U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

30–325PDF WASHINGTON : 2018

EARTHQUAKE MITIGATION: 

REAUTHORIZING THE NATIONAL 

EARTHQUAKE HAZARDS REDUCTION PROGRAM 

FIELD HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

MAY 31, 2018 

Serial No. 115–62 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

RANDY K. WEBER, Texas 

STEPHEN KNIGHT, California 

BRIAN BABIN, Texas 

BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia 

BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia 

RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana 

GARY PALMER, Alabama 

DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida 

ANDY BIGGS, Arizona 

ROGER W. MARSHALL, Kansas 

NEAL P. DUNN, Florida 

CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana 

RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina 

DEBBIE LESKO, Arizona 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

AMI BERA, California 

ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

DONALD S. BEYER, JR., Virginia 

JACKY ROSEN, Nevada 

CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

BILL FOSTER, Illinois 

MARK TAKANO, California 

COLLEEN HANABUSA, Hawaii 

CHARLIE CRIST, Florida 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

May 31, 2018 

Page 

Witness List ............................................................................................................. 2 

Hearing Charter ...................................................................................................... 3 

Opening Statements 

Statement by Representative Dana Rohrabacher, Committee on Science, 

Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives .................................... 4 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 6 

Statement by Representative Mark Takano, Committee on Science, Space, 

and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ............................................... 8 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 10 

Statement by Representative Jerry McNerney, Committee on Science, Space, 

and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ............................................... 12 

Written statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives 13 

Witnesses: 

Dr. Steven McCabe, Director, National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program; Group Leader, Earthquake Engineering Group, National Institute 

of Standards and Technology 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 15 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 17 

Dr. Stephen Hickman, Director, USGS Earthquake Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 26 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 28 

Dr. Frank Vernon, Research Geophysicist, Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 35 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 38 

Mr. Chris D. Poland, Consulting Engineer; NIST Community Resilience Fellow 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 46 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 49 

Mr. Ryan Arba, Branch Chief, Earthquake and Tsunami Program, California 

Governor’s Office of Emergency Services 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 61 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 63 

Discussion ................................................................................................................. 70 

Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions 

Dr. Stephen Hickman, Director, USGS Earthquake Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey ....................................................................................................... 92 
Page

IV 

Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record 

Documents submitted by Representative Jerry McNerney, Committee on 

Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ..................... 94 
(1) 

EARTHQUAKE MITIGATION: 

REAUTHORIZING THE 

NATIONAL EARTHQUAKE HAZARDS 

REDUCTION PROGRAM 

THURSDAY, MAY 31, 2018 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY, 

Washington, D.C. 

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 2:03 p.m., in the Huntington Beach Civic Center, 2000 Main Street, Huntington Beach, 

CA, Hon. Dana Rohrabacher presiding. 
2 

LAMAR S SMITH, THxus 

CHAIRMAN 

(.t:ongrcss of the tinitcd ~tatcs 

t'iousr of 1Rcprcsrnrotiucs COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, ANO TECHNOLOGY 

2321 RAYBUF!N HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING 

WASHINGTON, DC 20515-6301 

(202) 225-6371 

www.s<:uonc~h<luo;egov 

EOCHO: BERNICE JOHNSON, Tt><<t'> 

flANKING MEMBER 

Earthquake Mitigation: Reauthorizing the National 

Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program 

Thursday, May 31,2018 

2:00p.m.- 4:00p.m. 

Huntington Beach Civic Center, 2000 Main Street, 

Huntington Beach, CA 92648 

Witnesses 

Dr. Steven McCabe, Director, National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program; 

Group Leader, Earthquake Engineering Group, National Institute of Standards and 

Technology 

Dr. Stephen Hickman, Director, USGS Earthquake Science Center, U.S. 

Geological Survey 

Dr. Frank Vernon, Research Geophysicist, Institute of Geophysics and Planetary 

Physics, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego 

Mr. Chris D. Poland, Consulting Engineer; NISI Community Resilience Fellow 

Mr. Ryan Arba, Branch Chief, Earthquake and Tsunami Program, California 

Governor's Office of Emergency Services 
3 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

HEARING CHARTER 

May 31,2018 

TO: Members, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

FROM: Majority Staff, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

SUBJECT: Field Committee Hearing: "Earthquake Mitigation: Reauthorizing the National 

Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program" 

The Committee on Science, Space, and Technology will hold a hearing titled Earthquake 

Mitigation: Reauthorizing the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program" on Thursday, 

May 31,2018 at 2:00p.m. PT/5:00 p.m. ET at the Huntington Beach Civic Center, 2000 Main 

Street, Huntington Beach, CA 92648. 

Hearing Purpose: 

The purpose of the hearing is to review the federal National Earthquake Hazards 

Reduction Program (NEHRP), to examine the strengths, weaknesses, and challenges of the 40-

year interagency effort, and to receive recommendations for future reauthorization of the 

program. 

Witness List 

• Dr. Steven McCabe, Director, National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program; Group 

Leader, Earthquake Engineering Group, National Institute of Standards and Technology 

• Dr. Stephen Hickman, Director, USGS Earthquake Science Center, U.S. Geological 

Survey 

• Dr. Frank Vernon, Research Geophysicist, Institute of Geophysics and Planetary 

Physics, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego 

Mr. Chris D. Poland, Consulting Engineer; NIST Community Resilience Fellow 

• Mr. Ryan Arba, Branch Chief, Earthquake and Tsunami Program, California 

Governor's Office of Emergency Services 

Staff Contact 

For questions related to the hearing, please contact Jenn Wickre of the Majority Staff at 

202-225-6371. 
4 

Present: Representatives Rohrabacher, McNerney, and Takano. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. The Committee on Science, Space, and Technology will come to order. 

Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess of 

the Committee at any time. 

Good morning, and welcome to today’s hearing entitled ‘‘Earthquake Mitigation: Reauthorizing the National Earthquake Hazards 

Reduction Program.’’ 

I recognize myself for five minutes for an opening statement. 

Again, welcome to my colleagues to Huntington Beach. I am very 

pleased that you both came today. It is my honor, of course, to welcome you to Surf City, USA, but also the city that, I might add, 

is the city where we built the first stage of the Saturn rocket that 

took the first human beings to the moon. We are very proud of our 

beach culture. We are very proud of our aviation and our space 

achievements. 

I am glad that two of my colleagues have been able to join us 

today, Representative Mark Takano and Jerry McNerney. Both 

have really been very active with me over the years, and actually 

we have very positive personal relationships with each other, and 

I think that demonstrates the type of cooperation that we want to 

see in Congress and that is exemplified by the Science Committee. 

In California at any moment, we know that we could face a really big earthquake, not just a little shaker but a big earthquake. It 

is something that we can get complacent about because it always 

seems to be in the future that it might happen, and then when it 

doesn’t we get complacent. Well, the risk is very real. 

According to the USGS, California has a 99 percent chance of experiencing a magnitude 6.7 or larger earthquake over the next 30 

years. The likelihood of an even larger earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.5 or greater, is 46 percent, and such an earthquake 

would likely occur in the southern part of California. So this is a 

major threat that we need to look at. 

But California, of course, is not alone when it comes to this. 

Close to 75 million people in 39 states face some risk of an earthquake. 

For 40 years the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program—now I am going to have to be reminded—how do we pronounce that? NEHRP. Okay, now I know how to say it. NEHRP 

has supported efforts to assess and monitor earthquake hazards 

and risks here in the United States. 

Four Federal agencies coordinate their earthquake activities 

under NEHRP: The U.S. Geological Survey, the National Science 

Foundation, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the 

National Institute of Standards and Technology. These agencies assess U.S. earthquake hazards, deliver notifications of seismic 

events, develop measures to reduce earthquake hazards, and conduct research to help reduce the overall U.S. vulnerability to earthquakes. 

Congress had last reviewed and reauthorized this program in 

2004, and that law expired in 2009. Although Congress continues, 

however, to appropriate funds for this important work, we are long 

overdue in reauthorizing this program. We must ensure it is effec-
5 

tive and up-to-date with the latest knowledge and science for monitoring and mitigation of earthquakes. 

I am particularly interested in how we can improve the use of 

data to advance the deployment of an effective earthquake early 

warning system. I will be very interested in hearing if that is even 

possible, and to what degree we could use this as a goal. Such a 

system would automatically send an alert to areas in danger of potential shaking after the earthquake has been initially triggered. 

The alert would potentially allow components of the lifeline infrastructure such as electric utilities, railroad systems, and even hospital operating rooms, to cease activity that could be impaired by 

violent shaking before the first earthquake-triggered surface waves 

actually reach them. 

We know that Senators Dianne Feinstein and Lisa Murkowski 

have introduced bipartisan legislation to reauthorize this agency 

and this operation. They have that in the Senate, and I will be 

working with my Science Committee colleagues to introduce a bill 

in the House very soon for this reauthorization. 

I thank my witnesses for being here today, look forward to your 

expert testimony. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rohrabacher follows:] 
6 

COMMITTEE ON 

SCIENCE, SPACE, & TECHNOLOGY Lamar Smith, Chairman 

For Immediate Release 

May 31,2018 

Media Contacts: Thea McDonald, Brandon VerVelde 

(202) 225-6371 

Statement by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) 

Earthquake Mitigation: Reauthorizing the Notional Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program 

Rep. Rohrabacher: Welcome to Huntington Beach. It's my honor to welcome you to 

California's 48th Congressional District and the world famous "Surf City." 

I am glad that two of my colleagues on the Science Committee and fellow Californians, 

Rep. Mark Takano and Rep. Jerry McNerney, could join me in holding this hearing on a topic 

of great importance to our state and the nation. 

In California, at any moment. we could face the next big earthquake. It's sometimes easy to 

get complacent, but the risk is real. 

According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). California has a 99 percent chance of 

experiencing a magnitude 6.7 or larger earthquake in the next 30 years. The likelihood of an 

even larger earthquake, magnitude 7.5 or greater. is 46 percent. and such an earthquake 

would likely occur in the southern port of the state. 

But California is not alone. Close to 75 million people in 39 states face some risk from 

earthquakes. 

For 40 years the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) has supported 

efforts to assess and monitor earthquake hazards and risk in the United States. 

Four federal agencies coordinate their earthquake activities under NEHRP: USGS, National 

Science Foundation (NSF), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and National 

Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). 

These agencies assess U.S. earthquake hazards, deliver notifications of seismic events, 

develop measures to reduce earthquake hazards and conduct research to help reduce 

overall U.S. vulnerability to earthquakes. 

Congress last reviewed and reauthorized the program in 2004, and that law expired in 2009. 

Although Congress continues to appropriate funds for this important work, we are overdue in 

reauthorizing the NEHRP law. 

We must ensure it is effective and up-to-date with the latest knowledge and science for 

monitoring and mitigating earthquakes. 
7 

I am particularly interested in how we can improve the use of data to advance the 

deployment of an effective earthquake early warning system. 

Such a system would automatically send an alert to areas in danger of potential shaking 

after the earthquake is initially triggered. The alert would potentially allow components of the 

lifeline infrastructure. such as electric utilities. railway systems and even hospital operating 

rooms, to cease activities that could be impaired by violent shaking before the first 

earthquake-triggered surface waves reach them. 

Senators Dianne Feinstein {Calif.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) have introduced a bipartisan 

NEHRP reauthorization bill in the Senate and I will be working with my Science Committee 

colleagues to introduce a bill in the House soon. 

I thank the witnesses for being here today and I look forward to their expert testimony. 

### 
8 

Mr. ROHRABACHER.Maybe we have an opening statement by Mr. 

Takano—I mispronounce your name after I have been talking to 

you for a decade now—Takano—there you go. 

Mr. TAKANO. I want to welcome everyone to today’s hearing. I 

just want to make sure that the live stream is functioning. I got 

some reports that it wasn’t working on the Science Committee 

website yet. 

I want to welcome everyone to today’s hearing to review the nation’s foremost earthquake research and risk mitigation activities 

under the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program, otherwise known as NEHRP. I look forward to our expert panel’s assessment of the program’s strengths, weaknesses, and challenges, 

and recommendations for improvements. 

As an Inland Empire native, I am all too familiar with the damage that can be caused by earthquakes. Just this month, the Riverside area experienced a 4.5 earthquake followed by two smaller 

earthquakes. While there were no reports of injuries or damage, it 

reminds us that we need continued strong support of our Federal 

earthquake risk mitigation activities. 

Now, I am proud to recognize in the audience Dr. David 

Oglesby—Dr. Oglesby is raising his hand in the back there, let the 

record show that—and Dr. Christos Kyriakopoulos—now I have a 

more difficult name than my name, Mr. Chairman—of the University of California, Riverside. They are both in the audience today, 

and they are from my district. 

Set up on display way over at the back of the City Council Chambers is a 3D printed representation of the fault lines in the State 

of California that my university produced, and I have a smaller 

version of it. People think that the faults are maybe just one spine, 

but really you can see that it is a really amazing amalgamation of 

faults. To know that here is L.A., here is Huntington Beach, San 

Diego, and Riverside, you can see that we are sitting on top of numerous faults that come together. 

Mr. Chairman, I want to let you know that the University has 

been so kind as to produce one of these for you and for Representative McNerney, and I hope that we can get one to each member of 

our delegation. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. We will keep it on the wall, unless it falls 

down in an earthquake. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. TAKANO. But I think it will raise awareness of just how 

much we need to keep our eye on the ball. 

We struggle with how to encourage cities and regions in high 

earthquake risk areas to implement mitigation measures, but I 

have a feeling that these kinds of demonstrations might help. We 

can’t forget the importance of social and behavioral aspects of 

earthquake risk mitigation. I encourage everyone to take a look at 

the display, the big display, at the end of the hearing. 

Following the devastating earthquakes in Alaska and California 

in 1964 and 1971, Congress established NEHRP and tasked four 

agencies—the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Geological 

Survey, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, otherwise 

known as FEMA, and the National Institute of Standards and 

Technology, otherwise known as NIST. NIST was tasked as the 
9 

lead agency—to reduce the risks to life and property from future 

earthquakes. The good work of these agencies and their public- and 

private-sector partners has advanced the nation’s understanding of 

earthquakes and provided the science that supports seismic design 

guidelines and standards for resilient buildings that save countless 

lives. 

Unfortunately, economic damages are still very high after extreme natural hazards, and it is important to invest in community 

resilience. Resilient lifelines, such as roadways, pipelines, power 

lines, and communications infrastructure, can help get communities back up and running sooner after a big earthquake. In fact, 

the National Institute of Building Sciences recently released ‘‘National Hazard Mitigation Saves: 2017 Interim Report.’’ It is a document, and it found that for every for $1 spent on hazard mitigation, 

the nation saves $6 in disaster costs. 

Though the West Coast is widely known for its earthquake risk, 

the U.S. seismic hazard maps show that the central and eastern 

parts of the nation, as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, are also categorized as having a high probability for strong 

earthquakes. Two hundred years ago, the New Madrid seismic zone 

in the middle of our country endured three 7.0 or higher earthquakes. Further, the composition of the earth under these regions 

allows the impact of an earthquake to be felt at several times the 

distance as an earthquake on the West Coast. 

Now, while several countries in seismic prone areas have had 

earthquake early warning systems for many years, the U.S. continues to develop and implement pilot programs for a West Coast 

early alert system. I look forward to hearing from the panel today 

about what Congress can do to accelerate, and eventually expand, 

deployment of this lifesaving technology that can provide seconds 

to tens of seconds of time that could stop surgeries, keep airplanes 

in the air, and shut down nuclear power plants and other sensitive 

machinery. I also believe it is important that we better understand 

the current state of our infrastructure and buildings and how retrofitting can mitigate both the loss of life and the cost of rebuilding 

after an earthquake. 

These issues are so very important to regions across the nation, 

and I thank the panel for their testimony before this Committee 

and as this Committee considers legislative priorities for NEHRP 

authorization. 

Thank you, and I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Takano follows:] 
10 

OPENING STATEMENT 

Congressman Mark Takano (D-CA) 

House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

Field Hearing: "Earthquake Mitigation: Reauthorizing the 

National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program" 

May 31,2018 

I want to welcome everyone to today's hearing to review the nation's foremost earthquake 

research and risk mitigation activities under the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction 

Program. I look forward to our expert panel's assessment of the program's strengths, 

weaknesses, and challenges and recommendations for improvements. 

As an Inland Empire native, I am all too familiar with the damage that can be caused by 

earthquakes. Just this month, the Riverside area experienced a magnitude 4.5 earthquake 

followed by two smaller earthquakes. While there were no reports of injuries or damage, it 

reminds us that we need continued strong support of our federal earthquake risk mitigation 

activities. 

I am proud to recognize Dr. David Oglesby and Dr. Christos Kyriakopoulos of the University of 

California, Riverside in the audience today from my district. Set up on display at the back of the 

City Council Chambers is a 3D print of the fault lines in the state of California that UCR 

produced. We struggle with how to encourage cities and regions in high earthquake risk areas to 

implement mitigation measures, but I have a feeling these kinds of demonstrations might help. 

