The Nevada Earthquake Safety Council

Twenty Years of vision and promotion of an earthquake-

resilient Nevada

• August 1978 Governor Mike O’Callaghan established a 10-member Ad Hoc Panel on Seismic Hazard Mitigation.

• They found that seismic safety efforts in Nevada were in considerable disarray with little communication and coordination and that needed programs were not being undertaken or were seriously underfunded.

• The Panels #1 recommendation: establish a 5-Year Seismic Safety Council to bring “order out of chaos”.

• To accomplish this they drafted legislation patterned after Utah’s “Seismic Safety Advisory Council” and submitted it to the 1979 legislature, which did not pick this bill up or consider the Panel’s five recommendations or thirty-eight additional conclusions.

Beginnings

• We noticed the Ad Hoc Panel’s #1 recommendation and NBMG sent out a letter of inquiry and promoting the idea of a Nevada Seismic Safety Council in early 1992.

• NDEM, NBMG, and UNRSL decided to have a meeting at UNR, NDEM organized and led the effort.

May 27, 1992 • First meeting of the “Preliminary Seismic Safety

Council”; 18 people

• Facilitated by Joanne Hoffard of NDEM

• First presentation – Earthquake Hazard in Nevada, dePolo

• Discussed the Council, who should be on it,

June 24, 1992

• Presentation by Timothy Cronin of the California Seismic Safety Commission: development of California’s Commission and the duty and role of government in promoting seismic safety.

January 29, 1993

• Nevada Seismic Safety Council • No official mandate yet • John Anderson, Chairman

Assembly Bill 445

• April 1, 1993 • Forty-one cosponsors • Establish an Earthquake Safety Council • Set forth membership composition • $20k • Died in committee

First Nevada Earthquake Awareness Week

• April 18 – April 24, 1993 • Schools hold earthquake drill during week

– Letter to Nevada School Superintendents

March 26, 1993

• Nevada’s Earthquake Risk Reduction Plan 1993-1997 Priority 1: Establish a Seismic Safety Council, Priority 2: Hold regional multistate exercise,

later endorsing a planning scenario be created to facilitate this,

Priority 3: Upgrade seismic zone maps to reflect “current assessments”.

August 27, 1993

• First Las Vegas meeting • 24 attendees including Lynn • Future of Council discussed:

– Name changed to Nevada Earthquake Safety Council,

– Established as advisory body to Nevada Emergency Management Division,

– Needs mission statement,

– Concentrate on statewide issues, – Tranfer knowledge from NEHRP program to

Nevada users, – Link between private sector and public sector, – Be an inclusive versus an exclusive

organization, – Quarterly meetings.

September 1993 Workshop

• Two-day earthquake-safety workshop UNR Engineering Conference Center,

• Led by FEMA contractor,

February 18, 1994

• Meeting at McCarran International Airport, • Bylaws reviewed,

• Talks on the September 1993 Klamath

Falls earthquake (M6) and the 1994 Northridge earthquake (M6.7).

February 23, 1996

• Committees – Awareness and Education Committee – Response and Recovery – Engineering and Architecture – Risk Assessment – Geosciences

August 23, 1996

• Suggested Guidelines for Evaluating Potential Surface Fault Rupture/Land Subsidence Hazards in Nevada

August 22, 1997

• HAZUS Presentation by John Perry and Ron Hess – M6 in Las Vegas

• Earthquake Awareness and Mitigation

Week – Statewide poster contest

NESC Awards in Excellence began 2000

• Corey Farley, RGJ columnist • NDOT Highway 80 Bridge Retrofit • Keith Rogers, LVRJ reporter • Carson City School District, nonstruct. mit. • iGo Corporation, employee eq. awareness • Las Vegas Academy, eq. prep. • Nevada Public Works, CC Courthouse

retro.

February 18, 2000 • 2000 Nevada Earthquake Calendar,

60 entries for poster contest across the state >17,000 delivered to each teacher in the state

• Guidelines for Evaluating Liquefaction in Nevada,

• Update 1999 Hector Mine M7.1 earthquake in California.

May 19, 2000

• Living with Earthquakes in Nevada • Tsunami Hazard at Lake Tahoe

• Sept. 2000 Joint meeting of seismic safety

commissions and councils at the National Earthquake Risk Mitigation Meeting

February 23, 2001

• Two-hour media event – Nevada Earthquake Hazards

• Held South and North meetings

• Post-Earthquake Media Scripts

February 22, 2002

• Las Vegas Valley Fault Exposure • AEG Publication

August 23, 2002

• Council well under way drafting and promoting Nevada Earthquake Safety Act of 2003,

• Meeting of Nov. 16, 2002, Mark James significantly changed wording of act,

• AB 57 Approved June 9, 2003

Include the seismic provisions when adopting building codes in Nevada

HAZUS REPORTS

• Hess and dePolo (2006) each county, • Price and others (2009) 38 Nevada

communities, • Price and others (2011) Loss estimation

for the Wells earthquake, • Price and others (2011) comparison of

ShakeMap versus HAZUS default values.

May 10, 2007

• Joint meeting with the Utah Seismic Safety Commission in St. George, Utah,

• Have met twice since together, in Wells, Nevada (May 20, 2009) and Las Vegas (Nov. 9, 2011).

Window of opportunity afforded by earthquakes

• Supported usual media needs

• Living with Earthquakes in Nevada was printed and included as an insert in the Reno Gazette Journal; NBMG did a rapid update of the booklet and FEMA Region IX funded.

2010 First Nevada ShakeOut

• Extraordinary Public Relations/Awareness/Preparedness Tool

• 110,000 signed up,

• 2011 Great Nevada ShakeOut;195,000 signed up; all but one school district.

2011-2012 Nevada URM Building Inventory

Accomplishments

Accomplishments

NESC brought “order out of chaos”.

Accomplishments

NESC brought “order out of chaos”. Established communication and

coordinated earthquake safety efforts.

Accomplishments

NESC brought “order out of chaos”. Established communication and

coordinated earthquake safety efforts. Undertook new efforts and enhanced

funding efforts in the seismic arena.

Benefits of NESC • Awareness and preparedness is up in the state,

• Earthquake drills are held in schools again whereas they

were rare before,

• Teachers becoming more informed about earthquakes,

• Earthquake disaster response capabilities are vastly better, due to a lot of factors, but the drumbeat from the Council and the visualizations of earthquakes and hazards provided supported these efforts and plans.

Benefits of NESC

• Working relationships are critical for disaster response and uniform messaging to the public.

• Earthquake insurance for public facilities in the state (economic protection).

Benefits of NESC Publications:

• Western Nevada has been exercised eight

times, one of the most exercised scenarios in the Nation,

• One of the ten ways put out in the RGJ to tell someone was in Mogul in 2008, was having “Living with Earthquakes in Nevada” on their coffee table.

NESC

• Building a foundation for an earthquake-resistant Nevada, brick by brick,

• Nevada’s social cueing for earthquake preparedness and mitigation. One of the teams in the state that is giving a uniform voice for earthquake safety,

• Consistent voice for earthquake safety.