Prepare Yourself And Your Family

   Identify Your Home's Structural Weaknesses

Buildings are built to withstand the downward pull of gravity, yet earthquakes shake a building in all directions - up and down, but most of all, sideways. There are several common issues that can limit a building's ability to withstand this sideways shaking.

• Inadequate foundations -
  http://www.earthquakecountry.info/roots/step4.html


• Unbraced cripple walls


• Soft First Stories


• Unreinforced Masonry

To find out if your home needs to be retrofitted against earthquakes, the best place to start is at the home retrofit class for homeowners.

http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/projectimpact/pages/pioverview/homeretrofit/classes.htm

Additional Resources

• FEMA Mitigation Division -
  http://www.fema.gov/about/divisions/mitigation/mitigation.shtm


• Seattle Project Impact -
  http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/projectimpact/


• Emergency Survival Program: Is Your Place Safe? -
  http://lacoa.org/PDF/ESP 2006/May 2006.pdf


• Professional Engineers for Small or Residential Projects -
  http://seaw.associationsonline.com/documents/Residential%20Engineer%20List.pdf

Campus Resources

• UW Hazard Mitigation Plan -
  http://www.washington.edu /emergency/mitigate/hmp.html


• UW Hazard Identification and Vulnerability Assessment (PDF) -
  http://www.washington.edu /emergency/mitigate/HIVA.pdf


• University of Washington Building Restoration and Renewal Prioritization Study, June 2004. -
  http://www.washington.edu/admin/pb/home/pdf/bldg-restor-final-study.pdf


• Capital Projects Office Project Tracking System - http://www.cpo.washington.edu/PTS/


• EH&S Capital Safety Projects - http://www.ehs.washington.edu/fsocapproj/index.shtm


• Earthquake Readiness Advisory Committee report -
  http://www.washington.edu /emergency/mitigate/erac.html

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