SEAOC Safety Assessment Program Comparisons with EU and Japan Programs

Tony Court and Fred Turner from the U.S. participated in an EU-funded safety assessment exercise in L’Aquila June 4-5. Representatives from Spain, Portugal, Germany, Romania, Slovenia, Greece, Turkey, U.S. and Japan participated with Italians in the exercise. During that week, Italy’s Civil Protection Department was beginning to conduct AeDES safety assessment surveys of buildings inside the Red Zone, area of downtown L’Aquila that the Mayor had decided to restrict public access until such time that the falling hazards exposed on the narrow streets could be cleared. By that week, they had practically completed safety assessments elsewhere in regions impacted by the earthquake that were outside of the Red Zone. Exercise participants were attached to Italian safety assessment teams that had appointments with building owners in the Red Zone. We participated in the safety and damage assessments,  filling out AeDES forms, EU-STEP forms, SAP-ATC 20 forms, and SEAOC-EPEP (Earthquake Performance Evaluation Program) forms for later comparisons as part of an EU-funded project called Strategies and Tools for Earthquake Post-Earthquake Assessment. Others participating in the exercise filled out and compared procedures and forms used in Japan and Greece.

Italy’s AeDES assessment process is considerably more detailed and nuanced compared to the CalEMA SAP-ATC 20 process. Italy uses engineers to collect additional information about the nature of the building systems, the damage and its extent to help compile aggregate loss estimates on groups of the buildings that have been assessed. Italy does not post placards since laws prohibit that activity. Italy also does not provide immunity from liability for safety and damage assessments. In contrast, SAP-ATC 20 is limited to safety assessments and is not intended to estimate aggregate losses or the extent and variation of losses within portions of buildings. SAP ATC 20 is also largely conducted by non-engineer inspectors averaging 26 building assessments per team-day (20 to 25 minutes per building) supplemented by teams of engineers for follow-up evaluations or for the larger, engineered buildings. Italy’s assessments are averaging 20 to 30 minutes per building for the entire event and 7 assessments per team-day in the Red Zone due to extenuating circumstances. A chart comparing the different assessment processes is under development and will provide basic information about Japan’s and Greece’s practices as well as a new form under development by STEP.

Fred’s images are captioned and geotagged at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/FredTurnerSE/LAquilaItalyFredTurnerSImages200906?authkey=Gv1sRgCOLQrOLCrvrT2AE#

A detailed map of the Red Zone:

map-red-zone-laquila-fmt-6-4-09