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"So the technlogical improvements in earthquake safety since the 1960s are simply irrelevant for most residents. They're living an ancient, unsafe homes." That

"So the technlogical improvements in earthquake safety since the 1960s are simply irrelevant for most residents. They're living an ancient, unsafe homes." That's a nice theory, but it's wrong. The city is requiring buildings to get retrofitted with earthquake safe structural foundations. It's every building with greater than a few units, so the rather small 100+ year old Victorian I'm in will be required to go undergo retrofitting by 2017.

raldi 12y ago
Do you have a link for that? I follow this kind of thing pretty closely and haven't heard anything like that, at least for private residences.
- nowarninglabel 12y ago
  Here ya go: http://sfdbi.org/mandatory-soft-story-program http://sfdbi.org/mandatory-soft-story-program P.S. Thanks for all the good work you did at Reddit.
  - raldi 12y ago
    Oh, I missed where you mentioned this only applies to buildings with a minimum number of units -- I thought you meant there was a program that applied to single-family homes. Re: reddit, pshaw, I was only there two and a half years. :) Most of the hard work was done before I showed up and after I left.
Animats 12y ago
The latest SF seismic retrofit program is for wooden buildings. Brick buildings, which are at much higher risk in an earthquake, were fixed long ago. There were 1,987 unreinforced masonry buildings in SF in 1990, and all but 158 were fixed by 2013. That's why, all over SF, you see diagonal steel beams inside brick buildings, sometimes across windows. There are now supposedly only 29 unreinforced brick buildings left, mostly ones that are abandoned or scheduled for demolition. A few are still occupied, including some non-patient buildings at SF General Hospital. In a really big quake, many buildings will be damaged, but structural collapse in SF should be rare. The occupants get to survive.

raldi 12y ago

Do you have a link for that? I follow this kind of thing pretty closely and haven't heard anything like that, at least for private residences.

nowarninglabel 12y ago
Here ya go: http://sfdbi.org/mandatory-soft-story-program http://sfdbi.org/mandatory-soft-story-program P.S. Thanks for all the good work you did at Reddit.
- raldi 12y ago
  Oh, I missed where you mentioned this only applies to buildings with a minimum number of units -- I thought you meant there was a program that applied to single-family homes. Re: reddit, pshaw, I was only there two and a half years. :) Most of the hard work was done before I showed up and after I left.

Animats 12y ago

The latest SF seismic retrofit program is for wooden buildings. Brick buildings, which are at much higher risk in an earthquake, were fixed long ago. There were 1,987 unreinforced masonry buildings in SF in 1990, and all but 158 were fixed by 2013. That's why, all over SF, you see diagonal steel beams inside brick buildings, sometimes across windows. There are now supposedly only 29 unreinforced brick buildings left, mostly ones that are abandoned or scheduled for demolition. A few are still occupied, including some non-patient buildings at SF General Hospital. In a really big quake, many buildings will be damaged, but structural collapse in SF should be rare. The occupants get to survive.