Yesterday, we talked about some of the potential shortcomings in communication that could lead to a service outage were a large-scale earthquake to strike. But what about buildings? Although many have been designed with earthquake safety in mind, that isn’t the case for all structures.
This troubling line of thinking is explored at greater depth in a new report from NBC. In it, the authors examine a study from UC Berkeley that looked at the various buildings within the Los Angeles area that could be susceptible to structural damage in the event of an earthquake.
The study discovered that nearly 1,500 concrete buildings may lack the type of protections that could be advantageous should a serious earthquake hit LA. Commercial buildings topped the list of those susceptible structures, with schools following behind. All told, these buildings could hold almost 500,000 individuals if filled to maximum capacity.
The names and exact locations of these buildings have not been released, and officials are determining how best to use this information. Although that information could certainly be useful as a basis to carry out future inspections, the worry is that it will cause panic where none is necessarily warranted. The lead researcher noted that retrofitting or safety in some other regards may have already led to adequate protection. That means this is just a list of possible areas of concern.