Almost 180 public university buildings in California used by thousands of people daily would be unsafe in a major earthquake, California Watch reports.
The risky buildings include classrooms, a child care center, a hospital and student apartments. University officials have known about seismic problems with many of these structures for years, the report found. UC Berkeley had the largest number of unsafe structures.
Among the report’s findings:
Dozens of new buildings have been built ahead of seismic safety projects that have languished. Projects with outside support, such as those receiving partial funding from donors, tend to get preference for state funding.
CSU policies don’t mandate fixing the most dangerous buildings first. A building at CSU Fullerton got funding for retrofitting in 1999, even though it was ranked 20th on the system’s list of hazardous structures. Eight of the buildings that were ahead of it remain to be fixed.
Rigid rules prohibit UC and CSU officials from using certain types of construction money on seismic repairs. Instead, both systems make due with limited pots of money for safety upgrades.”
Here’s the full report. California Watch also has maps on unsafe buildings in the University of California and the California State University systems.
