BAY AREA QUAKE : Stanford Reports It Has $160 Million in Damage

Stanford University on Friday reported at least $160 million in earthquake damage as college campuses in the Bay Area attempted to find places for hundreds of students evacuated from unsafe dormitories.

Officials said 26 of the 240 buildings on the Palo Alto campus, including 11 small dormitories that house about 420 students, are closed and access to 36 more is restricted.

Stanford President Donald Kennedy estimated that the school sustained at least $160 million in structural damage. Damage to contents in the school buildings is also expected to be heavy.

“Various academic buildings are closed and cannot be safely reoccupied until structural repairs are made,” Kennedy said. “Others will need to be replaced completely.”

At the San Francisco State and San Jose State campuses, the damage from Tuesday’s earthquake was more extensive than first reported, officials said. In addition, the California State University system’s $8-million marine research laboratory at Moss Landing, north of Monterey, was destroyed.

The two campuses and the lab will require about $45 million in repairs, according to Cal State spokesman Stephen MacCarthy.

The library at San Francisco State appears to have significant damage, and inspectors are trying to determine the safety of a 700-bed dormitory and a parking garage. At San Jose State, the library and a large classroom building, among other structures, were damaged.

The two campuses originally planned to reopen Monday but that may be delayed, MacCarthy said.

At UC Santa Cruz, classes will resume Monday. Campus spokeswoman Stephanie Hauk said only a science building will remain closed for further damage inspection. However, she said the school sustained a “tremendous amount of content damage--books, shelving, chemical spills, water lines.” The losses in laboratory equipment probably total more than $1 million, she said.

Some students whose off-campus residences were badly damaged are being sheltered on campus in dormitory lounges. “The students are just fine. We have plenty of water and food for them,” she said.

At Stanford, about half the scheduled classes were held Thursday and Friday, and the university is planning to return to a full teaching load as alternative classroom sites are found, spokeswoman Kathy O’Toole said.

Among the Stanford buildings heavily damaged and closed are the landmark Memorial Church and Leland Stanford Jr. Museum, both 100 years old and survivors of the great quake of 1906.

“They are original campus buildings,” said spokeswoman Eileen Walsh. “The church is the centerpiece of the campus. The steeple was knocked off in the 1906 quake, but it was rebuilt.”

Although the chapel’s expensive stained-glass windows--which were being restored--escaped damage, chunks of mosaic tile crashed from walls and the ceiling, splintering pews below.

Stanford has been self-insured against earthquakes since 1985, when the school’s insurance carriers canceled its policy, according to Robert Beth, director of risk management. Since then the school has accrued only $3.4 million in its earthquake reserve and $3.6 million in a property reserve to respond to such events as fires or floods, Beth said.

Two years ago, insurance companies offered to provide the university with earthquake coverage for $5 million a year and later reduced that figure to $3 million. But because of a $100-million deductible and a $125-million maximum payment above that figure, the university declined the coverage.

University Provost James Rosse said the school may seek loans or federal funds or use part of its endowment, estimated at $2 billion, to make repairs.

“We never used our borrowing capacity up to the limit because we knew there was a high probability that we would have to rebuild dorms, laboratories and classrooms after an earthquake,” he said.