We can't forget the importance of social and behavioral aspects for earthquake risk mitigation. I 

encourage everyone to take a look at the display at the end ofthe hearing. 

Following devastating earthquakes in Alaska and California in 1964 and 1971, Congress 

established NEHRP and tasked four agencies- the National Science Foundation, U.S. Geological 

Survey, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. and the National Institute of Standards 

and Technology, the lead agency- to reduce the risks to life and property from future 

earthquakes. The good work of these agencies and their public and private sector partners has 

advanced the nation's understanding of earthquakes and provided the science that supports 

seismic design guidelines and standards for resilient buildings that save countless lives. 

Unfortunately, economic damages are still very high after extreme natural hazards occur, and it 

is important to invest in community resilience. Resilient lifelines, such as roadways, pipelines, 

power lines, and communications infrastructure, can help get communities back up and running 

sooner after a big earthquake. In fact, the National Institute of Building Sciences' recently 
11 

released National Hazard Mitigation Saves: 2017 Interim Report found that every for $1 dollar 

spent on hazard mitigation the nation saves $6 in disaster costs. 

Though the west coast is widely known for its earthquake risk, the U.S. seismic hazard maps 

show that the central and eastern parts of the nation, as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin 

Islands, are also categorized as having a high probability for strong earthquakes. Two hundred 

years ago, the New Madrid seismic zone in the middle of the country endured three magnitude 

7.0 or higher earthquakes. Further, the composition of the earth under these regions allows the 

impact of an earthquake to be felt at several times the distance as an earthquake on the West 

Coast. 

While several countries in seismic prone areas have had earthquake early warning systems for 

many years, the U.S. continues to develop and implement pilot programs for a west coast early 

alert system. I look forward to hearing from the panel about what Congress can do to accelerate, 

and eventually expand, deployment of this lifesaving technology that can provide seconds to tens 

of seconds of time to stop surgeries, keep airplanes in the air, and shut down nuclear power 

plants and other sensitive machinery. I believe it's also important that we better understand the 

current state of our infrastructure and buildings and how retrofitting can mitigate both the loss of 

life and the cost of rebuilding after an earthquake. 

These issues are so very important to regions across the nation, and I thank the panel for their 

testimony as this Committee considers legislative priorities for NEHRP authorization. 

Thank you and I yield back. 
12 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you, Congressman Takano. 

And now, Congressman McNerney. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Well, I thank the Chairman, my friend from 

Huntington Beach, for calling this hearing. I thank the panelists 

for coming in, and I am looking forward to your testimony. 

My district is a little north of here. It is in the Delta region of 

California. So we have the confluence of the San Joaquin River and 

the Sacramento River forming the California Delta. It has an extensive system of levies. Many are very aged, so we are very concerned. 

The Governor has a plan to put in tunnels, and we need to understand what the seismic risks of that project may be. 

But in all, we see damage when we have earthquakes, and it is 

so important to have a set of very good standards that mitigate or 

help us mitigate the damage. For example, we have seen in other 

countries in the last century earthquakes of a magnitude of 4 to 

5 that have caused immense damage and thousands upon thousands of deaths, whereas in this country we have earthquakes on 

the order of a magnitude of 7 on the Richter scale, and we have 

seen tragic damage, but nothing on the scale that we have seen 

overseas. 

So these standards are very, very important to the health and 

safety and economic well-being of our communities and our country. That is why NEHRP’s mission is so important, and we want 

to make sure that we understand what sort of objectives are realistic with your mission, with NEHRP’s mission, and how we can 

obtain those objectives, how much it is going to cost, and so on. 

So I welcome your testimony, and I look forward to the back and 

forth afterwards. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
13 

[The prepared statement of Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson:] 
14 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you, Congressman McNerney. 

This is a very serious issue today. This is very serious because 

we know that this potential dangerous situation is hanging right 

there. It could happen tomorrow, and it could happen ten years 

from now or 100 years from now, but we know it could happen tomorrow. We need to make sure we are prepared, and I appreciate 

my two colleagues joining us today, and I appreciate the witnesses 

that we have. 

We have first-class witnesses to help us understand the threat 

and how we should move forward, if there are ways to move forward, to mitigate this challenge. 

I will introduce the witnesses, and we will start. 

The first witness today is Dr. Steven McCabe, Director of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program. Let me note that 

the leader of the Earthquake Engineering Group is also there with 

NIST. Dr. McCabe has received both his Bachelor of Science and 

Master of Science inmechanical engineering from Colorado State 

University. He also earned a Ph.D. in civil engineering from the 

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 

Dr. Stephen Hickman, our second witness today, is Director of 

the U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Science Center in Menlo 

Park. Dr. Hickman received a bachelor degree in geology from 

Earlham College, as well as a Ph.D. in solid Earth geophysics from 

MIT. 

And then Dr. Frank Vernon, our third witness today. He is a Research Geophysicist at the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary 

Physics at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at the University 

of California at San Diego. Boy, that is a mouthful. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. He is also the Director for the USArray Network Facility for the NSF EarthScope Program. Dr. Vernon received a B.A. in physics from UC–San Diego, and a Ph.D. in Earth 

science from Scripps Institute of Oceanography. 

We also have with us Chris Poland, our fourth witness. He is a 

consulting engineering and a NIST Community Resilience Fellow. 

He previously served as Chairman of NEHRP on the NEHRP Advisory Committee. Mr. Poland earned his Bachelor of Science in 

mathematics from the University of Redlands and his Master in 

Science in structural engineering from Stanford University. 

Our final witness today is Mr. Ryan Arba, a Branch Chief of the 

Earthquake and Tsunami Program in the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. He oversees the state’s preparedness efforts for seismic events. Mr. Arba received a degree in social and 

behavioral sciences from Cal State Monterey Bay, and a master’s 

in public administration from the University of Southern California. 

I would suggest that if we keep it down to five minutes apiece, 

we then will have a dialogue, which is what this hearing was intended for. 

So I now recognize Dr. McCabe for five minutes to present his 

testimony. 
15 

TESTIMONY OF DR. STEVEN MCCABE, DIRECTOR, 

NATIONAL EARTHQUAKE HAZARDS REDUCTION PROGRAM; 

GROUP LEADER, EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING GROUP, 

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY 

Dr. MCCABE. Thank you. Chairman Rohrabacher, Congressman 

Takano, Congressman McNerney, I am Dr. Steven McCabe, the Director of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program, or 

NEHRP. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today 

to discuss NIST’s role in reducing the earthquake risk facing U.S. 

communities. NIST is the lead agency in the four-agency partnership that is NEHRP. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, 

the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Geological Survey 

are the other three partners. 

Earthquake concerns are truly national in scope. Forty-two 

states and a number of territories face serious risk from earthquakes. The 1971 San Fernando earthquake caused serious damage and was a motivating factor for the creation of NEHRP. More 

recently, there have been significant increases in seismic activity in 

southern Kansas and in Oklahoma. There are simply no areas of 

the nation with zero risk from earthquakes. 

Mitigation efforts through such efforts as improved building 

codes can make a significant difference in saving lives, which is the 

primary goal of earthquake-related provisions in U.S. building 

codes and standards, the NEHRP agency’s work to perform needed 

research and to translate research results into actions that mitigate the impact on the nation. These include the development of 

national hazard models and maps; disaster investigations concerning engineering, geology, seismology, and social science aspects 

of an earthquake; participation in the development of model building codes and associated standards; and the funding of basic research. 

NIST carries out applied research to develop and deploy advances in measurement science related to earthquake engineering, 

including standards to enhance disaster resilience of buildings, infrastructure, and communities. NIST research has provided data to 

support improved codes and standards through testing of structural 

elements, developed improved modeling and assessment techniques 

for existing buildings, and assess the impact of new materials in 

improving seismic performance. NIST is actively collaborating with 

FEMA in addressing non-ductile concrete building performance 

such as that noted in the Los Angeles area concerning older buildings. NSF funded initial work on this problem. In 2015, the City 

of Los Angeles enacted ordinance 183893, which is a mandatory 

retrofit program for soft first-story wood-frame buildings and nonductile concrete buildings. Seismologist Dr. Lucy Jones, on loan 

from USGS and working with the City of Los Angeles, was a key 

voice in this process. Thus, the enactment of this important ordinance is a result of the activity of all four NEHRP agencies in addressing this problem. 

Preventing collapse so that occupants could safely leave damaged 

buildings has been the goal inherent in building codes since their 

inception in 1915. However, there has been a growing call for expedited recovery from earthquake and other natural hazard events. 
16 

Significant economic interruptions due to earthquake damage are 

no longer acceptable. 

NIST has initiated a large effort to aggressively study the engineering, social, economic, and policy issues concerning making communities resilient. A community resilience planning guide has been 

developed for us by local communities in planning their own resilient future. NIST also has funded a resilience center to provide 

tools for communities as they forge a resilient future. 

Improved building performance is another aspect of moving towards resilience. A recent study completed by NIST considered 

what would be required in terms of research and implementation 

for adoption of an immediate occupancy performance objective for 

building design. The concept is to improve building performance to 

the point that occupants would be able to quickly reoccupy business 

and residential buildings following a natural hazard event. 

NIST has worked with and looks forward to continuing to work 

with the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology concerning reauthorization of NEHRP. Our challenge is to ensure that 

new knowledge and experience gained through NEHRP continues 

to be developed and applied to domestic practices and policies that 

foster a more resilient nation. We must keep working to mitigate 

the impacts of earthquakes on our communities. NEHRP is an integral part of the private-public collaboration that continues to reduce risk of damage to our communities from seismic ground motions. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify on NEHRP, and 

I am happy to answer any questions that you may have. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. McCabe follows:] 
17 

Testimony of 

Steven L. McCabe Ph.D., P.E. 

Director 

National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program 

Engineering Laboratory 

National Institute of Standards and Technology 

U.S. Department of Commerce 

Before the 

Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

U.S. House of Representatives 

Field Hearing 

Huntington Beach, California 

A Review of the National Earthquake Ha:::ards Reduction Program (NEHRP) 

May 31,2018 
18 

Introduction 

Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Johnson, and Members of the Committee, my name is Dr. 

Steven McCabe, and I am the Director of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program 

(NEHRP or Program), located within the Engineering Laboratory at the National Institute of 

Standards and Technology (NIST) in the Department of Commerce. NIST leads the four-agency 

NEHRP partnership, which includes the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the 

National Science Foundation (NSF), and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Thank you for the 

opportunity to appear before you today to discuss NIST's and NEHRP's role in making 

measurable progress towards reducing the earthquake risk facing U.S. communities. 

Earthquake concerns are truly national in scope. Forty-two states and a number ofterritories 

face serious risk from earthquakes. In recent decades, the United States has experienced a 

relatively quiet period of major seismic activity. We have not experienced the likes of the 

damage caused by the 1964 Alaska earthquake, the 1971 San Fernando earthquake (a motivating 

factor for the creation ofNEHRP), the 1989 Lorna Prieta earthquake, or the 1994 Northridge 

earthquake. More recently, the United States has experienced significant increases in seismic 

activity in areas of the country not generally associated with earthquakes, including in southern 

Kansas and in Oklahoma, and the 20 II Mineral, Virginia, earthquake was a wakeup call for the 

eastern portion of the United States. 1 There are simply no areas of the Nation with zero risk 

from earthquakes. Furthermore, since the last major U.S. earthquakes occurred, the Nation has 

continued to concentrate more of its populations into urban areas, exposing higher percentages of 

people and structures to devastation from a single large earthquake or resulting tsunami. 

Mitigation efforts, through such measures as improved building codes, can make a significant 

difference in saving lives, which is the primary goal of earthquake-related provisions in U.S. 

building codes and standards. The 20 I 0 Haiti and Chile (Maule) earthquakes illustrated the need 

for and effectiveness of modern building codes and sound construction practices. In Haiti, where 

building codes are minimal at best, the M7.0 earthquake resulted in a death toll estimated at over 

220,000. By contrast, Chile has more modern building codes, based on U.S. model building 

codes and standards, and the M8.8 Maule earthquake resulted in approximately 500 deaths.2 

NEHRP was created to address the reality that earthquakes are inevitable and will occur without 

warning, but that there is much the Nation can do to reduce their consequences. 

NEHRP Organization and Background 

Congress created NEHRP through the Earthquake Hazards Reduction Act of 1977 (Public Law 

95-124) and the Program was last reauthorized under the National Earthquake Hazards 

Reduction Program Reauthorization Act of 2004 (Public Law I 08-360). The NEHRP 

Reauthorization Act designated NIST as the NEHRP Lead Agency with primary responsibility 

for planning and coordinating the Program. Pending passage of new reauthorizing legislation, 

the NEHRP agencies continue to perforrn duties outlined in Public Law I 08-360 within agencyestablished budget allocations. 

2 
19 

The 2004 Reauthorization Act also created the Advisory Committee on Earthquake Hazards 

Reduction and the NEHRP Interagency Coordinating Committee, each providing important input 

to the Program. 

The Advisory Committee on Earthquake Hazards Reduction (ACEHR) is a Federal Advisory 

Committee that assesses effectiveness of the program. The ACEHR consists of 15 leading 

earthquake professionals from across the U.S. and provides advice to the NEHRP agencies on 

issues concerning earthquake hazard assessment and risk mitigation. 

The Interagency Coordinating Committee (ICC) is comprised of the principals of the four 

NEHRP agencies, plus the Director of the Office of Management and Budget and the Director of 

the Office of Science and Technology Policy. One major action of the ICC was to approve the 

NEHRP Strategic Plan. 

NEHRP Strategic Plan 

The Strategic Plan, required under the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program 

Reauthorization Act of2004, presented NEHRP's vision for our Nation: A Nation that is 

earthquake-resilient in public safety. economic strength, and national security. 

This vision recognizes the importance of not only improving public safety in future earthquakes 

but also enhancing national economic strength and security, and highlights the need for 

improving national resilience following future damaging earthquakes. 

The Strategic Plan set three overarching program goals that involve synergies among the 

agencies: (A) improve understanding of earthquake processes and impacts (basic research); (B) 

develop cost-effective measures to reduce earthquake impacts on individuals, the built 

environment, and society-at-large (applied research and development); and, (C) improve the 

earthquake resilience of communities nationwide. 

The Plan also outlines nine areas of strategic priority for the Program: 

(1) fully implement the Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS); 

(2) improve techniques for evaluating and rehabilitating existing buildings; 

(3) further develop Performance-Based Seismic Design (PBSD); 

( 4) increase consideration of socioeconomic issues related to hazard mitigation 

implementation; 

(5) develop a national post-earthquake information management system; 

(6) develop advanced earthquake risk mitigation technologies and practices; 

(7) develop guidelines for earthquake-resilient lifeline components and systems; 

(8) develop and conduct earthquake scenarios for effective earthquake risk reduction and 

response and recovery planning; and, 

(9) facilitate improved earthquake mitigation at state and local levels. 

I am very pleased to report significant progress in the goals and areas of strategic priority in the 

Plan, notably the improvements in national seismic instrumentation, improvements in building 

codes and in the application of PBSD, and continued work at the state and local levels to 

implement mitigation efforts. However, much remains to be done especially concerning the 

3 
20 

existing building stock, the risk mitigation of lifelines such as those supplying electricity, water 

and wastewater and communication services and in improving the resilience of communities to 

seismic events. 

To continue looking to the future, ongoing work with scenarios is helping to guide future 

direction of the Program. USGS just released a scenario, the Hay Wired Scenario, on April 18, 

2018, the anniversary ofthe 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The HayWired Scenario depicts a 

realistic scenario based on a M7.0 earthquake on the Hayward fault system in the San Francisco 

Bay Area, the estimated impacts on infrastructure, communities and individuals can be seen as 

significant. These USGS scenarios continue to offer NEHRP a means to evaluate current and 

future Program activities to meet the issues identified by these scenarios. 3 

NEIIRP Agencies 

The NEHRP agencies work to perform needed research and translate the research results into 

actions that mitigate the impact on the Nation. The NEHRP agencies work in partnership, with 

each agency fulfilling its unique role in the Program. NEHRP petfonns inherently governmental 

roles including: the development of national hazard models and maps; disaster investigations 

concerning engineering, geology, seismology and social science aspects of an earthquake; 

participation in the development of model building codes and associated standards; and the 

funding of basic research. 

The Program extends beyond the four NEHRP agencies to include other Federal agencies, state 

and local governments, non-governmental professional organizations, model building code and 

standards organizations, and earthquake professionals in the private sector and academia. 

Without this extended community of dedicated earthquake professionals, the NEHRP agencies 

could not fulfill their statutory responsibilities nearly as well. 

