SHERMAN OAKS : Geologist to Discuss Earthquake Damage

A private consulting and engineering geologist with 20 years experience studying the Santa Monica Mountains will meet with Sherman Oaks homeowners tonight to help them understand how and why the Northridge earthquake damaged the area.

Homeowners association President Richard Close said Frank Denison would speak to the question still on the lips of many in the area: “Why was Sherman Oaks so devastated in the earthquake and was so far from the epicenter?”

According to Close, about 70% of the residences on hard-hit Willis Avenue between the Ventura Freeway and Ventura Boulevard were damaged.

Denison will offer his theories on why Sherman Oaks sustained the specific kind of damage it did during the Jan. 17 temblor, and discuss ways to improve local earthquake safety.

Noteworthy geological features of the area, ones that should be taken into account when discussing earthquake-safe building issues, Denison said, include: high ground-water levels north of Ventura Boulevard to the Los Angeles River; and old, less stringent landscaping codes that were in place during much of the construction on the south side of the boulevard.

Many of the homes and structures to the south, he said, were built in the late 1930s and early 1940s, before the improved grading code of the early 1960s.

Also at the meeting, city Planning Department officials will discuss the current revising of the Sherman Oaks General Plan, Close said.

The meeting will be held at 8 p.m. at the Union Federal Savings building, 13300 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks.