like misplaced decimal points.

In the private sector, a city building department normally would perform those reviews, but under state law, UC facilities are exempt from such scrutiny by local officials.

Some critics also say the UC campuses have been slow to address deficiencies in facilities that are financially self-supporting and thus could not expect funding through Sacramento, such as residence halls, parking structures and student recreational centers.

A 1980 study ordered by UC regents estimated that upgrading these facilities would cost $35 million. So far, work has been performed only at the Santa Cruz and Berkeley campuses. UC officials anticipate that $1 million will be used to strengthen campus housing in the next two years.

Contrary Actions

At times university leaders have taken action that seems contrary to the UC policy that recommends diminished use of seismically dubious buildings.

For example, UCLA spent $13 million in privately donated funds for a cosmetic renovation of Royce Hall, but there was no structural reinforcement.

Similarly, the visitors’ bleachers at Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium are considered a quake risk, especially because an active trace of the Hayward Fault runs through the stadium and evidence of geological “creep” is visible between the concrete sections. This had not been viewed as a great threat to life because the stadium, which has a capacity of 75,662, is filled only six afternoons a year. In 1981, however, private funds were used to build athletic offices and locker rooms beneath the visitors’ bleachers of Memorial Stadium--without seismic upgrading, according to an engineer who has studied the structure.

Sitting in his office at University Hall in Berkeley--a late-1950s building rated “very poor”--William B. Baker, vice president for budgeting for the UC system, bridles at the suggestion that the universities have placed a low priority on earthquake preparedness.

Shortly after the San Fernando quake, Baker recalled, each campus conducted seismic studies of its buildings, and UC won approval for $10 million in structural improvements. Several pressing projects were identified, including UC Santa Barbara’s North Hall.

Money Shut Off

After $1.5 million of the $10 million had been used, however, policy makers in Sacramento shut off the funding, saying seismic priorities would have to be established statewide.

The Degenkolb firm was hired to assess the scope of the quake hazard on the nine campuses.

Meanwhile, the Seismic Safety Commission, established in 1975, developed a formula to establish a priority schedule on the basis on lives saved per dollar spent. Using that system, the Degenkolb firm conducted the statewide survey, producing its findings in 1981.

As it turned out, many UC buildings were listed as top priorities, just as they had been almost 10 years earlier. By then, however, Proposition 13 had put its grip on the state budget, and seismic projects fell behind in a backlog of other priorities of UC leadership.

“I was always optimistic,” Baker said. “I thought the state government would be responsive to what is a real public need.”

Seismic safety boosters are more optimistic now. The state’s financial bind has eased, and Deukmejian approved a UC budget last year that included more than $600,000 for seismic work at historic South Hall, built in 1873, and Wheeler Hall at UC Berkeley. The proposed 1986-87 budget seeks $280,000 for a detailed seismic plan for UCLA’s Powell Library.

May Be a Bargain

Although many legislators and officials gasp at the price of reinforcing old buildings--and some not so old--some experts suggest that such financing may save money as well as lives.

At the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, more than $3 million was spent over 13 years to strengthen 34 of the lab’s 66 buildings--”about 1% of the replacement value of the buildings,” Eagling said.

Eagling recommends that the state and the universities simply get on with it.

“You can’t spend all the money to correct everything at once,” he said. “You go step by step, taking care first of emergency things, and then go forward with more costly improvements.”

But UC officials say there is still preliminary work to be done. In a recent interview, John Burnett, UC systemwide facilities manager, said a cost-efficient strategy for the seismic work is being developed and attorneys are analyzing the liability questions.

Times staff writer David Smollar in San Diego contributed to this story.