USGS 

The USGS, also testifying here today, is the applied earth science component ofNEHRP. USGS 

delivers rapid characterization of earthquake size, location, and impacts; develops seismic hazard 

assessment maps and related mapping products; builds public awareness of earthquake hazards; 

and supports targeted research to improve monitoring and assessment capabilities. 

NSF 

NSF is NEHRP's primary basic research arm, supporting research that addresses earth science, 

geotechnical and structural engineering, lifeline engineering, and the social sciences and supports 

the education of future generations of earthquake practitioners across the Nation. 

F'EMA 

FEMA has the NEHRP leadership role in working with the practitioner community, the 

American Society of Civil Engineers, and the International Code Council to support the 

4 
21 

development of model building codes and standards provisions that form the basis for most state 

and local building codes in the U.S. 

NLST 

NIST has a dual role within NEHRP. NIST leads the Program with responsibilities that include 

Chairing the ICC and establishing the ACEHR; drafting and updating NEHRP strategic and 

management plans; submitting annual reports to Congress on NEHRP activities; and fostering 

interagency coordination and cooperation. 

NIST also carries out applied research to develop and deploy advances in measurement science 

related to earthquake engineering, including performance-based tools, guidelines, and standards 

for designing buildings to resist earthquake effects and to improve building safety, and to 

enhance disaster resilience of buildings, infrastructure, and communities. NIST has devoted 

considerable effort in supporting the further development of PBSD concepts, conducting a 

seminal comparison of design outcomes from PBSD and traditional building code design 

approaches. 4 NIST's research has also (I) provided data to support improved codes and 

standards for use by structural engineers through testing of stmctural elements under seismic 

loading; (2) developed improved modeling and assessment techniques for existing buildings; and 

(3) assessed the impact of new materials in improving seismic performance. 5 NIST is also 

examining historical costs of strengthening Federal buildings for improved seismic performance 

to gain insight into the costs associated with future mitigation options. 6 

NEIIRP Agencies Collaboration 

NIST is actively collaborating with FEMA in addressing nonductile concrete building 

performance, such as that noted in the Los Angeles area for older buildings designed prior to the 

1980's when building codes did not provide the performance levels of codes now in effect. 

Research over the past 30 years, much of it funded by the NEHRP agencies, has provided 

information for engineers concerning the design of reinforced concrete buildings to withstand 

even higher levels of shaking than was the basis in these older codes. Current work by NIST is 

developing new modeling approaches for more accurately predicting capacity of these older 

concrete structures. These older buildings can be identified for additional study using triage tools 

developed by FEMA. It is important to note that NSF funded initial work on this problem that 

led to significant attention by the public and by local governments. 

Another class of building that has been found to perform poorly in strong earthquakes is soft first 

story wood buildings, defined as multi-story buildings with openings in the first story typically 

for parking. The openings reduce the lateral capacity of the first floor, which can cause collapse 

during strong shaking, as was seen in the Northridge earthquake of 1994. FEMA has published a 

number of studies in retrofit approaches for these buildings for use by engineers. Moreover, NSF 

funded research into the performance of these types of structures, including full scale shake table 

testing. The result is that in 2013, San Francisco enacted the Mandatory Soft Story Retrofit 

Program, based in part on work sponsored by NEHRP, and on the observed effects during the 

1989 Loma Prieta earthquake where many building failures of this type were noted. 

5 
22 

In 2015, the City of Los Angeles enacted Ordinance 183893, which is a mandatory retrofit 

program for these two classes of buildings, soft first story wood-frame buildings and the 

nonductile concrete buildings. Seismologist Dr. Lucy Jones, on loan from USGS and working 

with the City of Los Angeles, was a key voice in this process. Thus, the enactment of this 

important ordinance is a direct result of the activity of all four NEHRP agencies in addressing 

this problem.7 

NEHRP agencies continue to work with other Federal agencies to increase seismic risk 

awareness and resiliency for the Federal community. For example, NIST NEHRP worked 

closely with Federal agencies on their implementation progress reports. The first round of 

reports was received in early April 2018 and provides information on new building design 

activity and significant insight into the existing Federal building inventory. The reporting 

process also provides the opportunity for dialogue with agencies on best practices, research 

developments and sharing of other information across agencies regarding this important subject. 

Along these same lines, in September of 2016, the U.S. Government Accountability Office 

issued "Earthquakes: Additional Actions Needed to Identify and Mitigate Risks to Federal 

Buildings and Implement an Early Warning System," that focused on seismic safety of existing 

federally owned and leased buildings. This information complements the data obtained from the 

recent progress reports. 8 

NEHRP- Beyond Life Safety 

The design ofstmctures in the U.S. historically has focused on life safety. Preventing collapse 

so that occupants could safely leave damaged buildings has been the goal inherent in building 

codes since their inception in 1915. However, starting with Lorna Prieta in 1989 and Northridge 

1994, there has been a growing call for expedited recovery from earthquake and other natural 

hazard events. Significant economic interruptions due to earthquake damage are no longer 

acceptable. The impact of earthquake damage can be dramatically shown by recent earthquakes. 

One example includes the 1995 M6.9 earthquake that struck Kobe, Japan, severely damaging its 

major port facilities. What was once the world's sixth busiest container port immediately 

dropped to 251

h in the world and has not regained its pre-earthquake status nearly 23 years later. 

While life safety is essential to achieve in design, there also must be recognition of the need for 

resilience to natural hazard events and for improved building performance to reduce damage. 

NIST has initiated a large effort to aggressively study the engineering, social, economic, and 

policy issues concerning making communities resilient. NIST developed the Community 

Resilience Planning Guide for use by local communities in planning their own resilient future. 9 

This effort connects to the SPUR, the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research 

Association, efforts in California 10 and to the Rockefeller I 00 Resilient Cities program. 11 NIST 

7 http:/ /\VW\\-. !adbs.org/sep, ices/core·scn ices/plan~check~permitMan-chec.k ~permit -spccial-assistance/mandatory-retrofiJprograms. 

8 https://w\\ w.gao.go,/products/GA0-16-680. 

q https:/ /\' w\v. nistgo\ /topics/commun itv~resi I icnce/communitv-rcsi I iencc-p!anning-guidc. 10 httrs://ww\\.spur.org/ 11 https://\\>\w.IOOresilientcities.org!, 

6 
23 

also has funded a resilience center to provide tools for communities as they forge a resilient 

future~ 

NIST provides communities with an economic decision framework for the evaluation of 

investment strategies designed to improve community resilience. NIST participated in the 

development of a new standard that was issued by ASTM International in April 2018. ASTM 

E3130 "Standard Guide for Developing Cost-Effective Community Resilience Strategies." 13 

Improved building performance is another aspect of moving towards resilience. A recent study 

completed by NIST and Resilient Community Groups considered what would be required in 

terms of research and implementation for adoption of an ·'Immediate Occupancy" performance 

objective for building design. The goal is to improve building performance to the point that 

occupants would be able to quickly re-occupy business and residential buildings following a 

natural hazard event. A change to an immediate occupancy design philosophy represents a 

significant step beyond the traditional goal of life safety in building design. Properly achieved, 

the serious economic impact noted in the examples cited above could be avoided or reduced. 

However, a change to immediate occupancy design is a sweeping concept requiring more 

deliberate study into its engineering, economic, social, and policy aspects. 

As we conclude 40 successful years ofNEHRP, we are entering a new era of possibilities. The 

demand for improved building performance and reduced economic and social impacts from 

disasters of all kinds, offers a real opportunity for NEHRP not only to continue its successful, 

collaborative partnership but to incorporate changes in knowledge and technology together with 

social expectations to examine how to reduce the risk of damage from earthquake to a greater 

degree than has historically been the case. The country needs resilient communities and reduced 

losses from natural hazards. While we don't know when major earthquakes will occur in the 

future, we do know that with continued effort by the NEHRP agencies, engagement with both 

communities and earthquake professionals we can improve the performance of our Nation when 

future earthquakes occur. 

NFHRP Reauthorization 

NIST has worked with and looks forward to continuing to work with the House Committee on 

Science, Space and Technology concerning reauthorization ofNEHRP. 

In the decade since the passage of the public law, new needs have been identified-new seismic 

activity has been identified, new programs are in place at agencies and, importantly, new 

knowledge is available for use in the mitigation effort. Reducing the damaging impacts of 

earthquakes is a national problem. Earthquakes cross state boundaries, and state-federal 

partnerships are therefore critical. Solutions to earthquake-related problems can best be handled 

in a coordinated manner that crosses jurisdictional boundaries. In addition, the engineering 

industry that addresses almost all earthquake mitigation problems is composed of many small 

7 
24 

entities, so that private sector efforts alone are simply inadequate to address major challenges. 

Federallcadership continues to he critical to this endeavor. 

Conclusion 

Our challenge is to ensure that the new knowledge and experience gained through NEHRP 

continues to be developed and applied to domestic practices and policies that foster a more 

resilient Nation. We must keep working to mitigate the impacts of earthquakes on our 

communities. Painful lessons from past earthquakes must not be repeated. NEHRP is an integral 

part of the private-public collaboration that continues to reduce risk of damage to our 

communities from seismic ground motions. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify on NEHRP. I am happy to answer any questions 

that you may have. 

8 
25 

Steven L. McCabe 

Steven McCabe is the NEHRP Director, providing overall program 

management and coordination; facilitating implementation of earthquake 

risk mitigation measures; and building and maintaining effective 

partnerships with stakeholders in industry, academia and government and 

the four NEHRP agencies. McCabe also is the Group Leader of the 

NIST Earthquake Engineering Group. In this position. he serves as the 

NIST representative on the NEHRP Program Coordination Working 

Group. He manages earthquake engineering research that is conducted in 

house at N 1ST or through outside contractors. The overall approach is to 

combine in-house and extramural expertise to address key research and 

knowledge-transfer issues in earthquake engineering. 

Prior to joining NIST in 20 II, McCabe worked in the private sector, in academia and at the 

Federal level. He was Chief Executive Officer ofNEES Consortium, Inc. fi·om 2007 to 20 I 0, 

where he was responsible for management and operation of the George E. Brown, Jr .. Network 

for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES), funded by the National Science Foundation 

(NSF). 

From 1985 to 2007. McCabe taught structural engineering courses and conducted research as a 

faculty member in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering at the 

University of Kansas. where he is a professor emeritus. He served as department chair t!·om July 

1998 through September 2002. His research interests included earthquake engineering and 

structural dynamics as well as the application of computer-based nonlinear analysis techniques to 

static and dynamic analysis problems. A particular interest is the identification of damage levels 

and reserve capacity in structures under dynamic loads. 

During 2002-2005 McCabe served as program manager for the Structural Systems and Hazard 

Mitigation of Structures Program in the Division of Civil and Mechanical Systems at NSF. He 

managed research funding for structural performance under extreme loading. both natural and 

manmade, as well as supporting work in structural health monitoring. 

Before beginning his academic career, McCabe worked in the private sector as a design and 

resident engineer primarily in the nuclear- and fossil-power industries. He is a registered 

professional engineer and has been active in many national and international professional 

societies. 

Education: 

Ph.D. Civil Engineering, 1987, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 

M.S. Mechanical Engineering/Engineering Mechanics. 1974. Colorado State University 

B.S. Mechanical Engineering. 1972, Colorado State University 

Fulbright Scholar, 1995-1996, Norwegian Institute of Technology in Trondheim 

9 
26 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much for your testimony. 

Dr. Hickman, you have five minutes. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. STEPHEN HICKMAN, DIRECTOR, 

USGS EARTHQUAKE SCIENCE CENTER, 

U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 

Dr. HICKMAN. Thank you, Congressman Rohrabacher and colleagues, for inviting the U.S. Geological Survey to this hearing. I 

am Steve Hickman, Director of the Earthquake Science Center. 

Our center has been a flagship USGS research center in the west 

for over 50 years. Here in Southern California, we have had an office in Pasadena for over 40 years, working closely with partners 

in Cal Tech and elsewhere. 

The USGS is a committed partner in NEHRP. The agencies have 

continued to work closely together since the appropriations authority for NEHRP expired in 2009. NEHRP was founded on the belief 

that while earthquakes are inevitable, there is much that we can 

do as a nation to improve safety, reduce losses and impacts, and 

increase our resilience. 

Within NEHRP, each agency performs a distinct and complementary role. The heart of this partnership is a shared commitment to 

translate the results of research and monitoring into actions that 

can reduce earthquake losses. The USGS role within NEHRP is to 

deliver the scientific data and information tools that engineers, 

emergency managers, government officials, and the public need to 

prevent earthquake hazards from becoming disasters. 

USGS activities under NEHRP are implemented through the 

Earthquake Hazards Program and the Global Seismographic Network. We provide rapid, authoritative information on the magnitude, location, shaking intensity, and potential impacts of earthquakes both in the U.S. and around the world. The USGS also develops national and regional hazard assessment maps and detailed 

scenarios forecasting the impacts of anticipated major earthquakes, 

and we carry out targeted research to improve these products. 

The USGS National Earthquake Information Center, which supports this work, is a 24/7 operation providing situational awareness 

for emergency responders and the public. This information is made 

possible by the earthquake monitoring networks that make up the 

Advanced National Seismic System, including regional seismic networks that the USGS supports through its academic partners. 

Significant improvements to the ANSS were made in 2010 and 

2011. In Fiscal Year 2018, we are continuing this effort by directing $5 million for deferred maintenance and, according to Congressional direction, $23 billion for build-out of the Earthquake Early 

Warning System called ShakeAlert. Congress has appropriated 

funds in recent years to continue development of this system, and 

the USGS is committed to working with Congress to determine the 

appropriate cost share for future ShakeAlert developments. Our 

goal is not simply to duplicate the early warning systems of other 

countries but to build the most advanced earthquake warning system in the world. 

USGS research is supplemented by external research through 

grants and cooperative agreements. The Southern California Earthquake Center at University of Southern California, supported by 
27 

the USGS and NSF, is an example of such a research partnership. 

We have supported research projects in various academic institutions across Southern California, including Cal Tech, USC, UCLA, 

UC–Irvine, and UC–San Diego. In 2017, our external research 

funding in the region amounted to $4.5 million. 

All the best science, however, cannot guarantee that people are 

able to use the information to make informed decisions. Therefore, 

the USGS has supported publication of ‘‘Putting Down Roots in 

Earthquake Country,’’ now available in eight different regions and 

in five languages. These and other USGS publications explain how 

residents can prepare for, survive, and recover from earthquakes. 

We have learned much about earthquakes in California, and 

translated that knowledge into better building codes and better 

emergency response plans. While many critical pieces of infrastructure have been retrofitted to better withstand earthquake shaking, 

other infrastructure has lagged. Many seaports and some airports 

are built on land that is susceptible to liquefaction where shaking 

causes the soil to temporarily lose strength and cohesion and flow 

laterally, behaving something like quicksand. 

Lastly, I want to remind the Committee of the annual great 

ShakeOut, which began in 2008 as part of a scenario of a great 

earthquake on the southern San Andreas Fault. This year’s ShakeOut event happens in October on the 18th at 10:00 a.m. in the 

morning. People around the country and the world will participate 

in drills to practice safe responses to an earthquake. Please encourage enlisting your offices in participating at Shakeout.org. 

In summary, the Department of the Interior supports reauthorization of NEHRP because it has been a successful interagency 

partnership that continues to make valuable contributions to the 

nation’s resilience to earthquakes and other hazards. 

On behalf of the USGS, thank you for this opportunity to testify 

today. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Hickman follows:] 
28 

Statement of 

Steve Hickman 

Director ofthe Earthquake Science Center 

U.S. Geological Survey 

before the 

House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

May 31,2018 

Thank you, Congressman Rohrabacher and colleagues, for inviting the U.S. Geological Survey 

(USGS) to participate in this hearing to discuss the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction 

Program. I am Steve Hickman, Director of the Earthquake Science Center. Our center has been 

a flagship USGS research center in the West for over 50 years. We have offices in Menlo Park, 

Pasadena, Seattle, Anchorage, and Albuquerque. The USGS also hosts the National Earthquake 

Information Center (NEIC) in Golden, Colorado. 

The USGS is a committed partner in the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program, or 

NEHRP, which is led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and includes 

the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Science Foundation 

(NSF). That commitment involves collaboration going beyond the four agencies to include other 

Federal partners, State, Tribal and local governments, academic institutions, and the private 

sector. 

We appreciate the opportunity to provide you with an update on the program. Federal, State, and 

local agencies have continued to work together closely since the appropriations authority for 

NEHRP expired in 2009. Understanding earthquake hazards, quantifying earthquake risk, and 

helping to build more resilient communities is a part of each of our missions. 

