Sad
Bookworm on May 12 2008 at 10:06 pm | Filed under: Uncategorized
I think many of America’s planning departments have a Code fetish that is counter productive, since they try to impose on every single building — and every aspect of every building — a standard of perfection that is unreasonable for the ordinary risks and uses people face in connection with those structures. For example, if I were to build a second unit on my lot, I would have to make the unit wheelchair compliant, despite the fact that I’m not planning on having a wheelchair in there any time soon, or ever (God willing).
In a rational world, if I ever did need a wheelchair in there, I could make the improvement at a later date. Likewise, if I were to sell the house (and second unit) 20 years from now, the new owner could do a wheelchair remodel as he pleased. For me, the insistence on wheelchair compliance in the here and now is an unnecessary burden and is, in fact, one of the reasons why there will be no second unit on my lot.
Having said that, however, whenever I read about an earthquake in foreign parts where buildings collapse like pancakes and tens of thousands of people die, I’m grateful for the attention we pay to our buildings’ seismic security. While there are many obsessive Code requirements I can do without, the focus on structural solidity is not one of those wearisome, PC bureaucratic burdens.
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I’m still very worried about “The Big One”, which seems overdue for the San Andreas Fault.
I don’t think any amount of earthquake-proof design will preserve buildings in the face of that one. However, it could limit the worst damage and loss of life to a relatively small area, because the power of the earthquake diminishes rapidly as you move away from the epicenter. So there’s hope!
And we have come a long way in understanding the principles of flex and torque involved in earthquake effects that allow us to design buildings to withstand earthquakes. Our buildings are far better now than they were even twenty years ago. God help you if you’re in a building designed and built in the 70′s or earlier, though… The lack of flexibility and “give” in its structural framework will put you at great risk.
Near as I can tell, that was a 7.9 on the old Richter scale. At that level, most of what’s standing in San Francisco – and has been approved by building inspectors – is going to turn into a pancake, too.
It also was a specific type of sine wave type earthquake – not a good sharp twenty second California jolt: this was a very different sort of animal and went on for three solid minutes during which time the ground moved up and down as the waves passed through it. (Same kind of thing that’ll happen when the Cascadia fault lets go, and Seattle and Portland turn into brick dust and aluminum shards. They figure that one, with the length of the fault, will last for something more than five minutes.) You can’t really build anything that withstands minutes on end of that kind of stuff, code or no code. Los Angeles and San Francisco are not prone to this type of earthquake, which is lucky.
But all the building codes in the world wouldn’t have helped Szechuan yesterday – and will not help Seattle and Portland – with that type of quake. People got sick to their stomachs in Beijing – 900 miles away! Which is another interesting phenomenon of this type of wave quake: people 900 miles away weren’t feeling the ground shaking or anything like that: they were just being made nauseous on a very visceral level as the waves flew by beneath them. (Like tsunamis, the waves these things generate in the earth travel about 600 – 800 mph.)
I don’t have a link to stick in here about these types of quakes – but if interested, I bet if you just check out the Cascadia Fault you’ll find something. As I said: this is not the California jolt that happened in China yesterday.
I registered precisely because I wanted to comment on the evils of planning departments. I live in a town where ten years ago the powers that be took away the planning department and turned it over to the county. We have seen nothing but progress since, with new businesses coming in and a great increase in our tax base. My sister lives in Montecito and a couple of years ago decided to extensively remodel her home. She was told by two different architects that she needed to plant a certain number of oak trees on her property in order to comply with the Oak Tree Ordinance. She dutifully started to sprout hundreds of oak tree saplings in her garden with the intent to place them on the property where they were needed. To make a long story short – she decided to take a look at the ordinance because of conflicting information that she was receiving from various parties. At city hall in Santa Barbara, she went from floor to floor, up and down, and back down again, asking to see the Oak Tree Ordinance. It turns out that there isn’t one. Even though everyone thinks that there is one and all of the city departments say that there is one. Even though at least two architects in the area tell their clients that they must comply with this non-existant ordinance. She finally got someone to admit that it didn’t exist. Needless to say, her house is nearly finished and no one at city hall wants to mess with her anymore. She’s a lawyer.
I simply shake my head in wonder whenever I hear of a Californian complaining of the loss of civil liberties due to Bush Administration perfidy.
I have said before, and repeat for emphasis: I do not fear the Feds, they have too much on their plate, and too little competence to find and harass me. But, oh please protect me from the local and state-level Nannies who lust to micro-manage my life. They know where to find me.