Wednesday, October 23, 2024
Dear SCEC Community,

The SCEC-led Earthquake Country Alliance, in collaboration with the EERI Southern California Chapter, ASCE Infrastructure Resilience Division, ASCE Los Angeles Section, and SEAOSC, is pleased to announce the next two free webinars in the Northridge30 Series:

Episode 6 – The Northridge Earthquake: the Catalyst for Resilience of Healthcare in California
Wednesday, October 30, 2024 | 12 – 1 pm PDT

Like the 1971 Sylmar Earthquake and earlier seismic events, the 1994 Northridge Earthquake was another reminder that the health care system had critical fragilities and shortcomings in its ability to provide reliable critical services in a time of emergency. Just months after the Northridge earthquake, the State of California enacted what is known as Senate Bill 1953 (SB 1953) which was an amendment to the Alfred E. Alquist Hospital Seismic Safety Act of 1983 (commonly known as the Alquist Act). The Alquist Act established a seismic safety building standards program under the Department of Health Care Access and Information’s (HCAI) jurisdiction for hospitals built on or after March 7, 1973. The Act was initiated because of the loss of life incurred due to the collapse of hospitals during the Sylmar earthquake of 1971. The Act emphasizes that essential facilities, such as hospitals, should remain operational after an earthquake. Hospitals built in accordance with the standards of the Act resisted the January 1994 Northridge earthquake with minimal structural damage, while several facilities built prior to the Act experienced major structural damage and had to be evacuated. However, certain nonstructural components of the hospitals did incur damage, even facilities built in accordance with the structural provisions of the Act. The provisions and subsequent regulation language of SB 1953 amended the Act to address the issues of survivability of both nonstructural and structural components of hospital buildings after a seismic event. Therefore, the ultimate public safety benefit of the Act is to have general acute care hospital buildings that not only are capable of remaining intact after a seismic event, but also capable of continued operation and provision of acute care medical services after a seismic event. SB 1953’s purpose is to provide resiliency to the healthcare system to be able to provide the needed critical care services when disasters like earthquakes occur. This webinar will provide an overview of the SB 1953 program and present the progress of the program towards its ultimate goal of providing resilience in healthcare in California and be a model for other communities that face similar hazards.

Presenter:
Marshall Lew, Ph.D., G.E., Geotechnical Consultant and Former Member of the California Hospital Building Safety Board (1999-2006 and 2015-2023)

Learn more and register to participate



Episode 7 – Lessons learned about business losses and economic recovery – The Northridge Earthquake as a catalyst for research and application
Wednesday, November 13, 2024 | 12 – 1 pm PDT

Social science research on businesses affected by the Northridge earthquake was ground-breaking for understanding business interruption and losses, with an emphasis on how factors such as business characteristics and building and infrastructure performance affect outcomes for firms and organizations. In addition to providing an understanding of how businesses fare in the aftermath of disasters, organizational-level findings provided data inputs for the development of regional impact modeling. This webinar will provide an overview of the methods and findings from Northridge earthquake research and how studies of subsequent earthquakes, for example the 2014 S. Napa and the 2023 Kahramanmaras earthquakes, were influenced by but also expanded on the approach. The catalyst of the Northridge study is also evident in the framing of economic analyses for the HayWired earthquake scenario, including aspects of business characteristics, damage patterns, and macroeconomic impacts.

Presenters:
Kathleen Tierney, professor emerita in the Department of Sociology and research professor in the Institute of Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado Boulder
Dr. Cynthia Kroll, regional economist

Learn more and register to participate

Please share this announcement with others who may be interested in attending.



PREVIOUS EPISODES:

Episode 1 – The January 17, 1994 Northridge Earthquake - Science & Engineering Aspects
Wednesday, February 14, 2024 | 12 - 1:30pm PST
Episode 1 brought together experts from geophysics, geotechnical engineering, lifeline infrastructure systems, and structural engineering to provide an integrated view of the effects of the impactful Northridge Earthquake. While this dramatic event brought destruction to the heart of Los Angeles, it also improved understanding and engineering practice as we prepare for future earthquakes.
Learn more and view the webinar recording and slides

Episode 2 – Insurance Issues and Impacts Following the Northridge Earthquake
Tuesday, April 24, 2024 | 12 - 1pm PST
Presenters:
Charles Scawthorn (Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center & SPA Risk LLC)
Janiele Maffei (California Earthquake Authority)
Learn more and view the webinar recording and slides

Episode 3 – 30 Years of Progress in Quantification of Seismic Hazards
Wednesday, June 12, 2024 | 12 – 1 pm PDT
Presenter:
Yousef Bozorgnia (Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering & Director, Natural Hazards Risk and Resiliency Research Center (NHR3), UCLA)
Learn more and view the webinar recording and slides

Episode 4 – The Northridge Earthquake: An Unexpected Milestone in Real-Time Loss Estimation
Wednesday, July 24, 2024 | 12 – 1 pm PDT
Presenters:
Ronald T. Eguchi (CEO and Co-founder, ImageCat, Inc.)
David Wald (Research Geophysicist, USGS)
Learn more and view the webinar recording and slides

Episode 5 – Legacies of the Northridge Earthquake in Disaster Recovery Planning and Policy
Wednesday, August 28, 2024 | 12 – 1 pm PDT
Presenters:
Laurie Johnson (Principal, Laurie Johnson Consulting | Research)
Rob Olshansky (Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Learn more and view the webinar recording and slides

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