NEHRP was founded on the belief that while earthquakes are inevitable, there is much that we 

can do as a Nation to improve public safety, reduce losses and impacts, and increase our 

resilience to earthquakes and related hazards. There is a technical distinction between "hazards,'' 

which are the physical phenomenon of the earth shaking, versus "risks," which are the potential 

consequences from that shaking. While earthquakes do happen all across the country, about 80 

percent of the risk they pose is in California-50 percent just in southern California. Within 

NEHRP each agency performs a distinct and complementary role essential for the overall 

success of the program. It is conducted with a high degree of cooperation and collaboration, 
29 

avoiding overlap and competition for responsibilities or resources. The heart of this partnership 

is a broadly shared commitment to translate the results of research, field studies, and seismic 

monitoring into implementation actions that can reduce earthquake losses. 

The USGS role within NEHRP is to deliver the data and information tools that engineers, 

emergency managers, government officials, and the public need to prevent earthquake hazards 

from becoming disasters. USGS activities under NEHRP are implemented through the 

Earthquake Hazards Program and the Global Seismographic Network (see below). Along with 

its partners, the USGS provides rapid, authoritative infonnation on the magnitude, location, 

shaking intensity and potential impacts of earthquakes, both in the United States and around the 

world. The Survey also develops national and regional hazard assessment maps and supports 

targeted research to improve these products. Lastly, the USGS works with a wide range of 

partners to help grow public awareness of earthquake hazards. I will share some examples of 

each of these activities and elaborate on the importance ofNEHRP to making them possible. 

As for the Global Seismographic Network, this Network enables fundamental geophysics 

research, and also supports national security objectives by monitoring and characterizing nuclear 

test detonations. It represents an important international component ofNEHRP. 

Earthquake information: The USGS NEIC, is a 24/7 operation, generating a broad suite of nearreal time earthquake information products to provide situational awareness for emergency 

responders and the public. Over 409,000 users are signed up to receive USGS earthquake 

notifications. The Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response, or PAGER alerts, 

provide rapid assessment of potential economic impacts and fatalities, while ShakeMap 

graphically depicts the intensity of shaking, which is useful for many applications, particularly 

post-event engineering assessments. These products are made possible by the earthquake 

monitoring networks that make up the Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS), including 

regional seismic networks that the USGS supports with its academic partners. Lastly, Did-YouFeel-It? is a widely used web-based crowd-sourcing tool that allows members of the public to 

describe their experience of an earthquake in a scientifically useful format. This citizen science 

data augments seismic data that the USGS collects from its monitoring networks. When you do 

feel an earthquake, please search for Did-You-Feel-It? online and provide the USGS with your 

own data. 

Significant modernization improvements to the ANSS were made in 2010 and 2011, such as 

replacing outdated analog equipment and upgrading communications software. In FY 18, we are 

continuing this by directing $5 million for deferred maintenance on the ANSS system and $23 

million for the build-out of ShakeAlert, according to congressional direction. The ANSS 

includes instrumentation in buildings and other engineered structures to support research on their 

response to seismic shaking. The resulting data and models help structural engineers to design 

buildings with improved earthquake resistance. This Administration has emphasized the 

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30 

importance of infrastructure to our national economy, and the ANSS is one such example of 

critical scientific infrastructure. 

Assessments of' earthquake hazards: About 142 million Americans live in areas with moderate to 

high earthquake hazards. In addition to national assessments, the most recent of which the USGS 

published in 20141 and will update again in 2018, we also publish more detailed urban 

assessments. The most recent maps were published for St. Louis, following on urban seismic 

hazard maps prepared for Seattle and Los Angeles, and new maps are expected for Salt Lake 

City in the next few years. These assessments are based on models that incorporate the best 

available science about faults, and prehistoric and historical records. The assessments in tum are 

used to inform building codes and community planning. In 2017 the USGS incorporated induced 

seismicity hazards into an assessment of short-term hazard from earthquakes in the Central and 

Eastern United States. There is significant domestic energy development potential in this region, 

and better understanding of this phenomenon enables states and the private sector to develop 

methods for improving safety. 

Targeted research: USGS research is supplemented by external research which the USGS 

supports through grants and cooperative agreements, and it serves as a bridge from fundamental 

research supported by NSF into applications by the USGS and its other NEHRP partners. The 

Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) is an example of such research partnerships. Led 

from the University of Southern California, SCEC has received support from both the USGS and 

NSF for over 25 years, fostering a new generation of earthquake researchers. In the next few 

years, we expect USGS-supported research to tell us more about earthquakes in Puget Sound, 

near Reno, Las Vegas and Lake Mead, and develop methods to rapidly estimate damage from 

liquefaction.2 

Public awareness: All the best earth science cannot guarantee that people are able to use the 

information to make informed decisions that will keep their families, their businesses, and their 

communities safe. Since 2003, the USGS has supported publication of Putting Down Roots in 

Earthquake Country, now available for eight different regions. including Alaska, Utah. Nevada, 

and the Central United States. These publications provide information about the threat posed by 

earthquakes in their respective regions and explain how residents can prepare, survive, and 

recover from these inevitable events. They have also been translated into Spanish, Chinese, 

Vietnamese, and Korean. Since 2008, the USGS has supported the annual Great ShakeOut 

exercise, which I will mention below. Last year, several thousand organizations, including local 

governments, hospitals, schools, places of worship, and businesses, have signed up, representing 

20 million participants in the United States. 

1 USGS Open-File Report 2014-1091 available at https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/ofr20 141091 2 2018 research available at https://earthquake.usgs.gov/cfusion/external_grants/research.cfm 

3 
31 

Close coordination among scientists, engineers, and emergency managers has clearly made the 

United States safer from earthquakes, however USGS offers several new considerations to 

improve the program going forward. For example, earthquake prediction was an original goal of 

the program, but is today considered scientifically unfeasible. Today, however it is possible for 

the USGS to issue early warnings of impending shaking from earthquakes that have already 

begun. Pursuant to USGS authority to develop an earthquake early system, Congress has 

appropriated funds in recent years to continue development of this system. The USGS is 

committed to working with Congress to determine the appropriate federal, state and local cost 

share associated with any future ShakeAlert developments. 

Earthquake hazards here in California are well-known but, before I focus on California, I would 

like to highlight other earthquake hazards around the country. In recent decades, research3 on 

the Cascadia Subduction Zone has highlighted the exceptional hazard in the Pacific Northwest. 

Subduction zones are areas where an oceanic tectonic plate is being forced under a continental 

plate thus forming a broad zone of seismic activity, in contrast to the plate boundary in most of 

California where the plates mainly slip horizontally. Subduction zones produce the largest 

earthquakes. For example, the Tohoku, Japan, earthquake of2011 occurred on a subduction 

zone fault and it was over magnitude 9, making it one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded. 

Similarly, the largest recorded earthquake in North American history also occurred on a 

subduction zone fault off the coast of Alaska in 1964. These and other subduction zone 

earthquakes also have the potential to generate tsunamis that propagate across the ocean and can 

impact communities far from their epicenters. 

Our Nation's exposure to earthquake hazards is not limited to the Pacific coast. Very large 

earthquakes have occurred in Virginia, South Carolina, Indiana, and the New Madrid zone in 

Missouri. The New Madrid zone deserves special mention. In 1811 and 1812, several 

earthquakes as large as 7.5 magnitude occurred there. At the time, human settlement in the area 

was relatively sparse, but today this represents an immediate hazard to over 200,000 people and 

a potential hazard to the Memphis region of 1.3 million people. Large earthquakes in this region 

happen infrequently, and most of the older buildings and infrastructure elements were not 

designed to resist strong shaking. In Delaware, in a region not previously known for active 

seismicity, a 4.1 magnitude earthquake struck in November 2017. This reminds us that 

earthquakes do happen nationwide. 

Turning to California, since the great California earthquakes of 1868 and 1906 in the San 

Francisco Bay Area, we have learned much about earthquakes in California and translated that 

knowledge into better building codes, better emergency response plans and, in response to 

Congressional direction, into a world-class early warning system called ShakeA!ert. We know 

that very large earthquakes happen here and, due to the complex nature of California's fault 

3 USGS Public Paper 1661-F available at https://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/pp1661£' 

4 
32 

systems and geology, they have especially dangerous potential. While many critical pieces of 

infrastructure, such as hospitals, highway interchanges, and bridges, have been retrofitted to meet 

the highest earthquake engineering standards, other infrastructure has lagged, particularly the 

infrastructure of water and data distribution systems. Many seaports and some airports are built 

on land that is susceptible to liquefaction, where shaking causes the soil to temporarily lose 

strength and cohesion and flow laterally (temporarily behaving somewhat like quicksand). 

Additionally, there have been proposals to upgrade codes for residential and office buildings to 

make them not only "life-safe," that is, less likely to collapse, but also usable after the 

earthquake. This would reduce the time and costs of recovery and make communities more 

resilient. 

The USGS has had an earthquake studies field office at Pasadena for over 40 years, working 

closely with partners at Caltech and elsewhere to develop and maintain state-of-the-art seismic 

and geodetic monitoring systems throughout southern California. The USGS has supported 

individual research projects at various academic institutions including Caltech, USC, UCLA, 

U.C. Irvine, U.C. San Diego and elsewhere. In 2017 the USGS commitment to these and other 

activities in the region was $4.5 million. 

In northern California, the Hayward fault, which slices through the highly urbanized East Bay 

region, is one ofthe most dangerous faults in the state, with an estimated 1-in-3 probability of 

generating a damaging earthquake in the next 30 years. Last month, the USGS, along with 

approximately 60 partners, released a new assessment of such an earthquake, called the 

HayWired scenario.4 It provides a realistic, highly detailed depiction of what may happen during 

and after a magnitude 7 earthquake with an epicenter in Oakland. This is an impact assessment, 

however, not a prediction. A real earthquake on the Hayward Fault could occur at any time and 

with a different pattern of shaking. Understanding the risk and getting ready for a large 

earthquake on the Hayward Fault like the one depicted in this scenario can help other at-risk 

communities prepare for similar events that are possible in their area. Overall, given the 

population and economic importance of California, and the known seismicity of the region, 

earthquake hazards remain a serious threat to all Californians' lives and livelihoods. 

I would like to discuss a few other NEHRP activities that are of interest to Californians. The 

first and perhaps most relevant to California right now is the impending first stage roll out of 

ShakeAlert, the earthquake early warning system for the West Coast of the United States. 

Earlier, I called it "world-class" because the goal of the USGS and its partners is not lo simply 

duplicate the early warning efforts of other countries, but to build the most advanced earthquake 

warning system in the world. To that end, Congress and the state of California have supported 

work to dramatically densify seismic and geodetic monitoring networks. Such dense network 

coverage is the backbone of ShakeAlert. The USGS has also worked with both public and 

4 USGS Scientific Investigation Report 2017-5013 available at https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/sir20l750 13 

5 
33 

private partners to develop notification delivery methods and automated response systems. For 

example, BART in northern California has integrated ShakeAlert into systems that automatically 

slow trains during earthquakes. Other users are developing similar operations for their 

infrastructure in many sectors including utilities, transportation, health care, and schools. 

Cities and counties are also considering the best way to integrate early warning data into their 

own emergency response plans. Broad public notifications through wireless phones, similar to 

the weather alerts made possible by the NOAA National Weather Service, face technical 

challenges, but could possibly be available by the end of the year. Most importantly, when the 

first stage is announced, more users will be motivated to develop products and services to take 

concrete actions based on USGS early warning data, rather than only experimental or test 

actions. It is crucial that we roll out a system with minimal false alarms and that partners have 

done their due diligence to operationalize real-time seismic data. We want users to have 

confidence in the system and ensure that the USGS releases only the highest quality data and 

notifications. The long-term possibilities include an earthquake early warning across the West 

Coast, including Alaska. 

Lastly, I want to remind the committee ofthe annual Great ShakeOut, which began in 2008 as 

part of a scenario for a major earthquake on the southern San Andreas Fault. This year's 

ShakeOut event happens on I 0/18 at I 0:18am. People around the country and the world 

participate in drills to practice safe responses to an earthquake. Please consider enlisting your 

offices as participants at ShakeOut.org. 

In summary, the Department of the Interior supports reauthorization ofNEHRP, because it has 

been a successful interagency pattnership that continues to make valuable contributions to the 

Nation's resilience to earthquakes and other hazards. On behalf of the USGS, thank you for this 

opportunity to testify today. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have. 

6 
34 

Dr. Steve Hickman 

Steve Hickman has been the Director of the USGS Earthquake Science Center 

since 2015. Among his accomplishments, he was Principal Investigator on the San 

Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth, a major component on the National Science 

Foundation's EarthScope project. He has also served as chair of the Science 

Advisory Group for the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program. Dr. 

Hickman received a bachelor's degree in geology from Earlham College and a PhD 

in solid-earth geophysics from MIT. His accolades include the Superior Service 

and Meritorious Service Awards from the Department of the Interior and the 2014 

"Paul G. Silver Award for Outstanding Scientific Service" from the American 

Geophysical Union. 
35 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much for your testimony. 

Dr. Vernon? 

TESTIMONY OF DR. FRANK VERNON, 

RESEARCH GEOPHYSICIST, 

INSTITUTE OF GEOPHYSICS AND PLANETARY PHYSICS, 

SCRIPPS INSTITUTION OF OCEANOGRAPHY, UC SAN DIEGO 

Dr. VERNON. Chairman Rohrabacher, Representative Takano, 

and Representative McNerney, thank you for the opportunity to 

discuss the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program. My 

name is Frank Vernon. I am the Director of the USArray Array 

Network Facility, which is part of the EarthScope Program, and I 

work at the UC–San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics. 

I would also like to ask to have my written testimony entered 

into the record as the formal record, please. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Without objection, and that will also be true 

for our other witnesses as well. 

Dr. VERNON. Most of my career has been focused on developing 

distributed real-time sensor networks and autonomous sensor networks in terrestrial and marine environments. In 1982, in partnership with the USGS, we deployed the first digital seismic telemetry 

network in the U.S. on the San Jacinto Fault down here, what is 

known as the ANZA network. That network is funded by the USGS 

through NEHRP, through its instantiation in 1982, and then funding for that continued through 2014. 

Another project that we have been working on is the EarthScope/ 

USArray, which is the primary thing. USArray is a project that is 

the seismological component of the EarthScope program at NSF. 

The core of the USArray project was known as the transportable 

array comprised of 500 broadband seismic stations deployed at a 

nominal 70-kilometer grid bounded by the borders of the lower 48 

states. Each station was deployed for about two years, enrolled 

from a manner from the West Coast to the East Coast starting in 

2004 and completing in 2015. 

After the TA completed work on the lower 48 in 2015, the project 

was divided into two parts. Under NSF funding, funding was secured to deploy approximately 280 stations in the State of Alaska, 

and that project was then slated to continue through 2019 and 

2020, depending on which of the stations you are talking about. 

Approximately 160 stations deployed in the TA have been 

transitioned into the Eastern U.S. seismic network, which started 

in 2014. CEUSN, as we call it, data streams have been integrated 

into the Advanced National Seismic System, the ANSS, and the operations are now being transitioned to USGS internal operations. 

In my opinion, it was a missed opportunity when USArray TA 

was proposed that the USGS and NSF did not come up with a plan 

to transition all the TA sites into the ANSS permanent stations. If 

that had occurred, the 48 states would have approximately a 1,600- 

station network with a nominal 70-kilometer grid recording all 

earthquakes down to a magnitude 1.5 with completeness for the 

whole lower 48 states. With the current deployment in Alaska, 

there is still opportunity to decide to transition the TA stations into 
36 

a permanent Alaska seismic network, a key component of the 

ANSS. 

Another component of the USArray program was funded through 

the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act leveraging the existing permitting field program and telemetry to augment with 

infrasound and meteorological sensors. This is something that I 

think is very important. Those of us who are in the field side of 

things do a lot of work dealing with permits, dealing with access 

to sites, dealing with communications, dealing with networking, 

and we should be leveraging this much more broadly than we have 

historically been in the past. 

For instance, the data that we put in these meteorological sensors that have been used are now available to the National Weather Service for incorporation into forecast models. 

Overall, I think I would like to step back a bit and say the 

NEHRP program has been extremely beneficial towards our understanding of earthquakes and their related hazards. The strengths 

of the program are the partnerships between academic organizations, state agencies, and Federal NEHRP agencies, which has 

been remarkable. Based on my experience of deploying and operating seismic networks and field experiments under NSF and 

USGS funding, as well as conducting research on these data, I 

would like to make the following recommendations. 

First is to keep a well-funded basic and applied research NSF 

program in earthquake engineering, the properties of earthquake 

sources, ground motion estimation, and other aspects of earthquake 

faulting, which will be key to make advances to understand the 

earthquake hazards and earthquake risks. 

Second is to keep a sustainable Advanced National Seismic System, including continuing support for the existing eleven regional 

seismic network operators. 

Next would be to support research at ANSS partner facilities 

that improves their ability to deliver accurate earthquake assessments and products. Each of these networks that operate in each 

of these regions has a much more specific knowledge where they 

are operating, whether it be Northern California or Alaska or 

Washington, wherever these other network operators are. 

