A Newsletter for the Neighbors of the University of California, Berkeley

Creating a disaster-resistant community

By Janet Huseby

In early December representatives from UC Berkeley and the city of Berkeley met at a forum titled "Promoting a Disaster-Resistant Community" to celebrate their individual and joint achievements in preparing for a major earthquake on the Hayward Fault and to plan for future collaboration in disaster mitigation. The city is drafting a federally required disaster mitigation plan, which will allow Berkeley to be eligible for future Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funding, both in preparation for and recovery from a disaster.

" We want to make Berkeley a community that can survive, recover from, and thrive after a disaster," said Phil Kamlarz, the city's acting city manager. "We see making this a reality by identifying and reducing vulnerabilities, improving emergency response and preparation, and using disaster-resistant land- use planning."

The forum was convened by the Berkeley Alliance, a partnership of the city, campus, and school district. Attending the meeting were Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl, earthquake engineering leader Professor Emeritus Vitelmo Bertero, and School Superintendent Michelle Lawrence, as well as representatives from BART, PG&E, EBMUD, city and campus departments, and community commissions that advise the city council.

According to FEMA, the city of Berkeley is a model for disaster preparedness and hazard mitigation. Since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, virtually every major public building in Berkeley has been upgraded to be more fire- and earthquake-resistant, including seven fire stations, the civic center building, and main library. In addition, the city has built a new Emergency Operations Center and Public Safety Administration Building on Martin Luther King Jr. Way and calculates that 60 percent of private homes have been seismically improved. With special bond funding, the Berkeley Unified School District has retrofitted all 16 public schools during the past decade, an achievement that is unique among California school districts. The city and school district are currently placing emergency and medical supplies at every school site and in designated neighborhood locations throughout the city.

For its part, UC Berkeley has retrofit or replaced 31 buildings on campus, including several large classroom buildings, Moffitt and Doe Libraries, Haas Pavilion, and eight high-rise residence halls. Five major projects are now either near completion or in the pipeline, and plans to replace the seismically poor Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive are beginning to take shape. Annual disaster drills have simulated natural and terrorist-caused events, involving hundreds of staff from the campus, city departments, and community agencies.

" It is remarkable how much we have accomplished in shoring up buildings and planning for the future," said Ed Denton, UC Berkeley's vice chancellor for facilities services. "Both the city and the university have made excellent progress. Now we must make sure that when a disaster strikes we work in unison to get the city up and running as fast as possible."

The city's draft Disaster Mitigation Plan looks at the four major natural and two "manmade" hazards that threaten the city: earthquakes, wildfires, landslides, floods, hazardous material accidents, and acts of terror. The U.S. Geological Survey calculates that there is a 62 percent chance that a 6.7 earthquake will strike the Bay Area in the next 30 years, with a 27 percent chance that it will occur on the Hayward/Rogers Creek fault system that runs directly through Berkeley. Fire and flood are annual dangers, and man-made terror is impossible to predict. But, as the forum made clear, by preparing for a major earthquake the city and campus are better prepared for any disaster.

High on the city's priority list is strengthening or replacing Old City Hall (currently headquarters of the Berkeley Unified School District), the Veterans' Memorial building, and Center Street Garage; improving vegetation management; shoring up "soft-story buildings," which are multistory apartment buildings built over garages; and continuing the ongoing program that has already retrofitted 500 of the city's 600 unreinforced masonry buildings.

In addition to work on buildings, the city and the university work together on many public safety issues. UC Berkeley's full-service police department works closely with the Berkeley Police Department. The two agencies patrol the southside area and back each other up as needed. UC Berkeley's bomb squad handles all bomb threats in Berkeley, Albany, and Oakland as well as in Marin and Contra Costa Counties. The university and the city are also working together on fire mitigation in the hill areas and in rental housing.

Berkeley's Disaster Mitigation Plan should go before city commissions in early 2004 and be ready for approval by the city council in late spring.

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