As part of a California Watch report on seismic issues in our state’s public universities — lead sentence, “Nearly 180 public university buildings in California used by tens of thousands of people have been judged dangerous to occupy during a major earthquake” THIS IS WHY I DROPPED OUT OF COLLEGE* — they’ve rated the quake safety of buildings on the UC and CSU campuses.
How did UCSF and SF State measure up? Here’re the buildings to avoid:
UCSF
374 Parnassus is rated as poor, but is going to be vacated for retrofitting “when funding becomes available.” (Yeah, I have a whole list of stuff like that around here.) Same story with 735 Parnassus, their Clinical Sciences Building, and the UC Hall.
Their Hellman Building is also rated “poor,” and the California Watch map notes that some seismic work was done in 1993, but it wasn’t enough to make is safe. They expect to vacate the building by 2015 and demolish it thereafter.
Humanities South is a level 5 risk, meaning that it ” would probably not collapse in a major quake, but it would pose serious risks to life because of falling hazards and structural failures.”
The Library It’s closed for construction for now, which is probably good, because as it was it “could collapse in a major quake and would pose severe life hazards.”
Old Administration It’s a level 5, and they don’t know when they’ll fix it.
Main Parking Garage Has damaged columns, making it a level 6, which means it “could collapse in a major quake and would pose severe life hazards.”
University Park South, F8 Carport & adjacent structure From the description of this building, this is what, in my day (uphill, in the snow) was called “married student housing.” My day sucked! Anyway, sorry married students or whatever, your building’s a level 6. Fixes for this are currently in the planning stages.
University Park South, Parking Structure 41 Also a level 6, and it’ll probably stay that way until at least 2015.
University Park North, Buildings 6,7,8,9 They’re all level 5s, an issue not expected to be addressed until at least 2015.
*Not really. Besides, I went to private school because I am fancy a sucker.