A thing that people might not think about is I think there is an 

opportunity to think about how to improve the permitting process 

of how we deploy these stations, because we have to deal across 

multiple agencies, whether it is Agriculture or Interior, and how do 

we set up a more standardized format instead of having it be regionalized by each district or national forest or national park, figure out a methodology to make that more efficient and make less 

friction in the process. 

I think shared resources between agencies should be encouraged. 

For example, a seismic site is permitted and has telemetry; why 

not add to this investment by adding more sensors such as meteorological sensors that can be used by the National Weather Service or another project I am involved with, wildfire cameras in 

places that can provide information in those situations. 

I would recommend that the Alaska TA be integrated into the 

Alaska Earthquake Center operations and into the ANSS, maybe 

using some partnership with NASA and NOAA. There are some op-
37 

portunities there that might be useful because the data are used 

for multiple agencies. 

And finally, I would like to echo the recommendation of the Scientific Earthquake Studies Advisory Committee in keeping equal 

amounts of resources towards research as well as towards the network operations. 

In closing, I would like to thank the Committee for the opportunity to testify on the review of the Federal National Earthquake 

Hazards Reduction Program and say that hazard and risk reduction is more important now than ever before considering how much 

we have built up our environment. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Vernon follows:] 
38 

WRITTEN TESTIMONY OF 

Dr. Frank Vernon 

Director, USArray Array Network Facility 

Scripps Institution of Oceanography 

University of California San Diego 

BEFORE THE UNITED STATES HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

FIELD HEARING TO REVIEW THE FEDERAL NATIONAL EARTHQUAKE 

HAZARDS REDUCTION PROGRAM (NEHRP) 

Introduction 

May 31, 20I8 

Huntington Beach, CA 

Chairman Rohrabacher and members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to be 

here today to discuss the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program. My name is Frank 

Vernon and I am the Director of the USArray Array Network Facility at University of California 

San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography (Scripps), where I also received a Ph.D. in 

Geophysics. I have many years of experience as a seismologist leading basic and applied 

research programs around the globe. 

Most of my career has been focused on developing distributed networked real-time and 

autonomous sensor networks in ten·estrial and marine environments. In 1982, in partnership with 

the USGS, we deployed the first digital telemetry network in the US along the San Jacinto Fault 

in southern California, known as the ANZA network. Its mission was and still is to provide high 

quality research data while supporting real time monitoring and now earthquake early warning 

requirements. As the technology base supporting ANZA evolved. it was used as the foundation 

of systems to provide in-country monitoring of the Soviet and US nuclear test sites ( 1987-1988). 

earthquake monitoring in Kyrgyzstan (1991-2000), multiple telemetry arrays under the 

Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) ( 1991-2003). and USArray (2003-

present). These programs received support trom multiple federal agencies including the NSF. 

USGS, DOD, and DOE. Since 2010 I have been a PI on very dense seismic deployment around 

the San Jacinto fault zone, focusing on earthquake source physics, fault structure. and providing 

real-time seismic monitoring capability for southernmost California. 

Based on evolving new telemetry technologies and requirements, Han-Werner Braun and I 

started the HPWREN program (2001-prcsent) creating a large-scale wireless high-performance 

data network that is being used for interdisciplinary research and education applications, as well 

as a research test bed for wireless technology systems in general. Originally funded by NSF and 

now self-sustaining, HPWREN provides wide area wireless internet access throughout 

southernmost California including remote regions of San Diego, Riverside, and Imperial counties 

and the offshore regions primarily serving environmental sensor networks and public safety. 

Under UC San Diego's HPWREN program, research being conducted on building "last 

kilometer'' wireless links and developing networking infrastructure to capture real-time data from 

multiple types of sensors 
39 

from seismic networks, hydrological sensors, oceanographic sensors, wildfire cameras, 

meteorological sensors, as well as data from coastal radar and GPS. 

My testimony is organized as follows: !. NSF Funded Earthquake Research At UCSD; 2. USGS 

Seismic Monitoring; and 3. Closing recommendations. 

NSF Funded Earthquake Research At UCSD 

NEHRP 

At the present time, UC San Diego has four active NSF-NEHRP Funding grants providing a total 

of $4.3M spanning 2016-2020. All the active NSF grants are through Division of Civil. 

Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation part of the Directorate of Engineering. 

The Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERl) is supported by the National 

Science Foundation (NSF) creating a distributed, multi-user national facility that provides the 

natural hazards research community with access to research infrastructure that includes earthquake 

and wind engineering experimental facilities, cyberinfrastructure, computational modeling and 

simulation tools, and research data, as well as education and community outreach activities. This 

includes the Experimental Facility with Large. High Pe1jormance. Outdoor Shake Table 

(LHPOST), operated by the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. to support research in 

structural and geotechnical earthquake engineering (Prof. Joel Conte, Principallnvestigator). 

LHPOST is used for research in large structures by many different universities. Two of these NSF 

funded research projects are led by faculty at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. 

One of these projects, Collaborative Research: Seismic Resiliency of Repetitively Framed Mid-Rise ColdFormed Steel Buildings (Prof. Tara Hutchinson, Principal Investigator), is investigating the response 

of cold-formed steel building systems under eatihquakc loads. Cold-formed steel buildings 

potentially will have low installation and maintenance costs with high durability. The second 

project, Collapse Simulation of Shear-Dominated ReiJ?fiJrced Masonry Wall Systems (Prof. P. Benson 

Shing, Principal Investigator), will obtain experimental data to understand the behavior of Reinforced 

Masonry wall structures up to the point of collapse, and then will use the data to advance and validate 

analytical modeling capabilities. 

Between 1990 and 2016, UC San Diego has completed 35 NSF-NEHRP funding grants with a 

combined total of $15.3M. The completed NSF grants were through either Division of Civil, 

Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation under the Directorate of Engineering. or from the 

Division of Earth Sciences component of the Directorate of Geosciences. 

Division of Earth Sciences 

There are many projects that research earthquakes and earthquake faults that are not directly part 

of the NEHRP program. However, the research results are used to inform NEHERP from ground 

motion estimation, seismic hazard, earthquake fault structures, and earthquake source physics. 

One of these projects that I was a Principal Investigator on was the NSF/CD: Collaborative 

Research: Structural Architecture and Evolutionary Plate-Boundary Processes along the San 

Jacinto Fault Zone, a collaborative project led by USC (Y. Ben-Zion), with UCSD (myself and Y. 
40 

Fialko), SDSU (T. Rockwell), Georgia Tech (Z. Peng), and UNAVCO (D. Mencin). The goal of 

this large multi-institutional project was to examine the ·dynamics associated with earthquake 

rupture. The studies carried out are providing much more comprehensive constraints on the way 

that a major fault zone behaves. Specifically, the project combines detailed imaging of the San 

Jacinto Fault (SJF) in Southern California using multiple seismic arrays to characterize the fault 

zone in the subsurface. It couples this with surface outcrop and mapping of the fault zone, 

palcoseismic analysis, GPS analysis of crustal deformation, and theoretical work on seismic 

propagation to understand how factors such as fault damage. juxtaposition of different rock types, 

and segmentation affect the behavior of the fault zone. The long-term goal of this type of research 

is to bring together current ideas about the rupture process and outline an approach that may be 

able to provide a quantitative understanding of the evolution of fault zone structures and related 

deformation phenomena (seismicity. strain lields) in actively deforming regions. 

In the late Spring of2014, as part of the San Jacinto project, we had the opportunity to deploy the 

first complete academic "LargeN'' experiment to observe the unaliased two dimensional seismic 

wavefield. This experiment deployed 1108 high frequency instruments in an area 600 meters by 

600 meters, spanning the surface trace of San Jacinto Fault at Sage Brush Flats. This is a new 

methodology being introduced into earthquake seismology, which is enabled by the technological 

advancement of petroleum industry instrumentation. Researchers at Caltech, were the first to 

analyze earthquake and ambient noise data from an oil industry survey in Long Beach. Our 

experiment was the first of this type where the target was the stmcture of a tectonic fault (instead 

of an oil field). This was the beginning of a rapidly developing integration of emerging 

geophysical industry techniques with advances of continuous earthquake monitoring to address 

earthquake research questions. 

EarthScope/USArray 

The USArray project is the seismological component of the NSF EarthScope program. The core 

of the US Array project is known as the Transportable Array (T A) comprised of -500 broadband 

seismic stations deployed in a nominal 70 km grid bounded by the borders of the lower 48 states. 

Each station was deployed -2 years and theTA was moved in a rolling manner to the east. 

EarthScope was started in 2003 as a MREFC and transitioned to operations and maintenance in 

2008. Under my direction. Scripps operates the USArray Array Network Facility and is 

responsible for: the data acquisition and delivery from all Transportable Array stations (-500 at 

full deployment) to the national archive at the IRIS Data Management Center; station command 

and control; verification and distribution of metadata; providing useful interfaces for personnel at 

the Array Operations Facility to access state of health information; and quality control for all data. 

Data are acquired over multiple types of communication links including wireless, satellite, and 

wired networks. Many researchers and students domestically and internationally have written 

hundreds of refereed journal articles and hundreds of Ph.D. theses based on TA data. 

After theTA completed work in the Lower 48 in 2015, the project was divided into two parts. 

Under NSF funding, funding was secured to deploy approximately 280 T A stations in Alaska until 

2019. All stations are now in the ground, including 72 cooperating stations from existing networks 

operated largely by the Alaska Earthquake Center but also including stations operated by Alaska 

Volcano Observatory, National Tsunami Warning Center, and Canadian Hazard Information 

Service. The array is a grid of stations spaced about 85 km apart covering all of mainland Alaska 
41 

and parts of the Yukon, British Columbia, and the Northwest Territories (Figure 1). The focus of 

the Alaska deployment is to use local, regional, and teleseismic earthquakes to improve our 

understanding of Earth structure and earthquake activity in Alaska. 

Approximately 160 deployed stations of theTA were transitioned into the Central and Eastern US 

Network (CEUSN) starting in 2014. CEUSN data streams have been integrated into the Advanced 

National Seismic System (ANSS) and the operations are now being transitioned to USGS internal 

operations. 
42 

The transition ofT A stations into permanent CEUSN/ ANSS seismic stations is a positive outcome 

leveraging the permitting, siting, construction, installation, and field equipment under the T A and 

providing much needed enhanced coverage throughout the eastern US. In my opinion, it was a 

missed opportunity when the USArray T A was being proposed, that the USGS and NSF did not 

come up with a plan and budget to transition all T A sites into ANSS permanent stations. If this 

had occurred, the lower 48 states would have -1600 stations providing coverage on a nominal 70 

km grid recording all earthquakes in that region with magnitude 1.5 and above. With the current 

TA deployment in Alaska, there is still the opportunity to decide to transition theTA stations into 

the permanent Alaska Seismic Network, a key component of the ANSS. 

Another offshoot of the US Array T A was funded through the American Recovery and 

Reinvestment Act leveraging the existing pennitting, field program, and telemetry to augment sites 

with infrasound and meteorological sensors. The NSF project, MRJ-R2: Acquisition of" a SemiContinental Scale Atmospheric Acoustic Transportable Array (Pis: F. Vernon, M. Hedlin) created 

a real-time infrasound array whose sensing elements are co-located with the 400 seismic stations 

in the USArray Transportable Array component of the NSF EarthScope program. This 

continuously sampled array, of an unprecedented scale, provides opportunities for ground breaking 

and interdisciplinary research in atmospheric acoustics. atmospheric science, and seismology. The 

dense network of infrasound sensors allows us to study the nature of long-range infrasound 

propagation from regional to continental distances and study the sources of infrasound signals. 

Over the past few years we also have been able to augment the TA with meteorological sensors 

from a variety of funding sources. Now, essentially all TA stations in Alaska are providing near 

real time data meteorological data in addition to the core seismic mission. These stations are 

predominantly in extremely remote areas that had no prior coverage. These data are made 

available to the National Weather Service for incorporation into forecast models. 

USGS/ANSS Seismic Monitoring 

ANZA Seismic Network 

In 1982 I started my Ph.D. research project, building the ANZA seismic network to study 

earthquakes along the San Jacinto fault in southern California. The ANZA seismic network 

originally was a joint USGS-UCSD project and was the first earthquake digital telemetry network. 

The ANZA network is still operational today having kept pace with evolving technology to 

monitor local and regional seismicity in southern California. The network provides real-time data 

to the ANSS, the California Integrated Seismic Network (CISN), and the greater San Diego 

community. The ANZA seismic network was funded by the USGS since its initiation in 1982 until 

2014 through NEHRP. Since 2014 the ANZA network has survived on private funds and internal 

UCSD funds. The ANZA seismic network continues to freely provide real time data to CISN and 

ANSS, as an external network to both organizations. More than 20 Ph.D. theses and 1 00+ refereed 

journal articles have been based on ANZA data. 

The ANZA seismic network currently consists of twenty-eight operational stations. Most of the 

stations are located along the San Jacinto fault starting with IWR and RDM towards the top of the 

map, and TONN and USGCB on the right side of the map. The San Jacinto fault is one of the 

two most dangerous faults in southern California, the other being the San Andreas Fault. 
43 

Advanced National Seismic System 

According to the USGS Circular 1429 Advanced National Seismic System Current Status, 

Development Opportunities, and Priorities for 2017-2027, the ANSS is a collaboration offederal, 

state, and academic partners. The role of the ANSS includes immediate earthquake notifications 

to governments and emergency managers, determining earthquake source characteristics, and 

providing ANSS websites with real-time earthquake information, a suite of real-time situational 

awareness products, a catalog of information (the ANSS Comprehensive Catalog), and products 

for engineers served by the Center for Engineering Strong Motion Data. Currently there arc 

approximately 3000 ANSS stations operated by eleven regional seismic networks and the USGS. 

Total funding for the ANSS from the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program in fiscal year (FY) 2016 

was $30.8 million, including $8.2 million for the implementation of earthquake early warning on 

the west coast. 

One ongoing issue is the balance of research and operations under the USGS Earthquake Hazards 

Program. The Scientific Earthquake Studies Advismy Commirtee Report 2017-2018 states that 

"SESAC reaffirms its principle that monitoring should not consume more than 50% of the 

EHP budget. The momentum of ShakeAiert (EEW) presents a challenge now and will 

present an even greater challenge in the future. Earthquake early warning resonates with 

the public and Congress. It exists as a product of the modernization of the ANSS plus 

regional networks. It will require more resources as EEW continues to expand. 

Implementation for a similar system elsewhere in the US would be impossible to meet with 

current funding levels. It is easy to forget/ignore that products like EEW arc founded on 

solid, basic science into the nature of earthquakes. This fundamental understanding of 

earthquake science comes from highly-trained people dedicated to their work, not from 

instruments and technology. There is a diverse body of research (seismology, geology, 

geodesy, laboratory) that must be integrated to understand the nature of earthquakes and 

quantify the available data in order to deliver successful products. The success of the EHP 
44 

has been its ability to merge monitoring and research. As eatthquake monitoring grows, 

earthquake hazard assessment and eatthquake research must grow in equal measure." 

At present the ANSS is about 40% of its original design goals. Current funding levels are sufficient 

to maintain current operations but are insufficient for addressing the future needs of earthquake 

early warning, as well as the future needs monitoring of urban areas, critical facilities, and 

structures. A significant increase in funding to the NEHRP funding will be needed to achieve the 

goals of the ANSS with earthquake early warning capabilities and to sustain the research needed 

to reach these goals. 

Closing recommendations 

Overall the NEHRP program has been extremely beneficial towards our understanding of 

earthquakes and their related hazards. The strengths of the program are the partnerships between 

academic organizations, state agencies, and federal NEHRP agencies. 

Based on my experience of deploying and operating seismic networks and field experiments under 

NSF and USGS funding, as well as conducting research on these data, I would like to make the 

following recommendations for NEHRP. 

1. Keeping a well-funded basic and applied research NSF programs in earthquake 

engineering. the properties of earthquake sources, and ground motion estimation will be 

key for making advances in understanding earthquake hazards and earthquake risks. 

2. Keep a sustainable Advanced National Seismic System including continuing support for 

the existing eleven regional seismic network operators. 

3. Support research at ANSS partner facilities that improves their ability to deliver accurate 

earthquake assessments and products; 

4. Permitting- Set up a streamlined expedited process for deploying earthquake monitoring 

sites across federal agencies. Permitting is extremely expensive and time consuming and 

significant cost savings could be achieved by simplifying and shortening the process. 

Language similar to Senate Bill 1768 is needed 

a. ''(V) Coordinating with the Secretwy of Agriculture and the Secretmy of the 

Interior on the use <~/public lands for earthquake monitoring and research stations, 

and related data collection. "' 

5. Shared resources between agencies should be encouraged. For example, if a seismic site 

is permitted and has telemetry, why not leverage this investment by adding other sensors 

such as meteorological sensors that can be used by the National Weather Service. 

