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Contact: Victoria Costello Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (510) 451-0905 ext 19 (cell 415/505-0867) victoria@eeri.org	Press Conference 10 am Wednesday, October 16 Pacific Exchange steps, (301 Pine St.) San Francisco

Oakland, CA – For San Francisco’s Pacific Exchange, a 2002 repeat of the October 17th, 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and the three day shutdown that followed would translate to $5.4 billion dollars in lost activity - 5 million for every minute of trading halted.

Fortunately, the Pacific Exchange is one of fifty companies taking concrete steps to reduce the risk of such catastrophic losses. Thirteen years after Loma Prieta, San Francisco's Building Occupancy Resumption Program (BORP) is a pioneering plan to expedite post-quake resumption of business operations by deputizing private structural engineers to help local Building Inspectors evaluate the safety of potentially damaged buildings.

BORP is one of twelve S. F. Bay Area "Best Practices" to be cited by the Northern California Earthquake Engineering Research Institute’s Quake '06 Campaign at an October 16th press conference. They’ll be joined on the historic steps of Pacific Exchange (301 Pine) by:

• a representative of the CGS-FEMA-OES-USGS* team, who will present Damage and Loss Estimates for the San Francisco Bay Area, for 10 scenario earthquakes, and
  
• a representative of the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) who will highlight results of a new ABAG-EERI survey assessing attitudes and seismic safety actions taken in 80% of the area’s 109 cities and counties.
  

Representatives of each Quake ‘06 Campaign public and private sector stakeholder group (education, commercial buildings, local government, residential and utilities) will be present to announce a Best Practice that has been evaluated and deemed worthy of recognition by their professional members. Among those selected are:

• East Bay Municipal Utility District for their seismic retrofit program,
  
  
• a set of standard plans from the city of San Leandro for seismic evaluation and retrofitting of private homes,
  
  
• Berkeley’s Seismic Retrofit Incentive Program,
  
  
• San Francisco’s Building Occupancy Resumption Program,
  
  
• emergency response and recovery plans used by the city of San Jose,
  
  
• a cost effective seismic upgrade to a Eureka professional building as part of a new tenant improvement project,
  
  
• and the inventorying of privately owned multi-family soft story buildings by the cities of Berkeley, Campbell, Freemont and San Leandro.
  
  
• BART’s Seismic Retrofit Study,
  
  
• Berkeley Unified School District’s Seismic Retrofit Program
  

Complete descriptions of the Quake 06 Best Practices are available at the press conference or at www.quake06.org.

Wednesday’s event marks the second of twice-annual reports to the public begun on April 17th (2002) and planned through April 2006, the 100 anniversary of the S.F. 1906 Earthquake. The Quake ’06 Campaign has the goal of bringing about a significant reduction of earthquake risk in Northern California by the 1906 centennial.

The Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) is a national, nonprofit, technical society of engineers, geoscientists, architects, planners, public officials, and social scientists. EERI’s mission is to reduce earthquake risk by advancing the science and practice of earthquake engineering, improving understanding of the impact of earthquakes on the physical, social, economic, political and cultural environment, and by advocating comprehensive and realistic measures for reducing the harmful effects of earthquakes. Address: 499 14th Street, Suite 320, Oakland, CA 94612; website: www.eeri.org, Telephone: (510) 451-0905, Fax (510) 451-5411

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*CGS = California Geological Society

USGS = United States Geological Survey

FEMA = Federal Emergency Management Agency

OES = California Governor's Office of Emergency Services