Ferndale Earthquake Reconnaissance & Webinar
Designing for functional recovery does not mean designing for no damage, but rather designing to prevent damage that prevents the building from being occupiable and functional. Our analytical methods for estimating functional recovery times (mentioned in the earlier article in this newsletter) depend heavily on what damage can/cannot be accommodated while the building remains functional. To help ground-truth what types of damage are allowable/unallowable, SP3 Senior Research Engineer Ed Almeter is currently in the Ferndale area documenting damage and seeing how this relates to which businesses/residences are currently functioning or closed. This shows the many work-arounds that building occupants can use to accommodate damage and still function, and also the key damage states that close buildings and businesses (and which we need to design against). Some sample pictures are available below. This targeted investigation supplements our previous broader red-tagging validation studies that we have completed in the past for the 1994 Northridge earthquake (based on documented tagging for 2M buildings). Links to public works on this study are provided below for both the Science Direct journal paper and the 17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering (17WCEE) paper.