Quake authority leader says older homes in Fresno County not ready for the next big one

2020 was indeed a year like no other. The horrible COVID-19 pandemic claimed the lives of over 25,000 Californians by year’s end (and many more since then), and historic wildfires produced harsh evidence of unrelenting climate change. And yet, as difficult and deadly as the past year has been, the sobering reality is that 2020 could have been far worse had the state been hit by a powerful earthquake during this time of struggle.

Scientists tell us that the risk of a damaging earthquake happening somewhere in our state is very real, no matter the other crises we happen to be facing either individually or as a society. Even the Central Valley is at risk, with the San Andreas fault system to the west, the Garlock fault to the south and the faults of the Sierra Nevada to the east. And countless homes — our bunkers in this battle against COVID-19, where we are hunkered down and awaiting our turn for a vaccine — might not be strong enough to withstand the next damaging earthquake.

More than 1 million houses in California are particularly vulnerable to damage from earthquake shaking because they were built before 1980, when modern seismic building codes were put in place statewide. Just as senior citizens are more susceptible to COVID-19, older houses that have a crawl space may have weaknesses that can cause them to slide off their foundation when the ground shakes — potentially destroying the house or producing damage that can require several years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair. This type of damage happened even in the “moderate” magnitude 6.0 earthquake in Napa in 2014.

Many people believe the government will bail them out if an earthquake badly damages their home. This is a false hope. Government assistance, if available, is extremely limited. FEMA grants are not guaranteed, and the average FEMA grant awarded after the 2014 Napa quake was just $2,670 — nowhere near enough to cover the costs of repairing a house that has toppled off its foundation.

Significant damage to a house also means displaced residents, who may need to stay in emergency shelters or hotels, or with family or friends, for months or even years. Or they may need to find other permanent housing altogether.

Fortunately for these older, more vulnerable houses, there is a solution: a simple seismic retrofit. For many houses, a basic retrofit that costs between $3,000 and $7,000 — and can even be done by a skilled do-it-yourselfer — can help prevent this devastating damage from happening in the first place. The work simply consists of bracing the walls in the house’s crawl space and bolting it to the foundation — a project that can be done in a day or two. Learn more about vulnerable houses and how to strengthen them at www.StrengthenMyHouse.com.

Seismically retrofitting an older house is like the homeowner receiving a COVID-19 vaccine — a retrofit significantly strengthens the immunity of that home to help prevent catastrophic earthquake damage.

Many communities in California have high concentrations of vulnerable, older homes: More than 80 percent of the housing units in San Francisco County, nearly 75 percent in Los Angeles County and about 50 percent in Fresno County were built before 1980. Retrofitting older homes on a large scale in these communities will be necessary to develop “herd immunity”— resulting in the entire community becoming more seismically resilient by shoring up the vulnerable homes throughout.

We cannot stop the next earthquake from happening, nor can we dictate when or where it will strike. But we can “flatten the curve” regarding the amount of heartache and loss that earthquake will produce. Owners of older homes need to consider “vaccinating” their vulnerable home now, before it is too late, by looking into a seismic retrofit. And unlike the COVID-19 vaccine, no one needs to wait in line to make that happen.