SCEC INSTANeT News
	Southern California HAZUS User Group Training

A HAZUS training was held July 24-26 at California State University Fullerton for 23 Geographic Information System professionals employed by local governments, utilities, universities, and corporations. Three FEMA contractors led the workshop -- Ivan Wong (seismologist, URS Corp.), Brian Kehoe (engineer, Wiss, Janney, Elstner Assoc.), and Jawhar Bouabid (HAZUS developer, Durham Technologies). See picture below. Funding for the training was provided by FEMA in response to a proposal by the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) and the California Office of Emergency Services (CA OES). In addition to the training, students received HAZUS 99 software, databases, a technical manual, a user manual on CD-ROM, and a course curriculum manual. BACKGROUND: The Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC), California Governor's Office of Emergency Services (OES), Wells Fargo & Company, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) are organizing the Southern California HAZUS User Group (SoCalHUG).  Public and private risk managers, GIS professionals, engineers, scientists, and others interested in using HAZUS are encouraged to participate. The FEMA Hazards U.S. (HAZUS) loss estimation methodology is a software program that is used to estimate losses from potential earthquakes. Once the characteristics of a hypothetical or actual earthquake are entered, HAZUS will estimate intensity of ground shaking, number of buildings damaged, number of casualties, damage to transportation systems, disruption to electrical and water utilities, etc., and the estimated total economic loss. HAZUS uses a geographic information system (GIS) to display results. The objectives of the Southern California HAZUS User Group (SoCalHUG) are to: * CREATE a comprehensive regional earthquake risk assessment. * NETWORK  risk managers, GIS professionals and earthquake experts. * TRAIN GIS professionals in using HAZUS. * IMPROVE earthquake modeling capabilities and databases * DEVELOP and exercise emergency management protocol. To join the user group and receive announcements of events, send your name, title, organization, phone, fax, e-mail, and mailing address to benthien@usc.edu Students participating in the HAZUS training. Jawhar Bouamid is presenting an overview of HAZUS.

Phone 213/740-5843 Fax     213/740-0011 e-mail: SCECinfo@usc.edu