San Francisco OKs quake retrofitting for at-risk buildings
Friday, April 19, 2013 - 00:46
in Earth & Climate
Owners would be required to reinforce wood-frame soft-story buildings with parking garages or storefronts on the ground floor built before 1978. Some of the most extensive damage and loss of life from recent earthquakes in California have occurred in apartment houses where dwellings sit on top of a ground-level parking garage or a storefront. The shaking undermines the bottom floor, causing the buildings to collapse and in some cases to pancake.