School Safety Program

California’s AB300 directed the state’s Department of General Services to inventory public school buildings for earthquake safety. The study focused on non wood-framed (higher hazard) buildings that represented about 20% of the total square footage of California’s public schools, and results of the study were published in 2002.  From the survey, 7,537 buildings were classified as higher seismic risks. But the study’s findings were not well publicized and soon faded from public attention.

The M7.9 May 2008 Sichuan, China, earthquake killed over 15,000 children and refocused attention on California school earthquake safety. A number of news articles soon appeared, including in the San Francisco Chronicle, Oakland Tribune and Marin Independent Journal. All pointed to the AB300 list and lack of action.

California school funding has been an ongoing problem, even before the current state financial crisis.  Asking schools to come up with seismic retrofit funds is difficult.

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.