FEMA Promises Rebuilding Aid, but CSUN Wary

In an early sign that Cal State Northridge may avoid past earthquake recovery pitfalls, federal officials are promising to help pay for upgrading many CSUN buildings to modern seismic standards instead of authorizing only “patch-and-paint” repairs.

Although the latter was a common response to past disasters, the Federal Emergency Management Agency earlier this month adopted a new repair policy for public facilities damaged in the Northridge earthquake.

CSUN officials, however, admit to being wary of the “new” FEMA and its promises. That is because the “old” federal agency left a legacy of still-shuttered buildings and bureaucratic repair disputes at other California universities damaged in past earthquakes.

Four and a half years after the Loma Prieta quake, repairs have yet to start on some closed buildings at Stanford and San Francisco State universities. And it took Cal State Los Angeles five frustrating years to reopen the final building that was closed by the 1987 Whittier Narrows quake.

“Our frustration came as we really could never rely on any agreement with FEMA as things came together and then fell apart,” said Valerie Veronin, Stanford’s acting director of facilities project management. “I can write a book after all this is said and done,” she said.

Nearly two months have passed since the 6.8-magnitude temblor battered Southern California on Jan. 17. With work nearly completed on a mini-city of portable classrooms erected to replace still-closed permanent buildings, CSUN officials are beginning to focus on rebuilding.

But FEMA officials insist that the agency has changed under the Clinton Administration. If they deliver on their promises, the rebuilding at Northridge could be relatively smooth and quick, requiring perhaps a couple of years. If the task becomes a replay of the past, the campus faces a long ordeal.

CSUN President Blenda J. Wilson said it is still too early to tell which path lies ahead. Thus far, she and other campus officials have nothing but praise for FEMA’s initial response. But Wilson added: “We haven’t gotten to the nuts and bolts and dollars and cents of our claim yet, either.”

CSUN officials are still tallying the costs of their quake damage and may not have an official figure for some time. But they have made unofficial estimates of $250 million to $350 million, which would amount to the costliest disaster ever for an American university.

How FEMA treats CSUN is crucial to its recovery because the federal government, under a Clinton decree, has promised to pay for 90% of the damage to public facilities. The state is responsible for the other 10%. In past disasters such as Loma Prieta, the federal share was only 75%.

Privately, some CSUN officials predict that major disputes are unlikely, at least partly because they would reflect poorly on Clinton. Those officials say the President has made a commitment to CSUN, at least in a political sense, telephoning the school when classes resumed Feb. 14 and sending Vice President Al Gore to visit shortly thereafter.

The FEMA promise to help pay for seismic upgrades at the Northridge campus also is an important first sign. The past disputes at other universities often have centered on whether damaged old buildings should be simply patched up or more fully fixed to meet current codes, officials said.

For the CSUN community, that is not just a bureaucratic question but perhaps one of life and death. Most of the major concrete buildings on the 353-acre campus were built in the late 1950s and 1960s--generations ago in terms of how resistant buildings are to collapse and earthquake damage in general.

Post-earthquake repair methods have been an open question in the past because most building codes, including the one that governs state facilities such as CSUN, generally do not spell out seismic-retrofit guidelines, except for much older, un-reinforced masonry structures.

Earlier this month, however, FEMA and state Office of Emergency Services officials signed an agreement laying down minimum seismic repair standards for public buildings. Top FEMA officials said their agency has never before made such a commitment, calling it a reflection of FEMA’s new approach.

The agreement obliges FEMA to pay to help bring an entire building up to current code if the expected cost of structural repairs is at least 50% of the building’s replacement cost. A public agency also could choose demolition and get 90% of the replacement value for a new building.

If the repair cost is between 11% and 49%, FEMA will help pay to bring at least the damaged portions of a building up to current seismic standards, although engineers said such partial work often must be broadened to the entire building. Only if the damage is 10% or less would old standards be allowed.

FEMA has yet to officially categorize CSUN’s heavily damaged buildings. But under the new policy, “virtually everything we’re doing will exceed the 10% value,” said Charles Thiel, chairman of the Cal State system’s Seismic Review Board and the official deciding building safety issues at CSUN.

Thiel said FEMA’s policy would fund seismic upgrades for most of the university’s major older buildings. Those he cited, most of them still closed due to quake damage, include the administration building, the Oviatt Library, Sierra Tower, the science complex, engineering building, the south library, and fine arts and speech-drama buildings.

Thiel predicted seismic upgrades also would occur in the University Park Apartments, about half of which remain closed, and the high-rise University Tower Apartments, which were closed before the quake because of seismic and asbestos problems but sustained severe damage in the January temblor.

Officials said it is too early to make a cost estimate for the seismic repairs, although a 1990 state report using conservative figures estimated a $46-million price tag to retrofit about a dozen campus buildings. Thiel said that, once upgraded, the buildings would have a life-safety level for occupants equal to new structures.

The repairs, which make buildings more resistant to collapse, would vault CSUN ahead of many other Cal State campuses in seismic safety, Thiel said. Without the earthquake, he added, many of the buildings likely never would have been upgraded by the university system because of its vast number of buildings.

(The 20-campus Cal State system was criticized after the Loma Prieta quake for not having a seismic policy for its buildings. Trustees adopted such a policy in May, 1993, and plan to start the first in a series of upgrade projects at five other campuses this year using state bond funds).

“We do not want to go in and repair the buildings and have them re-damaged” in a future quake, said Craig Wingo, director of FEMA’s Infrastructure Support Division. He said FEMA Director James Lee Witt had made hazard mitigation “the cornerstone of this agency.”

In past years, Wingo said, “there’s no doubt the agency position was more conservative on a repair-only philosophy.” He noted the Stanford, San Francisco and Los Angeles university cases arose under the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush.

This week, FEMA officials were at Stanford trying to resolve the university’s appeal of FEMA’s decisions. Still at issue are eight damaged buildings that FEMA maintained needed about $2 million in repairs compared to the university’s estimate of about $30 million, Veronin said.

A slightly different list of eight Stanford buildings, including an art museum and two major classroom facilities, remain closed because of unrepaired damage. And the university is still using dozens of portable classrooms set up after the October, 1989, quake.

Like officials elsewhere, Veronin said FEMA was responsive at first, but then the process bogged down in disputes over repair methods, as well as what campus officials called FEMA’s lowball damage estimates based on minimal repairs. Stanford officials estimated that the campus suffered damage in excess of $100 million.

At San Francisco State, officials said a major high-rise dormitory, Verducci Hall, also remains closed due to Loma Prieta damage because FEMA’s last estimate for structural repairs was about $3.5 million. Campus officials have estimated the damage at up to $17 million.

Comptroller Don Scoble said his campus’s debate with FEMA deteriorated into arguments over how large the cracks had to be for FEMA to agree to pay for the repairs. “My sense is they have been guided in the main by the desire to safeguard taxpayers’ money,” Scoble said.

At Cal State Los Angeles, the Salazar Hall classroom building finally reopened early last year, five years after the October, 1987, Whittier Narrows quake. A student died in the quake when she was hit by a concrete panel that fell from a parking garage.

But Art Flores, vice president for operations, said Salazar Hall now leaks because FEMA officials insisted that its damaged roof be patched rather than replaced.

“It was an inordinately long process,” Flores said. “Hopefully, Northridge won’t have that experience.”