BUSINESS IMPACT OF THE QUAKE : Engineers Play Big Role in Recovery

The earthquake in the San Francisco area has dramatized the importance of--and need for--a group of normally anonymous professionals known in the building business as structural engineers.

They are civil engineers who are supposed to ensure that buildings such as schools and high-rises are constructed to withstand major quakes of the magnitude that rattled the Bay Area late Tuesday afternoon. It measured 6.9.

There are more than 3,000 structural engineers in California who have undergone rigorous training. After graduating from engineering school, they spend three years training to qualify as a civil engineer and four more years to qualify as a structural engineer. Their final test is a two-day state examination.

In the disaster’s aftermath, structural engineers will determine which buildings are safe for occupancy. They are also expected to help probe why the double-deck Nimitz Freeway collapsed in Oakland and why so many buildings in the tony Marina neighborhood of San Francisco sustained such severe structural damage.

In the debate that is expected to ensue, it’s likely that some structural engineers will argue that both tragedies could have been avoided if government agencies had ensured that enough money had been spent on the proper repairs.

“There has been a lot of incompetence,” said Arnold Bookbinder, a structural engineer in the San Fernando Valley.

“These are not problems for structural engineers,” Warren V. O’Brien, superintendent and general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety, said. “These are problems for politicians.”

The morning after the quake, California emergency officials dispatched a group of 30 structural engineers to the Santa Cruz area to look for building damage. An additional 32 engineers and inspectors from the city of Los Angeles also went along.

Although eager to help, city building officials in Los Angeles say they have received no requests for help from either Oakland or San Francisco. “We cannot make contact with anyone up there,” said O’Brien, also a structural engineer. “I’m going to drive up there myself to see if there’s anything I can do.”