Quakes still endanger Bay Area cities
By Sean Holstege

STAFF WRITER

Today brings a haunting reminder: mid-October and the Giants are in the World Series. Nervous?

You should be, said seismic experts on the eve of today's 13th anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake. Bay Area cities, led by Berkeley, have taken strides to prepare for the next big quake, but nearly one-third have failed to catalogue vulnerable buildings, citing cost and "lack of time," according to new findings.

It was during the Bay Bridge World Series in 1989 that Loma Prieta knocked down part of the bridge, collapsed the Cypress Freeway and burned San Francisco's Marina district. When the smoke and dust had cleared, 62 people were dead.

That was a comparative pipsqueak. Nine of 10 probable Bay Area quakes are expected to be more destructive, according to the latest state geological forecasts, released Wednesday.

A rupture of the Hayward fault could kill 750 people, leave 60,000 homeless and cost the region $34 billion. A repeat of the 1906 quake on the San Andreas could be even more grim: 4,000 dead, 200,000 homeless and $82 billion lost.

"These impacts are huge and they remind us once again how big the risk is," said Charlie Scawthorn, vice president of EERI, the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute's Northern California chapter. "There's a lot of good news, but not enough is happening."

A prime example of good news is in Berkeley, where a combination of city tax breaks and building permit fee waivers have resulted in 40 percent of the single family homes being strengthened. That's triple the rate for most Bay Area cities. Scawthorne estimates that for $20 million, Berkeley has kept 30,000 people from being homeless after the next Big One.

Albany, Fremont and Livermore also waive permit fees for homeowners, Redwood City offers tax breaks and Emeryville and Colma offer grants.

EERI, as part of its four-year Quake '06 public safety campaign, also praised Berkeley for keeping track of about 400 apartment complexes which are perched on parking garages.

These so-called "soft-story" apartments are particularly vulnerable to quakes. They toppled in the 1994 Northridge quake and in the Marina district five years earlier.

In the wake of Loma Prieta, state law only required cities to retrofit or board up unreinforced masonry buildings, most of them made of brick. Berkeley, Fremont and San Leandro decided on their own to inventory soft-story buildings, which house a total of 10,300 families.

In a report linked to EERI's campaign, the Association of Bay Area Governments released the mixed-bag findings of a survey of 101 of the region's cities.

"I was astounded to find out that there have been 175 public buildings in 46 cities retrofitted," said Jeanne Perkins, ABAG's earthquake program chief.

Still, only one city in five said seismic safety was an "extremely high priority," which led ABAG to conclude that cities need to move earthquakes higher on their list.

Contact Sean Holstege at sholstege@angnewspapers.com.