Volunteers needed: Chapter Meeting Program Committee
Are YOU looking for ways to network with important and influential people in the earthquake engineering community?
Are YOU wondering how to get involved in the EERI NC Chapter?
The Answer: Join the Chapter Meeting Program Committee!
This committee decides on topics for future chapter meetings, coordinates with the speakers and helps to ensure the meetings run smoothly. Join the chair, Janise Rodgers and board member rep, Ayse Hortascu on this rewarding committee! This is a great way to meet other members of the chapter and network with a host of great speakers. All are invited to join this committee.
To volunteer, contact chapterinfo@eerinc.org
Participate in Community Mapping of Earthquake Retrofit Projects
A committed group of volunteers has created a project that is documenting earthquake retrofits performed in the Bay Area since the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989. This team has launched a new community mapping site to collect this information as a way to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake and to determine how our communities have reduced their earthquake risk in the last 20 years.
The EERI Northern California Chapter board encourages you to check it the earthquakeretrofit.org website and participate.
Anyone can add points to the map: homeowners, property managers, contractors, architects, engineers, or anyone willing to post his or her project. As residents, employees and leaders in our Bay Area communities, you will likely have a project or two that you can add, either one you worked on or one you are familiar with. You can add a point without publishing your name, but an email address is required to help verify that you are a real person entering the data. A photo is also encouraged, but not required.
Pass the link to your neighbors, clients, partners, and consultants so we can get the word out to engineers, architects, owners, contractors — anyone who might want to share the progress they’ve made toward reducing risk over the last 20 years.
The site is about community building and emphasizing the positive story that has been taking place in California for the last twenty years. Our investment in mitigation is a story that we want to share widely. Don’t be shy about the good work that has been done.
If you have a newsletter or email list, please share the link, and if you have a website, consider linking to the map.
Questions? Contact contactus@earthquakeretrofit.org
Concrete Coalition Needs Volunteers
The Concrete Coalition, continues to build a database of older concrete buildings in northern California cities with the help of our Chapter, SEAONC members and other volunteers. Already, we’ve learned many lessons in the process of evaluating the risks to our communities from older concrete buildings.
You can help by volunteering a few Saturday mornings to survey your community. This is a first step in helping owners and our communities understand the consequences of earthquake damage to these types of buildings.
Contact Dave McCormick: Dlmccormick@sgh.com or 415-343-3023.
School Safety Program
The goal of EERI’s NC School Safety Committee is to educate school administrators and teachers and help high seismic risk schools reduce their risk and minimize life loss in a big earthquake. We hope to do this through a combination of outreach programs, risk surveys, emergency planning assistance, disaster response training, and self-help equipment anchorage programs. The committee is developing a resource list of volunteers for the following activities:
· Structural engineers to conduct risk surveys of northern Californian schools to identify structural and nonstructural seismic risks.
· Emergency planners to update emergency plans.
· CERT Trainers to teach emergency response to school staff.
· Engineers to develop an equipment anchorage training manual for public schools.
If you are interested in helping with any of the above activities, please email me at tchan@miyamotointernational.com and provide the following information: your contact information, the activity you want to volunteer for, and your field of expertise. The email subject line should be: EERI schools volunteer – your name. Thank you.
