Police Get Quake Safety Grant to Retrofit Offices
Long Beach’s police headquarters is expected to become a national model for earthquake safety under a $32-million state and federal grant announced Monday.
Pending final approval by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the 40-year-old Public Safety Building, a steel-framed structure located about a mile south of a major earthquake fault, will be retrofitted and equipped with special sensors for recording seismic data that could improve building codes.
The grant is expected to be divided between the city and project designers at Cal State Long Beach, where the seismic data will be sent for analysis.
Richard Williams, dean of the school’s college of engineering, said the project’s unique data gathering system draws upon privately developed technologies never applied to seismic research. The building’s retrofit is also innovative, he said, because it will attempt to preserve electrical and plumbing services in the event of a disaster.
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