6. Integrate Alaska T A into Alaska Earthquake Center Operations and hence into the ANSS. 

7. Keep equal amounts of resources for monitoring and research in the Earthquake Hazard 

Program budget as Scientific Earthquake Studies Advisory Committee recommends. 

In closing, I would like to thank the Committee for the oppottunity to testify on the review of the 

federal National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program. 
45 

Short Bio for Frank Vernon 

Dr. Vernon is a Research Geophysicist at the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary 

Physics, Scripps Institution of Oceanography. University of California at San Diego 

(http://scrippsscholars.ucsd.edu/flvernon). His current research interests are focused on 

developing distributed networked real-time sensor networks in terrestrial and marine 

environments. Currently he is the Director for the USArray Array Network Facility for 

the NSF EarthScope program (http://anJucsd.edu). This network currently has over 500 

stations using seismic, acoustic, and atmospheric pressure sensors delivering real-time 

data to UCSD, which are redistributed to multiple sites. The ANF is responsible for realtime state-of-health monitoring for the network in addition to the real time data 

processing, archiving, and distribution. Data are acquired over multiple types of 

communication links including wireless, satellite. and wired networks. 

Dr. Vernon is the PI on the ANZA broadband and strong motion seismic network that has 

operated since 1982 providing real-time seismic monitoring capability for southernmost 

California (http://eqinfo.ucsd.e@). Dr. Vernon is a PI on very dense seismic deployment 

around the San Jacinto fault zone, focusing on earthquake source physics, fault structure, 

and providing real-time seismic monitoring capability for southernmost California. Tn 

addition Dr. Vernon is PI on the HPWREN program creating a large-scale wireless highperformance data network that is being used for interdisciplinary research and education 

applications, as well as a research test bed for wireless technology systems in general 

(http://hpwren.ucsd.edu). HPWREN provides wide area wireless internet access 

throughout southernmost California including San Diego, Riverside, and Riverside 

counties and the offshore regions. Under UCSD's HPWREN program, research being 

conducted on building ''last kilometer" wireless links and developing networking 

infrastructure to capture real-time data from multiple types of sensors from seismic 

networks, hydrological sensors, oceanographic sensors. wildfire cameras, meteorological 

sensors. as well as data from coastal radar and GPS. 

Dr. Vernon obtained a B.A. in Physics with Specialization in Earth Sciences from UCSD 

in 1977, and a Ph.D. in Earth Sciences from UCSD in 1989. He is author or co-author on 

more than 130 scientific articles and is currently editor for the AGU Earth and Space 

Sciences Journal. 
46 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Poland? 

TESTIMONY OF MR. CHRIS D. POLAND, 

CONSULTING ENGINEER; 

NIST COMMUNITY RESILIENCE FELLOW 

Mr. POLAND. Mr. Rohrabacher, Mr. Takano, and Mr. McNerney, 

thank you very much for the opportunity to speak here today on 

behalf of the American Society of Civil Engineers. My name is 

Chris Poland. I am a licensed civil and structural engineer with 

over 40 years of experience and professional practice in structural 

engineering and earthquake engineering. 

I am the NIST Community Resilience Fellow, and my testimony 

today represents the interests also of the Earthquake Engineering 

Research Institute. 

NEHRP, now embodied in the public law, remains a solid foundation for the continued advancement of seismic safety and resilience for the nation. Over the past 40 years the program has sponsored extensive research addressing all facets of earthquake science 

and engineering. Its fundamental strength rests in its longevity, 

continuous funding, and the cooperative efforts of the four NEHRP 

agencies. 

As both the leader within the NEHRP program and a consumer 

of the information in my engineering practice, I can say without 

reservation that the program is a success, fulfills a critical need, 

and has made great strides in advancing the science and engineering related to earthquakes. 

For example, the NEHRP development of a technically complex 

retrofit standard for existing buildings has reduced the cost of implementing California’s 30-year hospital retrofit program by billions of dollars. The money is saved by the buildings that don’t 

need to be retrofit and the amount of retrofit that needs to be done. 

It is a huge, huge contribution. 

The nation continues to be significantly better prepared to deal 

with the impact of strong earthquakes, and the program needs to 

continue pursuing all of its activities. 

Unfortunately, the program has not yet accomplished all that 

was envisioned due to chronic underfunding of the four NEHRP 

agencies. The program has also not been reauthorized since 2004, 

and annual appropriations equal less than a third of the needed 

$306.5 million annually recommended by the National Research 

Council. Together, the lack of sufficient funding and reauthorization have weakened the program’s overall effectiveness. This comes 

at a time when the nation’s earthquake risk continues to grow due 

to the population growth, urban development, and deteriorating 

conditions of the built environment. 

What do you need to do? We need to provide more funding. Since 

the last reauthorization, the focus of the earthquake engineering 

has broadened from concentrating on design and construction of individual buildings and infrastructure to also include an assessment 

of what is needed to make communities more resilient; that is, give 

them the ability to rapidly recover from severe seismic shocks. This 

broadens the focus and the challenges that NEHRP faces, and it 

needs to expand its research programs in all areas. 
47 

Congress needs to signal their support and broaden NEHRP to 

address community resilience and provide sufficient additional authorization for funding in the following four areas. 

First, identify the existing gaps in seismic safety and community 

resilience through a nationwide risk assessment. A fundamental 

assessment of the nation’s earthquake risk reduction will refine the 

direction the program is going, stimulate collaborative efforts between the agencies, establish the needed funding levels, and the 

need for additional statutory responsibilities. This is important 

after 40 years to really understand where we are today. 

Second, develop community-based seismic hazard maps to find 

potential for strong shaking, faulting, landslides, and liquefaction 

on a block by block community scale. These are micro maps that 

we need. These maps are needed immediately, will require significant new scientific research, and are best developed at a national 

level by USGS to assure consistency and use of latest scientific 

findings. We have to have this block by block information to overlay with all the other information communities have so they can 

understand what their needs are for community resilience. 

Third, complete the Advanced National Seismic System Monitoring Network for recording earthquakes and issuing early warnings throughout the nation. All earthquake professions use information derived from the seismic monitoring, and the emergency 

management community will eventually use early warning to save 

lives, reduce damage, economic disruption and business downtime, 

and to reduce psychological trauma. 

Monitoring provides information that we all use, and it is extremely important. When we don’t complete the ANSS program, we 

deny ourselves the opportunity to learn from the earthquakes as 

they occur. Earthquake warning is an extremely exciting opportunity. It comes with the ability to gather all this information that 

we need from earthquakes. It needs to be completed, and not in 20 

years. 

Development of a new generation of seismic standards for new 

and existing construction of buildings and lifeline infrastructure 

systems is the fourth key aspect. FEMA initiated the development 

of a functional recovery-based design and planning code from within a reauthorized NEHRP. It should be based on the work of a committee of experts who will set the appropriate hazard levels and 

performance goals for all buildings and lifeline infrastructure systems consistent with the Community Resilience Planning Guide for 

Buildings and Infrastructure Systems published by NIST in May of 

2016. A rating system for easily identifying and publishing the anticipated seismic performance of individual buildings should also be 

developed and implemented. 

It is a new generation code that we need, and it takes a fresh 

start to get there. Fortunately, the current bipartisan Senate bill, 

S. 1768, the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program Reauthorization Act, includes these critical additions to NEHRP. 

Thank you so much for the opportunity to share my views with 

the Committee from the trenches, if you will, down where the people are, where the buildings are. Regarding NEHRP, I urge Congress to move quickly to reauthorize this critical program with 
48 

these outlined improvements, and I am happy to answer any questions that you have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Poland follows:] 
49 

ASCE 

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS 

Washington Oflice 

101 Constitution Ave, N.W 

Suite 375 East 

Washington, D.C. 20001 

(202) 789-7850 

Fax: (202) 789-7859 

Web: http"//~v.'\v.asce.org 

Testimony before the Congress of the United States 

House of Representatives 

Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

Chris D. Poland, PE, SE, NAE, M.ASCE, F.SEI 

Consulting Engineer, NIST Community Resilience Fellow 

Member, National Academy of Engineering 

On behalf of the 

American Society of Civil Engineers 

May 31,2018 

Huntington Beach, California 
50 

Summary of Testimony 

Over the past 40 years, the National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program (NEHRP) has 

sponsored extensive research addressing all facets of earthquake science and engineering 

including characterizing the prevalent seismic hazards threatening the nation, monitoring 

programs to determine the frequency and severity of strong shaking, sponsoring the on-going 

development of hundreds of design guides and standards for buildings, and assisting states with 

preparedness and mitigation activities. Its fundamental strength rests in its longevity, 

continuous funding, and the cooperative efforts of the four NEHRP agencies; the National 

Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the 

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the National Science Foundation (NSF). 

As both a leader in NEHRP and a consumer of this information in my engineering practice for 

over 40 years, I can say without reservation that the program is a success, fulfills a critical need, 

and has made great strides in advancing the science and engineering related to earthquakes. 

The nation is significantly better prepared to deal with the impact of strong earthquakes 

because of the NEHRP. 

Unfortunately, the program has not yet accomplished all that was envisioned due to chronic 

underfunding of the four NEHRP agencies. The program has also not been reauthorized since 

2004 and annual appropriations equal less than a third of the needed $306.S million annually 

recommended by the National Research Council in 2011. Together, these issues have weakened 

the program's overall effectiveness in the recent past and going forward. This comes at a time 

when the nation's earthquake risk continues to grow due to population growth, urban 

development, and the deteriorating condition of the built environment, (ACEHR 2017). 

Since the last re-authorization of NEHRP in 2004, the focus of earthquake engineering has 

broadened from concentrating on the design and construction of individual buildings and 

infrastructure systems to also include an assessment of what is needed to make communities 

more resilient-the ability to rapidly recover from a severe seismic shock. This broadened focus 

challenges NEHRP to expand its research programs to include the characterization of 

community specific hazards, complete our seismic monitoring capabilities, and address the 

socioeconomic and cultural aspects and needs of the United States. New performance-based 

guidelines and standards that consider the social and economic needs of communities and the 

performance of buildings and lifeline infrastructure systems (power, transportation, 

communication, water and waste water systems) needed for rapid and efficient recovery need 

to be developed. Congress needs to broaden NEHRP and provide sufficient funding to protect 

the lives, property, and prosperity of the American people (ACEHR 2010). The current bipartisan Senate bill, S. 1768 the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program 

Reauthorization Act, includes these critical additions to NEHRP. 

Founded in 1852, ASCE is our nation's oldest civil engineering organization representing more 

than 150,000 civil engineers in private practice, government, industry and academia. ASCE is a 

501(c)(3) non-profit educational and professional society. 

2 
51 

Written Testimony 

Chairman Smith and honorable members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to 

speak here today on behalf of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) about the need to 

re-authorize the National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program (NEHRP). My name is Chris D. 

Poland. I am a licensed Civil and Structural Engineer with over 40 years of experience in 

structural and earthquake engineering and a NIST Community Resilience Fellow. My testimony 

also represents the interests of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) where I 

currently serve as the Public Policy Advisory Committee Co-chairman. EERI, ASCE, the 

Seismological Society of America, and others in the earthquake community were active 

contributors to S. 1768. 

Defining and achieving a disaster-resilient nation is at the heart of my technical interests and 

the main focus of my endeavors related to advancing the profession. My activities are focused 

on public safety related to earthquakes, earthquake engineering, and community resilience. My 

efforts began by helping professional society committees write seismic codes for buildings and 

other structures, and quickly grew to include leadership positions in many of the related 

professional societies. In addition to my professional practice in structural engineering, I have 

participated in a wide variety of research projects that have led to new processes and 

procedures, design guidelines, and standards that are cited by building codes. Since 2004, my 

efforts have taken on a broader perspective that reach beyond the technical aspects of 

earthquake engineering to include understanding public policies aimed at disaster resilience. By 

working with the business community, public policy groups, and becoming a vocal advocate for 

disaster resilience at the local level, I helped start the conversation for how to achieve a 

disaster-resilient San Francisco that has led to my active participation in the NIST Community 

Resilience Initiative as a Community Resilience Fellow. That initiative has generalized the 

process so that it applies to all hazards affecting all regions of the nation. 

The NEHRP now embodied in the Public Law (42 USC 7701 et.seq) remains a solid foundation 

for the continued advancement of seismic safety and resilience for the nation. It clearly 

recognizes the nationwide vulnerabilities, the potential for loss of life, injury, destruction of 

property and the need for and benefits of developing federally sponsored earthquake hazard 

reductions measures. The NEHRP purpose is to reduce the risks of life and property from future 

earthquakes. The program' objectives include educating the public, developing design and 

construction methods, characterizing seismic hazards, developing model building codes, 

disseminating methods for mitigating risks, and developing ways to assure the availability of 

earthquake insurance. 

Through the re-authorization process, the law needs to be amended to recognize that the built 

environment in earthquake-prone regions of the nation has been generally designed and 

constructed to protect human life without consideration of the time it will take to repair and 

recover from the damage. The law also must recognize that authorization levels need to be set 

in recognition of the $306.5 million annual need established by the National Research Council 

Report Strategic Plan far the National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program (NRC 2011). The 

3 
52 

reauthorization should also broaden the program's objectives to focus on creating a built 

environment that supports community resilience through the development of performancebased design codes, guidelines and tools based on acceptable recovery times that have been 

established for the functions they serve. 

The NEHRP programs that are now in the law need to be continued as the new demands of 

community resilience are added. The term "community resilience" means the ability of a 

community to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from, and more successfully adapt to 

adverse events. Resilience starts at the local level, with individuals, families, and businesses, 

and the resilience of the built environment is part of the challenge. Resilience must also 

encompass the socio-economic and cultural aspects and needs of communities. (ACEHR 2010). 

To address the broader focus on community resilience, NEHRP should be re-authorized to 

include the following. 

1. Identification of the gaps in seismic safety and community resilience through a 

nationwide risk assessment. 

Broadening the NEHRP to address community resilience in a comprehensive way 

requires an enhanced level of collaboration among the NEHRP agencies. As the concepts 

of community resilience have developed over the past 10 years, various efforts have 

been added to the Agency programs, though not necessarily in a collaborative manner. 

To move forward in an efficient manner, a fundamental assessment of the nation's 

earthquake risk reduction process must be conducted to identify the gaps in knowledge, 

implementation, and mitigation activities that are delaying the improvement of national 

earthquake resilience. The assessment should be comprehensive and address the steps 

currently being taken by government at all levels and the private sector related to the 

built environment as well as efforts to address the potential social and economic 

impacts. This assessment will refine the direction of the program going forward, 

stimulate collaborative efforts between the agencies, establish the needed funding 

levels, and the need for additional statutory responsibilities (ACEHR 2015). 

2. Development of community based seismic hazard maps defining the potential for 

strong shaking, faulting, landslides, and liquefaction on a community scale. 

Under the leadership of USGS, the earth science community has developed a 

scientifically defendable characterization of the seismic hazards across the United 

States. This is one of the most significant contributions by NEHRP to the seismic design 

of the built environment. This process is ongoing and needs sufficient funding to 

continue to refine the understanding and characterization of earthquakes. Those efforts 

will impact the design and rehabilitation of every element of the built environment and 

are needed to reduce uncertainty and improve cost expectations. 

4 
53 

Earthquake characterizations are available now to support the work of earthquake 

engineers related to individual projects but generally not available to communities in 

map form (Geographic Information Systems (GIS) based). Community resilience 

planning for earthquakes is best served by understanding the seismic hazards (strong 

shaking, faulting, landslides, and liquefaction) in the community on a block by block 

basis (NIST GB 12016). The needed GIS databases and maps are available for strong 

shaking estimates but not for the other hazards. These are needed immediately and are 

best developed at the national level by USGS to assure consistency across community 

lines and access to the latest scientific findings. 

3. Completion of the Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS) Seismic monitoring 

network for recording earthquakes and issuing early warnings throughout the nation. 

The Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS) is an on-going program to modernize, 

expand, and integrate the nations monitoring networks. It was initiated over 10 years 

ago, has established the backbone of its system, and has accomplished 42 percent of its 

instrumentation goal, but it lacks sufficient funds to be completed. All earthquake 

professions use information derived from seismic monitoring. Earthquake scientists 

focus on understanding the source and nature of strong shaking based on the strong 

and weak motion recordings they obtain. Structural Engineers and their related design 

professional colleagues use strong motion records to better understand the behavior of 

the built environment, determine its damage potential under strong shaking, and finetune their designs to meet community needs. Economists and policy analysts focus on 

determining the appropriate framework for evaluating the benefits and cost 

effectiveness of mitigation efforts. Insurance professionals and their loss estimation 

consultants use the information to determine the expected dollar losses that could 

occur (NRC 2006). The emergency management community uses it to define scenario 

events for planning activities and will eventually use early warning to save lives, reduce 

damage, economic disruption and business downtime, and reduce psychological trauma 

(USGS 2014). 

