Earthquake Ordinances for the City of Los Angeles,California. A Brief Case Study,

摘要

The City Council of Los Angeles must develop and enact building ordinances which are designed to protect the safety of thousands of people against earthquake risk. The Los Angeles Building Department has identified 300 'high risk'buildings,and has said that there may be as many as an additional 14,000within the city,all of which were constructed prior to the 1933earthquake code standards. The objective of this paper is to illustrate some of the difficulties in dealing with decisions involving the building code revisions designed to protect against earthquake hazards. Discussed are: (1) the history of earthquakes in the Los Angeles area; (2) recent proposed earthquake ordinances; (3) public sentiment regarding earthquake ordinances (as depicted in newspaper editorials);and (4) comparisons of earthquakes risk for unimproved and improved pre-1933structures. An appendix contains a brief UCLA report on the situation,as perceived in April 1976,and a copy of a briefing given to Governor Brown by the U.S. Geological Survey in March 1976.