72 O.C. Buildings Still at Risk in Earthquake : Safety: Cities and county haven’t complied with a 1986 state law requiring retrofitting plans for old structures.

Orange County and three of its cities have missed a state deadline requiring them to come up with plans for reducing the risk of unreinforced buildings in an earthquake, according to the state Seismic Safety Commission.

The state panel says that 57 structures in Garden Grove, San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente and unincorporated areas are involved. In addition, 15 county-owned buildings in a variety of locations are considered at risk.

Many of the structures are old fire stations, but some serve as restaurants, antique shops or storage facilities. One houses a branch of the county’s General Services Administration, the agency responsible for managing all county-owned facilities.

Nearly four years after the 1990 state deadline, risk-reduction plans for these buildings have not yet been filed as required by state lawmakers in 1986, said Fred Turner, an engineer with the state commission.

Officials at the county’s Environmental Management Agency, as well as San Juan Capistrano’s building and engineering department, disputed Turner, saying they had sent letters to the state commission in 1989 that technically comply with the law.

However, Turner said those letters “only satisfied an initial requirement of the law.” Neither the county nor the city followed up, as required, he said.

“The state law in 1986 required them to, by 1990, inventory old masonry buildings that were unreinforced--any buildings in the city, including city owned, to establish a risk reduction program,” Turner said. Details were left up to local governments, he said.

The cities that did not comply with the law were given three opportunities to respond, Turner said. None did, he added. Those cities were mentioned in a 1992 report to the state Legislature.

The county’s correspondence to the state referred to planning that was never completed. San Juan Capistrano’s foretold a proposed retrofit ordinance that was later abandoned in favor of a voluntary effort. Garden Grove officials acknowledged that they never filed the required report. And San Clemente officials couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday, although one of the two structures listed as being at risk there was retrofitted recently.

People who have to work in the suspect structures seemed blase in interviews Wednesday.

“If it ever shakes around here, I’m getting out from under these (fluorescent) lights I’m sitting under,” said Julie Earl, an office assistant in one of the county-owned buildings that has been listed as potentially unsafe. “Nobody’s ever told me about the risk here, but I’m an extra-help employee. Can we get some money out of this?”

Earl added: “I really don’t have a fear of earthquakes. . . . I’d just go under the desk.”

Several workers echoed Earl’s statements, saying they’re not much concerned because, as secretary Sandy Blansett said, “we know that a lot of older buildings can be a problem in an earthquake. . . . I’m so used to earthquakes that it doesn’t really bother me.”

In San Juan Capistrano, where 36 structures are listed as at risk, the city’s building and engineering chief, Dan McFarland, said, “We’ve never been put on notice that we were in violation.”

McFarland cited a December, 1989, letter to the state commission as proof of compliance. The letter contains plans for a retrofitting ordinance, but the City Council subsequently decided to simply encourage voluntary fixes--a strategy that McFarland said was severely criticized in a state report as being ineffective in meeting the intent of the 1986 state law.

Some of the structures in his city have been reinforced, McFarland said, or are vacant. Some owned by the city are being sold. One is being removed to make way for the widening of Ortega Highway.

McFarland likened the situation to restaurants that continue to allow smoking even though cigarettes were proven to cause cancer 20 years ago, or how governments allow people to live and work under airport flight paths. “You could put signs up saying enter at your own risk, but you’re likely to get sued anyway,” he said.

Cory Cumia, who works in the Cat’s Meow shop near San Juan Capistrano’s historic mission district, said she’s not concerned that her building is on the at-risk list.

“I’ve never been told that it was, but I’ve been a resident of this city for 22 years, so I’m well aware of the risk involving older buildings like this one,” Cumia said. “Besides, my husband is a structural steel contractor, so I know. . . . You get out of this building as fast as possible.”

County officials also said they had complied with the state’s 1990 deadline, but acknowledged that a 1989 letter to the state promised updates that were never delivered.

The 1986 law required inventories of unreinforced brick buildings and plans for dealing with them, but required no actual retrofitting, said Robert Wingard, the county Environmental Management Agency’s director of regulation.

The law did not specify sanctions for those failing to comply.

“We sent a letter to the state dated Sept. 25, 1989, that we believe complied with the statute,” said Wingard. But he acknowledged that the letter refers to a plan that never went before the Board of Supervisors and was ultimately scuttled.

“There is concern about it,” said Wingard, referring to county employees who work in the affected buildings. “But there’s also the realistic world of budgeting and priorities.”

Many of those buildings identified in unincorporated areas of the county are fire stations, according to County Administrative Officer Ernie Schneider.

In a 1989 study commissioned by the Board of Supervisors, EQE Engineering of Costa Mesa identified 14 firehouses at “high” or “very high” risk of earthquake damage. These include stations in Cypress, Orange, Sunset Beach, Lake Forest, Seal Beach, Villa Park and Placentia.

The station in Cypress is expected to be relocated, and stations in Lake Forest and the Tustin area will probably be remodeled.

Last week, County Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder said she was “shocked and embarrassed” that deadlines had not been set for the renovations.

Meanwhile, in Garden Grove, where 12 structures are considered at risk, David Kennon, director of development services, said the city has delayed filing anything with the state until it has a plan to reduce retrofitting’s financial impact on business owners.

The city, he said, is exploring use of low-interest loans or grants.

“What we’re trying to do is create a timeline when it has to be implemented,” Kennon said. “Our problem is not severe. It’s not life-threatening. . . . It’s incorrect to assume that all unreinforced masonry buildings are unfit and are ready to fall down. They just don’t have the integrity of modern buildings.”

Kennon said most of the locations are small retail establishments, including some antique dealers, on Main Street north of Garden Grove Boulevard.

Statewide, inventories conducted under the 1986 law have revealed 25,000 such structures throughout the state, 92% in cities that have complied with the law, according to the Seismic Safety Commission.

Times staff writers Jodi Wilgoren and Mark I. Pinsky contributed to this report.

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Risky Buildings

County-owned unreinforced buildings considered at risk in an earthquake:

Square Building Address Built footage Anaheim Security building 1170 Anaheim Blvd. 1958 1,663 Warehouse 1010 S. Harbor Blvd. 1950 5,000 Cypress Fire station 8953 S. Walker St. 1948 2,409 Dana Point Fire station 26111 Victoria Blvd. 1952 2,980 Garden Grove VFW Post 6475 12942 Dale St. 1949 2,816 Lake Forest Fire station 23022 El Toro Rd. 1950 5,296 Newport Beach Office, shop, shelter and Newport Bay 1952 11,656 storage Coast Guard shop Newport Bay n/a 1,115 Orange Fire station 8663 Orange-Olive Road 1948 2,409 Santa Ana Industrial shops, storage 1145 E. Fruit St. 1957 15,799 Administration office, 1143 E. Fruit St. 1947 26,029 warehouse Maintenance yard 1140 E. Fruit St. 1947 490 Dormitory 1207 E. Fruit St. 1921 3,794 Sunset Beach Fire station 16821 12th St. 1950 2,409 Unincorporated area Fire station 31242 Trabuco Canyon 1948 2,985 Road

Source: Orange County Environmental Management Agency