Completion of the Advanced National Seismic System will vastly improve the 

information learned from future earthquakes, reduce the uncertainly in the hazard 

characterizations, reduce the overall cost of achieving resilience, and complete the full 

development and deployment of the Earthquake Early Warning system. Additional 

authorization of funding and cooperation from the Secretary of Agriculture and 

Secretary of the Interior is needed to assist and expedite approvals for using public land 

for locating seismic monitoring instruments. 

4. Development of a new generation of Seismic Standards for New and Existing 

Construction of Buildings and Lifeline Infrastructure Systems. 

The International Code Council publishes 15 model building codes (!-Codes) that 

regulate the design and construction of buildings when adopted by local jurisdictions. 

5 
54 

They are published on a 3-year cycle and used throughout the United States. The codes 

are developed by the engineering professions and significant changes are added during 

each cycle related to resilient construction. While this is a move in the right direction, 

these additions are focused on improving individual building's performance and are not 

addressing what is needed to accelerate community-wide recovery after a significant 

earthquake. 

While there are many codes, standards, and guidelines that govern the design and 

construction of lifeline infrastructure systems, their focus relates to normal day-to-day 

operations of the system's components and do not cover the overall system's 

performance during earthquakes or the dependencies that exist between systems. 

More emphasis on risk reduction, system restoration, and societal impacts is needed 

along with unified performance and restoration goals across all systems. Extensive 

research and a new generation of codes, standards, and guidelines are needed (ATC 

2016). 

In an ideal community, all buildings and infrastructure systems would recover rapidly 

from a strong earthquake with little interruption in services. Buildings would remain 

usable, infrastructure systems would remain operational, and only a few days would be 

needed to clean up the mess and get back to normal operations. Unfortunately, this is 

not the case. Buildings and infrastructure systems of any mature community have been 

built over generations and are subject to changing demands, retrofit or mitigation 

needs, and deterioration. Design codes for new buildings and retrofit codes for existing 

buildings do not include the performance goals needed for community resilience. 

Lifeline Infrastructure Systems are not regulated by national codes and are designed to 

performance criteria set by their owners and often without regard for the needs of the 

community after a strong earthquake. In addition, most existing buildings and 

supporting infrastructure systems do not meet current minimum code requirements 

and are unlikely to contribute to community resilience in their existing condition. 

Fortunately, every building and infrastructure system is not immediately needed for a 

community to recover efficiently. Buildings only need to be usable when needed to 

support recovery. For example, hospitals are needed immediately to care for the 

injured, but recreation centers can wait until people have time to use them. Schools are 

immediately needed as emergency shelters. They need to reopen to students as quickly 

as possible, but not before the emergency response period is over, roads are open for 

buses, and families are settled. By setting specific return to function goals for buildings 

and lifeline infrastructure, communities can use their sequence of recovery activities to 

determine what performance levels need to be built into functional recovery-based 

design and planning codes. Communities can also assess their existing built environment 

against the goals to determine where mitigation activities are needed, and which are 

highest priority. 

6 
55 

FEMA and NIST should lead the development of functional recovery-based design and 

planning codes from within the re-authorized NEHRP. It should be based on the work of 

a committee of experts from the Federal Agencies, codes and standards writing 

organizations, non-government organizations, disaster management professional 

organizations, and engineering professional organizations such as ASCE and EERI, who 

will set the appropriate hazard levels and performance goals for all buildings and lifeline 

infrastructure systems. The work products must be consistent across all elements of the 

built environment and aligned with the concepts in the Community Resilient Planning 

Guide for Buildings and Infrastructure Systems, published by NIST in May 2016 (NIST 

2016). A rating system for easily identifying and publishing the anticipated seismic 

performance of individual buildings should also be developed and implemented. 

NEHRP has and should continue to make Americans safer and our nation more secure, resilient, 

and financially stronger through research in engineering, earth and behavioral sciences, and 

public policy. We must also follow through with implementation of the findings through the 

development of design tools and assistance to States and communities with preparedness and 

mitigation activities. Thank you for the opportunity to share my views with the Committee 

regarding the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program, and I urge Congress to move 

quickly to reauthorize, with the outlined improvements, this critical program. 

7 
56 

References 

Applied Technology Council, (ATC) 2016. Critical Assessment of Lifeline System Performance: 

Understanding Societal Needs in Disaster Recovery. NIST CGR 16-917-39. 

http ://nvlpubs. nist.gov /n istpu bs/gcr /2016/N IST.GCR.16-917 -39. pdf Read 5/27/2018 

Advisory Committee on Earthquake Hazard Reduction (ACEHR), 2010. Achieving National 

Disaster Resilience through Local, Regional, and National Activities. 

https://nehrp.gov/pdf/ACEHRWhitePaperFeb2010.pdf. Read 5/27/2018 

Advisory Committee on Earthquake Hazard Reduction (ACEHR), 2015. Effectiveness of the 

National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program. 

https://nehrp.gov /pdf/2015ACEH RReportFinal.pdf. Read 5/27/2018 

Advisory Committee on Earthquake Hazard Reduction (ACEHR), 2017. Effectiveness of the 

National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program. 

https://nehrp.gov/pdf/11Sept2017 Final ACEHRReport%20pg11%20fixed.pdf. Read 5/27/2018 

National institute of Science and Technology, (NIST),2016. Guide Brief 1- Characterizing the 

Population. NIST Special Publication 1190-1GB12016. 

https :// nvlpu bs. nist.gov /n istpu bs/Special Pu blications/N IST.SP .1190G B-l.pdf. Read 5/2 7/2018. 

National Research Council (NRC), 2006. Improved Seismic Monitoring, Improved Decision 

Making; Assessing the Value of Reduced Uncertainty. Washington D.C. National Academies 

Press. https:/Jwww.nap.edu/download/11327. Read 5/27/2018 

National Research Council (NRC), 2011. National Earthquake Resilience; Research, 

Implementation, and Outreach. Committee on National Earthquake Resilience, Research, 

Implementation, and Outreach. Washington D.C. National Academies Press. 

https://www.nehrp.gov/pdf/nrc2011.pdf. Read 5/27/2018 

United States Geological Survey (USGS), 2014. ShakeA/ert- An Earthquake Early Warning 

System for the United States West Coast. https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2014/3083/pdf/fs2014-

3083.pdf. Read 5/27/2018 

United States Geological Survey (USGS), 2017. Advanced National Seismic System: Current 

Status, Development Opportunities, and Priorities for 2017-2027. 

https://pubs. usgs.gov I circ/1429/ circ1429 .pdf. Read 5/27/2018 

8 
57 

Chris Poland 

Consulting Engineer 

NIST Community Resilience Fellow 

Chairman and CEO, Degenkolb Engineers, retired 

Chris Poland is an internationally recognized authority on earthquake engineering and champion of 

disaster resilience. His passion for vibrant, sustainable, and healthy communities drives his consulting 

engineering practice. He focuses on community resilience and the buildings and systems that contribute 

to it. Currently, Chris is a Community Resilience Fellow in the National Institute of Standards and 

Technology (NIST) and member of the team of authors that are developed and are now implementing a 

Community Resilience Planning Guide. 

Chris is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (2009) and serves on several their study 

committees and boards. He is a Fellow of the American Council of Engineering Companies, the Structural 

Engineers Association of California and the American Society of Civil Engineers Structural Engineering 

Institute. He is also an honorary member of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute and the 

Structural Engineers Association of California. 

His structural engineering career spans over 42 years and includes hundreds of projects related to the 

design of new buildings, seismic analysis and strengthening of existing buildings, structural failure 

analysis, historic preservation, as well as the development of guidelines and standards that are used 

worldwide. He was a Senior Principal, Chairman and CEO of Degenkolb Engineers during his 40 years 

with the firm from 1974 through 2014. 
58 

ASCE 

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS 

Supplemental 

Washington Office 

101 Constitution Ave., N.W. 

Suite 375 East 

Washington, D.C. 20001 

(202) 789-7850 

Fax. (202) 789-7859 

Web. http://www.asce.org 

Testimony before the Congress of the United States 

House of Representatives 

Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

Chris D. Poland, PE, SE, NAE, M.ASCE, F.SEI 

Consulting Engineer, NIST Community Resilience Fellow 

Member, National Academy of Engineering 

On behalf of the 

American Society of Civil Engineers 

Field Hearing 

May 31,2018 

Huntington Beach, California 

Supplemental Testimony submitted June 9, 2018 
59 

Mr. Rohrabacher and members of the committee. During the question and answer period at the 

Hearing on May 31, you mentioned that an annual $200M authorization sounded reasonable. 

The NRC report I cited recommended a $306.5M annual authorization. 

During the development of the Senate Bill SB 1768, Senator Feinstein's office requested that we 

suggest a distribution of the NRC cost estimate to the four Agencies. We submitted our 

suggestion in April 2017. We have since reviewed our work and revised those suggested 

authorization levels to the $200M annual amount you mentioned. The resulting 

recommendations are shown below, and their development summarized on the next page. 

I hope this is helpful and will lead to more realistic authorization levels included in the House 

Bill now under development. I will be pleased to answer any questions you have. 

Agency $300M Annual $200M Annual 

Authorization Authorization 

USGS $171.0M $122.8M 

NSF $ 56.7M $ 32.2M 

NIST $ 48.05M $ 25.5M 

FEMA $ 30.75M $ 19.5M 

Total $306.5M $200.0M 

2 
6/9

Distribution of the NRC $306.5 million annual need 

Established by the National Research Council Report "National Earthquake Resilience, Research, lmpfementation, and Outreach" 

NRC report Earthquake National Resilience Cos1 Estimates by Task Authorization levels per Agency 

as estimated by EERI for all tasks as reported 

All Agency athorization Levels scaled to a $20

total authorization level 

NRC USGS NSF NIST FEMA Total 

Annual 

Costs 

Task (millions) 

1. Physics of Earthquake Processes $27.00 $13.50 $13.50 $27.00 

2. Advanced National Seismic System- ANSS $66.80 $66.80 $66.80 

3. Earthquake Early Warning $20.60 $20.60 $20.60 

4. National Seismic Hazard Model $50.10 $50.10 $50.10 

5. Operational Earthquake Forecasting $5.00 $5.00 $5.00 

6. Earthquake Scenarios $10.00 $10.00 $10.00 

7. Earthquake Risk Assessments and Applications $5.00 $5.00 $5.00 

8. Post·earthquake Social Science Response and Recovery Research $2.30 $2.30 $2.30 9. Information Management $1.00 $1.00 $1.00 

10. Socio-economic Research on Hazard Mitigation and Recovery $3.00 $3.00 $3.00 

11. Observatory Network on Community Resilience and Vulnerability $2.90 $2.90 $2.90 12. Simulations of Earthquake Damage and loss $6.00 $6.00 $6.00 

13. Techniques for Evaluation and Retrofit of Existing Buildings $22.90 $4.00 $16.00 $2.90 $22.90 

14. Earthquake Engineering for Buildings $46.70 $20.00 $13.35 $13.35 $46.70 15. Guidelines for Lifelines Systems $5.00 $2.50 $2.50 $5.00 

16. Next Generation Sustainable Materials, Components and Systems $8.20 $5.00 $3.20 $8.20 

17. Knowledge, Tools, and Technology Transfer to/from the Pnvate Sector $8.40 $4.20 $4.20 $8.40 

18. Earthquake Resilient Communities and Regional Demonstration Projects $15.60 $7.80 $7.80 $15.60 

Total $306.50 $171.00 $56.70 $48.05 $30.75 $306.50 

Percent Reduction in each agency allocation to achieve a 200 million total 

Notes 

1. The NRC Report referenced in the testimony stipulated the annual cost for each of the 18 tasks, but did not distribute them to the four 

agencies. 

2. EERI compared the numbers in the NRC report to their own 2003 report on the same topic that also called for $300 M per year and stipulated how the funds were to be distributed to the agencies 

3. The 2015 distribution of the NRC Annual Costs shown in the second box were sent to Senator Feinstein's office in 2017 for use in the 

development of the Senate Bill. 

4. At the Hearing, Congressman Rohrabacher suggest that an annual authorization of 200 million "sounded reasonable". The third box 

represents my suggested reductions 1n the agency authorizations to achieve that level. 

5. The reductions are consistent with my testimony in that they maintain full funding for ANSS and Early Warning, generally reduce the other 

tasks proportionately while not reducing the lowest cost tasks. 

Additional Reference 

USGS NSF NIST 

$8.00 $8.00 

$66.80 $20.00 

$18.00 

$3.00 $5.00 

$2.00 

$2.30 

$1.00 

$3.00 $2.90 $2.00 

$2.00 $6.00 

$10.00 $6.00 

$2.50 

$2.00 $1 00 

$2.00 

$7.00 

$122 80 $32.20 $25.50 

72% 57% 53% 

Earthquake Engmeering Research Institute, 2003. Securing Society Against Catastrophic Earthquake Losses. Oakland, CA. 

Read 6/9/2018 

FEMA To

$1$6$2$1

$$$$

$$$

$

$2.00 $1$6.00 $2$2.50 $

$

$2.00 $$7.00 $1

$19.50 $20

63% 
61 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Poland. 

Now, Mr. Arba, you are recognized. 

TESTIMONY OF MR. RYAN ARBA, 

BRANCH CHIEF, EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI PROGRAM, 

CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR’S OFFICE OF EMERGENCY SERVICES 

Mr. ARBA. Thank you, and good afternoon, Committee Members. 

I am Ryan Arba, the Branch Chief for the California Governor’s Office Emergency Services Earthquake and Tsunami Program. Thank 

you for the opportunity to testify today. 

California is vulnerable to a catastrophic disaster within the lifetimes of most residents, and earthquakes is one of those main 

threats. In fact, California holds 77 percent of the annualized 

earthquake risk, and that is estimated at over $3 billion a year in 

risk over a 30-year period. And in more than 70 percent of the 

states, 40 million people reside within 30 miles of a known damaging fault. 

We have kept some statistics of the earthquake impact since 

1950 and found that there have been over 200 deaths related to 

earthquakes, 19,000 injuries, and over $8 billion in Cal OES disaster costs with FEMA, of course. 

So CAL OES’ responsibility includes leading California’s efforts 

to prepare, mitigate, respond, and recover from earthquakes, but 

we can’t do it alone. The program relies on non-profit, local, state, 

and Federal partners such as the Federal Emergency Management 

Agency and the U.S. Geological Survey in order to meet this mission. 

Today there are several programs I would like to highlight that 

are supported in part by the NEHRP to the program administered 

by FEMA. 

The first is the annual ShakeOut event. It is most commonly 

known as the one-minute drill to practice drop, cover, and hold on, 

but also includes other opportunities to practice full-scale disaster 

preparedness exercises and other preparedness activities. It is one 

of our most leveraged activities. In fact, we have over 10 million 

residents that are registered to participate in this annual event 

every year, and the program has expanded to include 52 million 

participants worldwide. In fact, it has been copied in over 60 countries. 

Another thing CAL OES does is we have three seismic catastrophic plans focused on the Cascadia Subduction Zone, which covers the northern three counties of California and goes up through 

Oregon and Washington. We also have catastrophic earthquake 

plans for the Bay Area and Southern California. 

The work done through NEHRP to develop risk assessments for 

the state, done by our partners at the U.S. Geological Survey, as 

well as the California Geological Survey, are supported through 

NEHRP, and it is that critical component of knowing what the risk 

is which allows our emergency managers to prepare for that eventual day when the earthquake strikes and we need to respond immediately. 

Most recently, the Haywired scenario was released, which was a 

hypothetical magnitude 7.0 in the Bay Area on the Hayward Fault 

at approximately 4:20 in the afternoon. The information that is 
62 

being drawn from this scenario helps emergency managers not only 

look at the impact to human life and basic infrastructure, but also 

look at many of our intertwined infrastructure facilities such as 

utilities, and also takes a look at the impact it would have on Silicon Valley, which not only has a great impact in the Bay Area but 

also the world. 

Finally, California is investing heavily in earthquake early warning, a topic that I have heard mentioned previously today, which 

can provide seconds to tens of seconds of advanced warning. In particular, the NEHRP program, through FEMA, were funding some 

research in order to come up with a common tone and alert message so we can ensure that when those earthquake early warning 

alerts come out, that people are taking the appropriate protective 

actions to reduce our risk in the state. 

So reauthorizing NEHRP is critical to ensure that California and 

the nation are ready for the next damaging earthquake, and I urge 

the Committee to consider the following recommendations. 

First, reauthorize NEHRP with an emphasis on implementation 

by state emergency management agencies. One way to increase 

that would be through state emergency management representation on the NEHRP Advisory Committee on Earthquake Hazard 

Reduction. 

Also, I would urge the Committee to consider expanding the research category known as applied research, which would allow 

emergency management agencies and social scientists to evaluate 

the effectiveness of protective action campaigns, for example, and 

adjust as necessary over time. 

