Facing Up to Quake Needs

In 1988, the California Legislature passed four of 12 bills sponsored by the state Seismic Safety Commission to better prepare the Golden State against the effects of earthquakes. All four were vetoed by Gov. George Deukmejian. The commission’s record in 1989 was slightly better: five relatively minor bills became law, but the Legislature failed to pass the commission’s priority proposals, including one to rectify the danger posed by unsafe buildings owned by the state itself. In the absence of intense earthquake awareness, says Commission Chairman Lloyd S. Cluff, “You can talk until you are blue in the face and you make progress slowly.”

Now is the time to make progress quickly. There is no big secret about what needs to be done. For three years, the commission has presented to the Legislature and the governor roughly 200 pages of priorities for defending California against large earthquakes and for recovering from them. As a share of the total state budget, the cost is not staggering. Cluff says $5 billion to $6 billion would do the job. The trick now is to take advantage of the political climate created by Northern California’s adversity and push for major earthquake safety programs while California is sensitized--once again--to the danger.

For all that has been done, California can never know enough about earthquakes. To see what might be learned from the 7.1-magnitude quake that struck Northern California on Oct. 17, the Seismic Safety Commission will hold five hearings in the affected area between now and Nov. 14. What might it learn or propose? Cluff was struck by the despair of residents of San Francisco’s Marina District when they were given just 15 minutes to grab what personal possessions they could before the structures were razed. Cluff was in Mexico City and Armenia following their devastating quakes and said his experience was that there is little danger of damaged buildings suddenly collapsing on people. Perhaps something could be done to help people retrieve belongings from their homes, he said.

Some of the big needs are more obvious. The reinforcing of masonry buildings and state buildings remain two of the commission’s major goals. The commission has proposed a $350-million bond issue to reinforce state buildings, but the legislation has not been approved.

The 1989 draft edition of the annual commission report, “California at Risk: Reducing Earthquake Hazards 1987-92,” says that one-third of the 1,350 state buildings are considered unsafe in an earthquake. About half of those house large numbers of students or public employees. It is difficult for the state of California to force private entities to renovate old buildings if the state is reluctant to do so itself.

There is talk now of rolling the bond issue into emergency earthquake relief legislation to be considered at a special session of the Legislature. This proposal should have a high priority.

Much of the achievement in recent years can be traced to post-earthquake periods. Many new laws were enacted after the Sylmar quake of 1971 and the Whittier quake two years ago. Of 72 initiatives in the Seismic Safety Commission’s catalogue of needs, 37 are on schedule. But more than a dozen have encountered significant delays. All too often, critical items on the commission’s list bear the notation “this initiative is now behind schedule” or “action on this initiative was scheduled to start in 1987, but funds were not provided.”

The costs of earthquake safety are high. But the payoffs are, too, as noted time and again by San Francisco building owners who had invested in building reinforcement--voluntarily or not-- and who got through the Oct. 17 quake without major damage. The Seismic Safety Commission’s project book notes that it will be difficult to come up with the money for earthquake hazard reduction, but it would be foolish not to. The difference could mean thousands of lives and billions of dollars in damage.