June 23, 2010

A California appellate court upheld a San Luis Obispo County jury decision to award the families of two women who were killed when a Paso Robles building collapsed on them almost $2 million in damages. [Judgment]

The 111-year-old Acorn Building in Paso Robles was not reinforced to handle an earthquake.

Both Jennifer Lynn Myrick and Marilyn Frost-Zafuto worked in a clothing store in the building. In December 2003, during the San Simeon earthquake, a portion of the building collapsed, crushing them.

On appeal, the defendant, building owner Mary Mastagni, argued she had no duty to retrofit the building until 2018, the deadline established by a city ordinance.

The Ventura-based Second District California Court of Appeals upheld the lower court’s decision.

“Certainly, the city considered the interests of building owners in setting the deadline for compliance,” said Justice Arthur Gilbert in the appellate court’s decision. “But the overriding policy behind the seismic retrofit ordinance, taken as a whole, is not the promotion of the interests of building owners. Instead, the overriding policy is public safety.”

Source: CalCoastNews.com

                                          P R E S S   R E L E A S E

                                                                           Contacts:

                                                                          Michael Essrig                                 Ron Marcus

                                                                          President                                         Public Relations

                                                                          ETC                                                 Shindy Media

                                                                          818-571-4040                                  858-224-2098

                                                                          This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it @ This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it                                 This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it @ This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ETC BUILDING & DESIGN GROWS DESPITE DOWN ECONOMY, MAKING FIVE KEY HIRES
California-based construction/architecture firm specializing in healthcare/biotech & seismic retrofit
hires five seasoned architects and construction experts to support its accelerating growth.

SAN DIEGO, CA -- May 25, 2011 -- ETC Building & Design announced today the expansion of its architecture and building divisions with the hiring of five senior level staffers. These key additions will help the company meet the increasing demands of its fast-expanding client base. The company, with several offices across California and clients throughout the Western United States, has continued to enjoy rapid growth even while the construction/design industry has remained depressed in the down economy. ETC has proven resilient during the recession with its focus on providing highly specialized architectural design and construction services for the healthcare and life science industries, enhanced with its unique expertise in seismic retrofit for hospitals and biotech facilities. Each of the new hires brings decades of experience to the ETC team. The hires include:

• David E. Keiser, AIA, ACHA, EDAC, Healthcare Architect
• David B. Mobley, Architect, Interior Designer
• Russell Klapperich, Project Manager/Superintendent
• Paul Grogan, Project Manager/Superintendent
• Roger Slater, Concrete Superintendent

Key Hire Biographies:

David E. Keiser, AIA, ACHA, EDAC, Healthcare Architect

David E. Keiser, AIA ACHA EDAC has focused his professional career of over 30 years on medical facilities planning and design, working for top architectural firms throughout California. Keiser is a registered architect in the State of California and a Board-Certified Healthcare Architect (one of 400 in the United States). His experience includes all aspects of medical facility design – strategic planning and programming, master planning, facility design, project management, engineering coordination, medical equipment planning and construction administration – with an emphasis on the functional and operational requirements of each project. He has served as Project Planner or Planning Team Lead for numerous projects, with extensive experience in developing work plans, creating conceptual and detailed design documents, interfacing between clients’ user groups, and planning and coordinating medical equipment. Keiser has worked on both new construction and renovation projects, including phased construction of active clinical departments. He has also routinely participated in documents approval processes with the State of California (OSHPD), California Department of Public Health-Licensing (CDPH) and other agencies with jurisdiction. Keiser’s vast portfolio of project planning and management of new construction, expansion, renovations and remodels includes Clarian Cancer Hospital, Indianapolis, IN; Tri-City Medical Center, Oceanside, CA; Holy Cross Hospital, Silver Spring, MD; Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, San Francisco, CA; Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA; several Kaiser Permanente facilities throughout California; St. Luke’s International Hospital, Tokyo, Japan, Florida Hospital, Orlando, FL, Clinica las Condes, Santiago, Chilé; and the Williamsport Hospital, Williamsport, PA.

David B. Mobley, Architect, Interior Designer

With 10 years in corporate architecture and 21 years in private practice, David Mobley brings to ETC a varied background in large-scale institutional and commercial facilities architecture, master site planning, interior design, industrial design and illustration. His concentration on project front-end tasks including concept ideation, development and presentation compliments and adds another creative dimension to ETC’s technical and construction expertise. Mr. Mobley is a native Californian, 1980 graduate of Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, California licensed architect and NCIDQ-certified interior designer. Prior to joining ETC, he worked for two large architectural firms as a design architect for such clients as the U.S. Navy, University of California, California State University, Loma Linda University and Sharp Memorial Hospital where he produced master development plans and new building designs for medical and dental clinics. He is also a professional scale-model craftsman who provides ETC and its clients a truly unique skill set in the production of museum-quality scale replicas for marketing, fund-raising, promotion, space planning, design and human factors study. 

