Utah School Seismic Hazard Inventory

Haiti


This is the third year that Rep. Wiley has put forward this bill, this year under HB 72. Again, as with the past years, there was a large earthquake prior to the start of the legislative session, the earthquake in Haiti. Last year a few months prior to the legislative session there was the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan, China, and then there was the 2007 earthquake in Wells, Nevada. While what happend in Haiti and Sichuan, China would not happen in Utah, we have better building codes (much better) Utah would still receive large amounts of damage.

The Wells, Nevada earthquake is an excellent guide to what would more then likely happen across Utah. In the Wells earthquake, the high school became structurally unsafe and had students been in the school at the time of the earthquake it is very conceivable that there would have been major injures and possible fatalities.

HB 72 requires the creation of a Public School Seismic Safety Committee that is comprised of structural engineers (in other words, experts) who will then conduct a seismic safety evaluation on all of Utah's public schools. They are then to report their findings to the districts and to the state board of education.

Sichuan, China

Thats it. Thats all the bill requires. Well, it requires that the state reimburse the local school districts for any cost they may occur during the process and it also clears any liability of the state, locals or anyone involved in the process.

Why is this bill necessary?

Currently we don't have any idea how Utah schools will perform during an earthquake, besides new schools that were built to code. We can make a pretty good guess based on the year it was built and the materials it was built with. But the evaluation will give the state a much greater overall picture of the status of the schools and the risk Utah children are in while at school. Then the state can work with the school districts to decide which schools are a priority for either seismic retrofitting or for tearing down and building a new one. As funding is made available the state and school districts begin to check off schools one at a time.

This bill will make Utah's public schools a safe place for Utah's school children.

Wells, Nevada