![]() And even in L.A., city officials have yet to address the potential seismic risk of older steel-frame high-rises built before the 1994 Northridge earthquake. “This includes adopting the latest seismic building codes and investing in earthquake resilience projects.”īut many other cities in California have not acted to require retrofits. “This study reinforces the nation’s need to be proactive about making communities safer from threats like earthquakes,” FEMA Deputy Administrator Erik Hooks said in a statement. Homeowners in certain ZIP Codes in Los Angeles, Pasadena, San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley can apply for retrofit grants of up to $13,000 through the end of May to strengthen “ soft-story homes,” where there’s a top-heavy living space built over a garage that is vulnerable to collapse in an earthquake. It was three days before Christmas when a magnitude 6.5 earthquake rocked the Central Coast in 2003.įEMA and state officials have worked to make grants available for retrofits. An analysis estimated that at least $1.3 billion was spent on those retrofits.Ĭalifornia Liability for quake losses a big concern for L.A. A Los Angeles law passed in 2015 requiring that apartment buildings with flimsy first stories - often used for carports - be strengthened has resulted in retrofits of more than 8,700 out of 12,400. Some cities in California have required property owners to retrofit certain types of vulnerable buildings. ![]() A retrofit now can cost far less than repairing extensive damage after an earthquake, which could leave a building so wrecked it might need to be replaced. The state’s rise in property values could enable some owners to use the equity they’ve accumulated to finance retrofits, experts say. Retrofitting them now would leave cities far more resilient - keeping people alive, homes intact, and workplaces and neighborhoods functional. Much like Los Angeles, Istanbul is facing a double crisis - a severe housing shortage and extreme earthquake risk - leaving residents in a bind.Ī significant portion of California’s buildings constructed in the 20th century are vulnerable to earthquake damage or collapse. World & Nation Housing shortage plus earthquake risk? It’s not just a problem in L.A. How much the yearly car insurance premium will be can vary, depending on factors such as the driver’s age, accident history and the type of vehicle driven. It’s similar to how car insurers calculate the premium people pay yearly: People might be in a collision once every few years, but insurers calculate a yearly bill for drivers that takes into account the annual average projected cost of future collisions. ![]() ![]() The authors of the report calculated an “annualized” earthquake loss to average out the cost of earthquake damage on a yearly basis. “It’s a sobering reminder about why we need to prepare for those rare but large earthquakes, as just one major event can eclipse the costs of the more frequent but smaller ones,” USGS Director David Applegate said in a statement. And the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area would lose roughly $90 billion. Of that total, the five-county Southern California region - L.A., Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties - would lose nearly $150 billion. ![]() Such a figure is consistent with recent earthquake scenarios, such as a magnitude 7.8 earthquake on the southern San Andreas fault or a magnitude 7 earthquake on the Hayward fault. The projected annual average earthquake losses in other areas of California include $1.3 billion for Riverside and San Bernardino counties, $917 million for the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara metro area, $285 million for San Diego County and $220 million for Ventura County.Īssuming the yearly earthquake loss projection remains the same, over the course of three decades, California is projected to lose $288 billion from earthquake damage. The seismic price tag for California is about 65% of the nation’s annual earthquake cost, which is $14.7 billion a year. ![]()
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