Board of Inquiry Named to Study Collapse of Bridge and Freeway
Gov. George Deukmejian named 10 members of an independent Board of Inquiry Saturday, to investigate the collapse of Interstate 880 and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in the Oct. 17 earthquake.
The panel is headed by nationally known earthquake engineering expert George Housner, who was appointed earlier.
Housner, who was appointed several days after the disaster, is the C.F. Braun Professor of Engineering Emeritus for the Caltech in Pasadena.
The Oct. 17 earthquake killed 65 people, including 41 in the collapse of a double-decker section of I-880 in Oakland known as the Nimitz Freeway.
The board will investigate the collapse of both I-880 and a section of the Bay Bridge.
“We also need to know whether these failures were, or could have been, predicted,” Deukmejian said in his Saturday morning radio address, when announcing the new appointees.
Deukmejian said the board will determine if the bridge and freeway were properly retrofitted using seismic and structural information that has been developed after other earthquakes.
The panel also is expected to make recommendations as to whether the state should modify existing construction and freeway retrofit programs in light of information learned from the quake.
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