 Russell Klapperich, Project Manager/Superintendent

In his experience-packed career, Russell Klapperich has worked as Project Manager on large construction and tenant improvement projects for major hospitals. Prior to joining ETC, Russell worked as a project manager for McCarthy Building Companies, Inc., one of the top ten U.S. commercial builders. He recently oversaw the building of Rady Children’s Hospital’s new Acute Care Pavilion, leading a team of 23 through the completion of this $200M project. Other projects include Good Samaritan Hospital (30 TIs totaling $10M), Legacy Hospital Systems (20 TIs totaling $10M at Emanuel; two projects totaling $5M at Mt. Hood), Providence Health Care (four TI's totaling $10M) and Oregon Health Sciences University (four TIs totaling $10M). Russell also worked as Assistant Project Manager on the Rancho Springs Medical Center, a $36M project. His responsibilities included MEP coordination, costs, budget and profit projections, working directly with the owner, architect, users group and design team. Prior to his post at McCarthy, Russell worked at Howard S. Wright Construction Co. in Portland, OR, managing hundreds of medical tenant improvements in various hospitals, with projects ranging from $500K to $2M in size. Responsibilities included estimating, contracts, project management and closeout. Russell is a U.S. Navy veteran, serving in the first Gulf War and in the Philippines clean up after the Mt. Pinatubo eruption. He holds a degree in Civil Engineering from Portland State University.

 Paul Grogan, Project Manager/Superintendent

Paul Grogan has worked in construction at top firms for over 17 years in numerous capacities on projects for healthcare, educational and other types of facilities. His expansive experience includes being a construction manager
or sr. project manager on numerous multi-million dollar construction projects from award to completion, a subcontractor (remodeling over 60 homes in Los Angeles) and a general contractor (his own business for six years). Paul spent a good portion of his career at a large firm in Los Angeles acting as an owner-authorized representative for the Los Angeles Unified School District, and as project manager on a variety of FEMA projects. He also has extensive experience writing and negotiating contacts, ensuring contract compliance, interfacing with various governmental agencies, acquiring permits and establishing city licenses, bonds and applicable insurance. He is a member of the Construction Management Association of America (CMAA) and a graduate of Riverdale Technical College (Liverpool, UK) in Building Studies, Plumbing, Bricklaying and Carpentry.

Roger Slater, Concrete Superintendent

Roger Slater has worked as a superintendent for nearly three decades with focused expertise in concrete. His expansive experience includes the significant seismic retrofit at Santa Monica hospital incorporating epoxy injection after the Northridge quake of 1994, the seismic retrofit at Hoag Hospital, and an MRI facility at Mission Viejo hospital. He’s also worked on projects at oil refineries, for aviation companies including Boeing and McDonnell Douglass, at the Queen Mary terminal in Long Beach, CA (involving some very complex concrete work) and at the Fashion Island shopping complex in Newport Beach, CA. Roger has performed and supervised virtually every kind of concrete construction work, including structural overhangs, columns, piles, caissons, floor leveling and overlays. Roger’s long career includes positions at Pre Con Industries, HBA Inc. and ICE Builders, as well as running his own contracting business for eight years, where he averaged some 80 jobs annually. 

 About ETC Building & Design

ETC Building & Design is a privately held corporation specializing in the design and construction of health care and life science facilities. ETC is the foremost provider of seismic retrofitting to health care and biotech facilities in the Western United States, a specialization that is very unique in the construction industry. The firm has also completed over 3 million square feet of hospital tenant improvements over the past nine years and recently formed a Biotech Division with a seasoned team of professionals specializing in projects for the life science sector. ETC is headquartered in San Diego, CA, with offices in Los Angeles and the San Francisco bay area.

#     #     #

This week, the Bay Area team is working in a lab at a major life science company not too far from the San Andreas Fault.

There are hundreds of such companies all over the area, many of which suffered significant damage in the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989.  We're using the Safe-T-Proof Fastening System, putting safety straps on analyzers, centrifuges, HPLC's and all sorts of lab equipment.  There was one piece in one of the labs I hadn't seen before, so out of curiosity I looked up it's value on the internet.  A new one of these machines costs $175,000.  That got me to thinking.

