Santa Monica Emerges As Leader in California Earthquake Safety
Santa Monica has made major strides in earthquake safety and preparedness.
The iconic beach city has successfully retrofitted more than half of their seismically vulnerable buildings.
“It’s pretty impressive how many buildings were retrofit since 2017, especially considering that we were dealing with COVID in the middle of all of that,” said Patti Harburg (via the LA Times), former President of the Structural Engineers Assn. of Southern California.
Santa Monica began their earthquake initiatives after the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Though the city was 14 miles from the epicenter of the quake, it still saw major devastation in the form of 1,500 demolished apartment structures.
Their earthquake plans lost steam by 2013, but things picked up again in 2017 when the city launched the nation’s most extensive earthquake safety initiative – a plan of action that mandated the retrofit of 2,000 buildings in the area.
As of last month, 1,099 of these buildings that were deemed vulnerable to large earthquakes have been successfully retrofitted.
While other local governments in and around Los Angeles have passed legislation for seismic retrofits, many of these ordinances have made little progress or have not set specific laws or deadlines into place.
It’s crucial that homeowners and apartment owners throughout Southern California take immediate action to retrofit these vulnerable structures to prevent future destruction and death.
The Northridge earthquake resulted in widespread damage to these “soft story” apartment complexes, residential homes, commercial buildings, and roadways, which led to the deaths of 57 people.
If you think your home may be in need of earthquake retrofitting, foundation repair, or foundation replacement, contact Julian Construction today and we will send one of our foundation specialists out to conduct a free, thorough inspection with a quote for repair.
We have extensive experience serving our Los Angeles community and nearby regions. In fact, Julian Construction has inspected over 30,000 structures in the area! Give us a call at (323) 733-3377 to schedule your free inspection or complete the inspection request form.
