City Officials Call On UC Professor To Release List Of Buildings At Risk During Quake
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — City officials are taking a step forward to identify older concrete buildings that might be at risk of collapsing in a major earthquake.
KNX1070's Claudia Peschiutta reports the head of the Department of Building and Safety has formally asked a UC Berkeley professor to share the list he and a team of researchers have compiled of approximately 1,500 possibly vulnerable buildings.
A request made by the city asking for the list was previously rejected by the research team, led by UC Berkeley engineering professor Jack P. Moehle, amid fears it would be used to single out specific buildings and prompt lawsuits.
While noting the list may not be complete and that researchers did not analyze the structural integrity of individual buildings, Raymond Chan writes the information may be useful to the department and to the city.
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A L.A. Times analysis found more than 1,000 buildings in the city and hundreds more in other parts of the county may be at risk.
Past efforts to catalog L.A.'s concrete buildings have failed but a spokesperson for mayor Eric Garcetti told Peschiutta: "We want the information."
Spokespersons for the Department of Building and Safety, UC Berkeley and the UC professor heading the research team have not responded to requests for comment.
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