Certainly not all items we are securing cost this much, and some probably cost a bit more, but overall we are securing around 300 items for under $10,000.  When you stop to consider the cost of securing items versus the cost of the items themselves, and then look at the addtiional cost to companies of lost research and down time after an earthquake, it's amazing to me that securing items isn't a standard operating procedure, and part of planning and setting up of new spaces, in ALL lab environments.

Yet in this lab the motivation for doing the work was not the enormous potential return on investment.  When I asked the department head why she was getting the work done when so few others do, she replied:  "I care about my crew.  I don't want anything to happen to them in an earthquake, and I have to be able to sleep at night."

Now THAT's a good return on investment!

During a recent facility walk through to determine seismic risk, I had the opportunity to interact with a Fortune 50 facilities representative as he prioritized the need for securing item contents. 

There is a wide variety of approaches companies take in determining risk.  Some hire experts such as Peter Yanev to do an analysis and help guide the organization into an overall business continuity plan based on actual earthquake damage around the world.  In other words, fix what actually will fail.  Some entities have committees with varied backgrounds, who gather up as much information as possible in an attempt to come up with informed decisions.  In these cases, each member may have his or her own bias, and area of assumed risk.   I imagine conversations such as:  “We need to fasten everything worth more than $10,000 with safety straps.”  Or, “We need to fasten everything that is radioactive.”  Or perhaps, “We need to fasten everything in my department”.  Maybe there is one person who maintains, “We need to fasten everything!”

Still, in more cases than not, the decision on what to fasten is left to one person who simply gives it his or her best shot.  On this particular walkthrough, the facilities representative shared three pieces of information that influenced his prioritization process:

1. That item is too big to move in an earthquake.  It IT moves, we’re all dead.
2. That item MIGHT move in an earthquake, but adhesive fasteners aren’t going to hold it – any better than double-stick tape would.
3. We don’t need to fasten that (In this case computer monitors) because they don’t really cost much.

If there are three points every organization should understand, it is these:

1. EVERYTHING moves in an earthquake.  You need to determine if an item moving creates a problem.
2. Adhesive based fasteners can work INCREDIBLY WELL in earthquakes.  The larger the adhesive, the better it works.  The better the adhesive, the better it works.
3. THERE  IS AN ECONOMY OF SCALE associated with earthquake damage.  A company losing 3 monitors may not have an issue.  A company losing 3000 most likely will.  Additionally, if one company loses monitors in an earthquake, it is likely others will as well—and there is likely to be a monitor supply shortage after the earthquake.

 The committee member who says, “We need to fasten everything!” just may have it right.

Despite reports you may have heard to the contrary the most dangerous room in most homes is the kitchen, at least from the earthquake damage point of view. If you look at quake aftermath pictures you will find lots and lots of kitchen pictures because the destruction is stunning. Most people literally just have to shovel them out and start all over. Some I talked to over the years not only had to replace appliances (on your own dime by the way, most insurance does not cover contents) but flooring as well. Why? Picture a delightful mixture of salsa, red wine and soy sauce, just to name a few crashed to the floor. Mix that with no water, I’m afraid to go back in my house for 3 days, and if I’m lucky and my bleach and ammonia from under the sink didn’t mix while they were slamming around the kitchen and I avoid that pesky toxic cloud. (Note to self: Move the drain cleaner)

There is a lot of unusual earthquake activity going on these days.

The recent Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand was a magnitude 6.3 but shook the ground with more G-Force than any earthquake ever measured.

Aside from the devastating tsunami it spurned, the huge Japan earthquake’s shaking caused liquefaction to occur in dynamic ways that had never been recorded.

And now, on the border of California and Nevada, dozens of earthquakes, many over magnitude 4, are occurring every few days in an area where there supposedly aren’t any faults.  Why is this of concern?  Many destructive earthquakes occur on previously unknown faults.

Our mapping of exact fault locations is far from complete.  To quote world-renown earthquake engineering expert Peter Yanev, “In most of California, you might as well assume you are right on top of a fault whether or not it is listed on a map!”

Check out the image below.  293 earthquake centered mostly around one area near Hawthorne, Nevada.

And while the cluster of earthquakes shown on the USGS map above don’t appear to be too close to major metropolitan areas, recent history tells us that 200 miles isn’t too far for an earthquake wave to travel to cause significant damage.  The location of these quakes is about 130 miles south of Reno, and about the same distance away from Stockton and Fresno.

It may be nothing.  Then again…

The scale of Japan's March 11 earthquake and tsunami wasn't the only thing that surprised geologists.

The 9.0 earthquake in Japan — the fourth most powerful quake ever recorded — also caused an unusually severe and widespread shift in soil through liquefaction, a new study suggests.

