Seismic Considerations For Communities At Risk

This community handbook will increase awareness of seismic risk & includes up-to-date information on seismic design & construction practices. It is designed to provide interested individuals across the nation with information that will assist them in assessing the seismic risk to their buildings & their community & in determining what might be done to mitigate that risk -- whether on an individual basis or through community building regulatory action. Contents: when happens to structures when the ground moves? decisions, decisions! how can I make my community act? codes & standards. etc. Illustrated.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is pleased to have the opportunity to sponsor the Program on Improved Seismic Safety Provisions being conducted by the Building Seismic Safety Council (BSSC). The materials produced by this program represent the tangible results of a significant effort, under way for more than a decade, to lessen adverse seismic effects on buildings throughout the United States. This community handbook is a companion publication to the 1994 Edition of the NEHRP (National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program) Recommended Provisions for Seismic Regulations for New Buildings, and it is one of a series of reports produced to increase awareness of seismic risk and to disseminate information on up-to-date seismic design and construction practices. It is designed to provide interested individuals across the nation with information that will assist them in assessing the seismic risk to their buildings and their community and in determining what might be done to mitigate that risk - whether on an individual basis or through community building regulatory action.

Identifies and describes in detail the existing and potential regulatory and financial mechanisms and incentives in the various levels of government that can reasonably be used in a course of action to lessen the risks posed by existing buildings in an earthquake.

Until recently experts who studied risks, both natural and technological, focused mainly on how to avoid them. Today, with a growing awareness that certain natural risks are simply unavoidable, the emphasis is shifting toward ways of planning for them and of mitigating their consequences. High on any list of unavoidable natural risks is earthquake. In Planning for Earthquakes Philip R. Berke and Timothy Beatley examine the experiences of 260 earthquake-prone communities across the United States, from the West Coast to the East. They give special attention to three areas of especially high risk--Palo Alto, California; Salt Lake County, Utah; and the lowlands of South Carolina (including historic Charleston). Berke and Beatley address topics that include citizen safety, ways of determining and maintaining the structural integrity of old and new buildings, mapping of quake-prone areas, and land-use (where to limit development). They also study the ways in which planners, politicians, and community residents can best work together in the decision-making process for earthquake planning. The authors conclude that the greatest successes have been achieved when technological considerations are counterbalanced with consideration of the values and preferences of those most at risk--the residents of quake-prone areas. Planning for Earthquakes will interest students and scholars of hazards management as well as land-use planners and government officials.