Near coastlines, harbors and rivers, earthquakes can make the wet, sandy soil jiggle, turning it temporarily from a solid to a liquid state, a process known as liquefaction. Heavy sand and rock sinks, while water and lighter sand bubble to the surface. The slurry spreads, often toward the water, and the surface shifts.

Japan's liquefaction occurred over hundreds of miles, surprising even experienced engineers who are accustomed to seeing disaster sites, including from the recent earthquakes in Chile and New Zealand.

Other areas vulnerable

The study raises questions about whether existing building codes in other vulnerable locations can enable structures to withstand massive liquefaction, including in areas of Oregon, Washington and California.

"We've seen localized examples of soil liquefaction as extreme as this before, but the distance and extent of damage in Japan were unusually severe," said Scott Ashford, a study team member from Oregon State University.

"Entire structures were tilted and sinking into the sediments, even while they remained intact," said Ashford, who is based in Corvallis, Ore. "The shifts in soil destroyed water, sewer and gas pipelines, crippling the utilities and infrastructure these communities need to function. We saw some places that sank as much as 4 feet," or 1.2 meters.

Long-lasting quake

The duration of the Japanese earthquake, about five minutes, could be the key to the severity of the liquefaction and may force researchers to reconsider the extent of liquefaction damage possible.

"With such a long-lasting earthquake, we saw how structures that might have been okay after 30 seconds just continued to sink and tilt as the shaking continued for several more minutes," Ashford said. "And it was clear that younger sediments, and especially areas built on recently filled ground, are much more vulnerable."

An event almost exactly like Japan's is expected in the Pacific Northwest from the Cascadia Subduction Zone, and the new findings make it clear that liquefaction will be a critical issue in the young soils there.

"Young" sediments, in geologic terms, are those deposited within the past 10,000 years or so. In Oregon, for instance, that describes much of downtown Portland, the Portland International Airport, nearby industrial facilities and other cities and parts of the Willamette Valley.

About 1,100 bridges in Oregon are at risk from an earthquake on the Cascadia Subduction Zone, according to the Oregon Department of Transportation. Fewer than 15 percent of them have been retrofitted to prevent collapse.

Some damage may be reduced or prevented by different construction techniques or retrofitting, Ashford said. But another reasonable goal is to at least anticipate the damage — to know what will probably be destroyed, make contingency plans for what will be needed to implement repairs, and design ways to help protect and care for residents until services can be restored, the researchers say.

Article from www.LiveScience.com

I’ve been in the earthquake preparedness business long enough to see an enormous variety of methods used to secure furniture, as well as myths regarding the nature of earthquakes, and multiple ways people have advised on how to survive an earthquake.

Here are a few highlights to help you prepare before an earthquake, and thrive after an earthquake:

• Utilize the USGS website (usgs.gov) for accurate earthquake information
• Don’t get in a doorway in a quake, get under a table and hold on
• If you are in bed in an earthquake, stay there and put a pillow on your head.  The so-called “Triangle of Life” is nonsense.
• Do not secure furniture with pot-metal l-brackets.  Stay away from Velcro fasteners which don’t have an adequate 90% pull resistance, and those open/close flap fasteners that fold close, as they also have a 90 degree deficiency.  I recommend the Safe-T-Proof fastening system, which features a locking system that works well regardless of the direction of the pull. The SAFE-T-PROOF safety fasteners and furniture fasteners can be seen demonstrated in the Mobile Earthquake Simulator on this Earthquake Simulator video
• Unless you want to change out the product a couple of times a year, stay away from wax to secure your valuables like statues and collectibles.  Instead use putty.  Putty’s don’t dry out and don’t need to be replaced.  I prefer the “Quake Secure” product.
• Take the number of people in your family and add them up.  Take the total number of pets in your family and divide by two.  Add the totals together and multiply by 10.  That is how many gallons of water you need to have on hand.  My family has me, my wife, my step-daughter, and my mother-in-law.  That is four people.  We have 3 cats and a dog.  Four pets divided by two is two.  Four plus two is six.  Six time ten is sixty.  That is how much emergency drinking water we have.  It is in sealed water barrels, and has a preservative and a 5 year shelf life.
• Keep construction grade (3 mil) trash bags and cat litter on hand to turn your non-functioning toilet (after an earthquake) into a functioning toilet.
• Buy the book “Peace of Mind in Earthquake Country” by Peter Yanev and read it cover to cover.
• Hide at least $200 in cash somewhere safe so you can get it after an earthquake.

 Complete each of these as described and sit back and relax.  You are now more prepared for an earthquake than 95% of Americans!