So, in conclusion, California is at great risk for a large damaging 

earthquake likely to impact a large percentage of our population, 

and NEHRP is a critical component of California’s earthquake mitigation strategy. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Arba follows:] 
63 

EDMUND G. BROWN JR. 

GOVERNOR 

CalOES 

GOYEIUfOR"$ OFFICE 

OF IN!IIINCY SERVICES 

Ryan Arba 

Branch Chief, California Governor's Office of 

Emergency Services 

STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD 

Before the United States House of Representatives 

Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

Subcommittee on Research and Technology 

Earthquake Mitigation: Reauthorizing the National 

Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program 

Thursday, May 31, 2018 

Huntington Beach Civic Center 

2000 Main Street 

Huntington Beach, CA, 92648 

3650 SCHRIEVER A VENUE, MATHER, CA 95655 

(9!6)845-8506TELEPHONE(9!6)845-85ll FAX 

MARKS. GHJLARDUCCI 

DIRECTOR 
64 

Testimony of Ryan Arba, Cal OES 

May 31,2018 

Page 1 

Introduction 

Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Johnson, and members of the Committee on Science, Space, 

and Technology. Thank you very much for the opportunity to address the Committee on the 

National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP). 

With approximately 39 million people, California is the most populous state in the nation. If it 

were a separate country, it would have the world's fifth largest economy. It has the nation's largest 

industrial belt, stretching much of the way from Sacramento to San Diego and including global 

headquarters for computer, movie-television, and digital-entertainment industries. California is 

also the nation's largest agricultural producer. 

California is vulnerable to a catastrophic disaster within the lifetimes of most residents. No 

community is fully immune. Though wildfires and floods are the most common disasters, 

earthquakes hold the greatest potential for large-scale destruction. A major disaster would pose 

significant challenges for restoring people's lives, restarting economic engines, repairing 

infrastructure, and creating sustainable redevelopment. 

The California Governor's Office of Emergency Services is charged with leading the State of 

California's efforts to prepare, mitigate, respond, and recover from our ever-present earthquake 

threat. We rely on our federal, state, local, and non-profit partners to execute this mission. The 

NEHRP is a critical component of this effort. 

The NEHRP program comprises of three stages: Research, Development, and Implementation. 

Through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Cal OES' uses the critical 

research developed by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NISI), the National 

Science Foundation (NSF), and the US Geologic Survey (USGS), to better prepare residents, 

improve our building codes, and invest in new capabilities such as earthquake early warning to 

build a resilient California. 

This testimony will focus on the earthquake threat to California, Cal OES' efforts to reduce 

damage that could be caused by earthquakes, and opportunities at the federal level to sustain and 

improve the NEHRP. 

California's Earthquake Threat 

Earthquakes are a significant concern for California for several reasons. First, California has a 

chronic and destructive earthquake history. Since 1950, only 8 percent (12) of federally declared 

disasters in the state were the result of earthquakes. During this time, however, earthquake 

disasters have claimed 203 lives and resulted in 18,962 injuries and over $8 billion in Cal DESadministered disaster costs. 

There are over 15,000 identified faults in California. Over 200 of these identified faults are 

considered very dangerous based on their slip rates in recent geological time (the last I 0,000 

years). More than70 percent of the State's 40 million people reside within 30 miles of a known 

fault where strong ground shaking could occur in the next 30 years. 
65 

Testimony of Ryan Arba, Cal OES 

May 31,2018 

Page2 

The San Andreas Fault is not the only significant fault/plate boundary in California. The 

seismicity north of the Cape Mendocino is controlled by faults associated with the Cascadia 

Subduction Zone, a large fault system offshore that separates the Juan de Fuca Plate to the west 

and the North American Plate to the east. This area is the most seismically active portion of the 

state. The Cascadia Subduction Zone is capable of producing great earthquakes (+8 magnitude) 

and last ruptured in the year 1700, causing what was likely an earthquake in the Magnitude 9 

range. The subduction zone is also capable of generating a large tsunami. 

Damage due to ground shaking produces significant amount of all building losses in typical 

earthquakes. Building damage can be both structural and/or non-structural (contents) and both 

types of damage can cause injury or loss of life. In addition, buildings are also vulnerable to 

ground displacements associated with primary fault rupture, liquefaction, differential settlement, 

and landslides. Inundations from tsunamis, seiches, and dam failures can also be major sources of 

loss to buildings and infrastructure. 

Earthquakes large enough to cause moderate damage to structures-those around Magnitude 

5.5-occur three to four times a year in California. For example, the Magnitude 6.5 San Simeon 

Earthquake of December 22, 2003 caused 2 deaths, 4 7 injuries, and $263 million in damage. The 

Magnitude 6.5 Humboldt County earthquake on January 9, 2010, resulted in zero deaths, 35 

injuries, and $43 million dollars in damage. The Magnitude 7.2 El Mayor Cucapah earthquake 

(also known as the Sierra El Mayor earthquake) of April4, 2010 was located in Northern Baja 

California at the former mouth of the Colorado River. This event shook not only Mexicali and 

Tijuana but also a large part of Southern California and parts of southwestern Arizona and 

Nevada. There were two confirmed deaths in Mexicali and 100 persons were injured between Baja 

California and Imperial County California. The total estimated damage in Southern California 

from the El Mayor-Cucapah event was $91 million while the total estimated damage between 

southern California and Baja California was estimated to be $1 billion with most of the damage 

impacting the agriculture industry and irrigation district in Baja California. 

Strong earthquakes of Magnitude 6 to 6.9 strike California on an average of once every two to 

three years. An earthquake of this size, such as the 1994 Northridge Earthquake (Magnitude 6. 7) 

or the 1983 Coalinga Earthquake (Magnitude 6.5), is capable of causing major damage if the 

epicenter is ncar a densely populated area. The Northridge Earthquake caused over $40 billion of 

disaster losses, 57 deaths, and 11,846 i11juries. The 2014 Napa Earthquake (Magnitude 6.0) 

resulted in over $300 million in damage, 1 death, and over 200 injuries. 

Major earthquakes (Magnitude 7 to 7.9) occur in California about once every ten years. Two 

recent major earthquakes, the 1992 Landers Earthquake (Magnitude 7.3) and the 1999 Hector 

Mine Earthquake (Magnitude 7.1) caused extensive surface fault rupture but relatively little 

damage because they occurred in lightly populated areas of the Mojave Desert. In contrast, 

earthquakes of smaller magnitude but in densely populated areas, such as the 1989 Lorna Prieta 

Earthquake (Magnitude 6.9), have caused extensive damage over large areas. 

Based on the most recent earthquake forecast model for California, the USGS and other scientists 

estimate a 72- percent probability that at least one earthquake of Magnitude 6.7 or greater, capable 
66 

Testimony of Ryan Arba, Cal OES 

May 31,2018 

Page 3 

of causing widespread damage, will strike the San Francisco Bay Area before 2044. For the Los 

Angeles region, the same model forecasts a 60-percent probability that an earthquake of 

Magnitude 6. 7 or greater will occur before 2044. 

Cal OES' Efforts to Reduce Risk 

Cal OES invests in reducing risks related to earthquakes throughout the emergency management 

phases. Cal OES' Earthquake and Tsunami program, which through partnerships with the 

California Geologic Survey, USGS, the University of Southern California's Southern California 

Earthquake Center (SCEC), and other universities use advances in earthquake knowledge to help 

prepare the public for the next seismic event. The most leveraged of these efforts is the annual 

ShakeOut event, of which over 10 million Californians practice earthquake protective measures 

known as "drop, cover, and hold on." What began as a one-time earthquake drill has now 

expanded into a worldwide event. The ShakeOut event registers over 52 million participants in 

over 60 countries and continues to grow every year. 

Though Cal OES works hard to prepare, we know that responding to a large earthquake is 

inevitable. To meet this need, Cal OES has developed three seismic catastrophic plans. These 

plans include the Cascadia Catastrophic Earthquake and Tsunami Plan, the Bay Area Catastrophic 

Earthquake Plan, and the Southern California Catastrophic Earthquake Plan. All of these planning 

efforts rely on input from the scientific community. Specifically, the third California Earthquake 

Rupture Forecast (UCERF3) helps emergency managers understand the specific threat to each 

region and allow planners to determine the best way to move equipment and commodities to 

support disaster survivors. 

Scientific studies on earthquake scenarios help create the impetus for local agencies to bolster 

their preparedness efforts. The Haywired scenario, developed by the USGS' Science Application 

for Risk Reduction and supported by a coalition of agencies including Cal OES, highlights the 

impact of a hypothetical Magnitude 7.0 earthquake occurring at 4:18pm on the Hayward fault in 

the San Francisco Bay Area. The impact would be severe; estimates include 800 fatalities, 18,000 

injured, 22,000 trapped in a stalled elevator, 2,500 trapped in severely damaged buildings 

requiring search and rescue, and as many as 80,000 single family dwelling fires occurring near the 

epicenter. The Haywired scenario expands to impacts beyond the initial response, detailing how 

utilities, critical infrastructure. and technology firms in Silicon Valley could be compromised for 

extended periods of time. 

Earthquakes are not the only seismic event which threatens California. Near and distant shore 

tsunamis as well as California's seven high-risk volcanos provide a constant reminder that seismic 

threats are ever present. A large Cascadia Subduction Zone Magnitude 9.0 earthquake could 

cause untold damage to the northwestern part of California; in addition, the tsunami following 

within the hour could bring 20 feet of inundation to coastal communities further exacerbating the 

problem. The tsunami threat does not need to begin with an earthquake in California. In fact, 

estimates of a Magnitude 9.2 earthquake in the Alaskan Aleutian Islands could cause wave heights 

of up to 30 feet in some parts of California and cause damage along all of California's coastline. 

Damage from a volcanic event could have impacts beyond the initial communities, with 

agriculture and transportation compromised. While many may believe that a volcanic event is 

unlikely, California volcanologists would disagree. Recent estimates state that the likelihood of a 
67 

Testimony of Ryan Arba, Cal OES 

May 31,2018 

Page4 

volcano eruption occurring in the next 30 years is 26%, which is the same as a Magnitude 6.7 or 

higher earthquake occurring on the San Andreas fault. Cal OES works with its scientific partners 

to further understand these additional seismic risks and plans for their consequences. 

Earthquake Early Warning 

Further, advances in scientific understanding of earthquakes and technological developments have 

resulted in the capacity to rapidly analyze earthquakes and provide products that are vital to 

emergency management and public safety. One such advancement is the capability to provide 

early warning of an earthquake a few to several seconds prior to the actual arrival of destructive 

ground motions from a large and damaging seismic event. 

The seconds or minutes of advance warning can provide people with an opportunity to take actions 

like "Drop, Cover, and Hold On" to protect life and property from destructive shaking. An 

earthquake early warning system can give enough time to slow and stop trains and taxiing planes, 

to prevent cars from entering bridges and tunnels, to move away from dangerous machines or 

chemicals in work environments and to take cover under a desk, or to automatically shut down and 

isolate industrial systems. 

Taking such actions before shaking starts can reduce damage and casualties during an earthquake. 

It can also prevent cascading failures in the aftermath of an event. For example, isolating utilities 

before shaking starts can reduce the number of tire initiations. This effort aligns with California's 

goals and objectives to protect lives and property. 

The 2016-17 State of California budget passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor, 

included $10 million dollars in funding. The funding supported the installation of 183 new seismic 

sensors and 4 permanent positions to perform research on necessary technology and other 

technical aspects which will integrate public and private infrastructure, provide public education, 

and conduct education and training. Then in September 2016, Senate Bill438 (Hill, 20 16) was 

signed into law to further advance the development of the early warning system by establishing a 

governance structure to coordinate and direct activities related to the establishment of a CEEWS. 

The implementation of the California Earthquake Early Warning Program (CEEWP) establishes 

Cal OES as the lead for implementing CEEWS and ensuring its continued long-term success. 

Cal OES released its earthquake early warning business plan on May 2, 2018, as required by CA 

Senate Bill438 (Hill, 2016). The plan outlines five components: I) detailed costs of the system 

and program, 2) identification of funding sources, 3) expected roles and responsibilities among 

sectors and organizations, 4) roll out schedule for public alerting, and 5) risk analysis. The 

business plan will shape the path forward with our partnering federal and academic institutions to 

further our shared goals. 

NEHRP Essential to Continued Mitigation Efforts 

NEHRP continues to be a critical program advancing Cal OES' earthquake preparedness and 

hazard mitigation objectives. In the past, Cal OES invested funding through the NEHRP program 

to achieve the following outcomes: 

Increase statewide earthquake preparedness: With support from the Southern California 
68 

Testimony of Ryan Arba, Cal OES 

May 31,2018 

Page 5 

Earthquake Center at the University of Southern California, Cal OES hosts regional preparedness 

and hazard mitigation workshops, sector specific virtual workshops, and other meetings all leading 

to the annual ShakeOut event. Last year the event included over 10 million participants in 

schools, businesses, and other organizations, and inspires individuals and families to prepare for a 

large, disruptive earthquake. 

Increase business resilience: Cal OES supports several QuakeS mart workshops, designed to help 

meet the specific preparedness needs for business owners. 

Support social science research for earthquake early warning: Cal OES works with researchers 

from Califomia State University Fullerton to conduct literature reviews, and conduct studies to 

determine the appropriate alert tones, phrases, and images to ensure successful adoption of 

protective measures. 

Recommendations for NEHRP 

Cal OES urges Congress to reauthorize the National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program with 

an additional emphasis on implementation by state emergency management agencies. 

In addition to generally reauthorizing NEHRP, Cal OES encourages FEMA to lower or eliminate 

the 50% match requirement for the NEHRP Direct State Assistance Program funding to enable 

State Earthquake Program Managers to successfully accomplish the intent ofNEHRP. The State 

Assistance Program provides grant funds to States for core earthquake activities vital to the 

success of State programs. Without the funding of State Earthquake Programs, States' capability 

to protect I ives and property could diminish. Due to the high match requirements, many states do 

not participate in this program. 

In additional to renewing or restoring funding, it is important to increase emergency management 

representation on the NEHRP Advisory Committee on Earthquake Hazard Reduction (ACEHR). 

The Advisory Committee assesses "trends and developments in the science and engineering of 

earthquake hazards reduction; the effectiveness ofNEHRP in performing its statutory activities; 

any need to revise NEHRP; and the management, coordination, implementation, and activities of 

NEHRP." All of these efforts intertwine with emergency management and would benefit from 

increased participation. 

Cal OES also encourages NEHRP to expand the research categories authorized to include "applied 

research." This form of research is defined as the "aspect of scientific study where knowledge is 

tested to ensure its applicability to practical problems." In essence, Cal OES and partnering 

organizations could leverage additional research in this area to study the effectiveness of 

protective action campaigns, and adjust if necessary. 

Conclusion 

California is faced with a great risk for a large scale, damaging earthquake that is likely to affect a 

large percentage of its residents due to populations being located on top of many active faults. 

NEHRP is an essential component of California's earthquake mitigation strategy and allows the 

state to have a much broader footprint and touch, including partnerships. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. 
69 

Ryan Arba Biography 

Ryan Arba serves as the Branch Chief for the California Governor's Office of Emergency 

Services, Earthquake and Tsunami Program. His program covers a wide swath of seismic hazard 

preparedness, response, and mitigation. Most recently the Earthquake and Tsunami Program 

expanded to include the California Earthquake Early Warning Program. This program will be 

the first state in the nation to implement the earthquake early warning capability, and thus 

further California's resilience to seismic hazards. 

Prior to his appointment Ryan served as the Deputy Regional Administrator in the Coastal 

Region, filling various roles through the federally declared 2014 South Napa Earthquake and 

2015 Valley Fire. Ryan holds a Master's of Public Administration from the University of 

Southern California. 
70 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much for your testimony, 

and thank you for the testimony of all of our witnesses. 

I will assume the first responsibility of having five minutes to 

ask you some questions and have a little dialogue here. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Mr. Chairman, may I ask a question first? 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Are we expecting more than one round of questions? 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. You know what? If we have time, we will do 

exactly that. We do have to be out of here at four o’clock? So we 

have an hour, and we will use that time, if you so choose. 

It is my time, but my time is running out now. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Listen, I want to get a little better understanding on the record here of the type of threat, of the magnitude 

of the threat that ordinary people in our area and our state are facing. 

I noted that the statistics were that if there is a 6.7 earthquake, 

there is a 99 percent chance of having one of these in the next 30 

years. What is a 6.7 earthquake? When San Francisco was leveled, 

what magnitude earthquake was that, et cetera? Does anyone want 

to tell me? Go ahead. 

Dr. HICKMAN. I will start with that. So, the 6.7 earthquake is the 

equivalent magnitude to the Northridge earthquake which occurred 

in the L.A. Basin in 1994 and caused a great deal of damage, tens 

of billions of dollars of damage. The reason that the 6.7 threshold 

is used is because that represents the kind of damage done by a 

Northridge-type earthquake, either in the L.A. Basin or in San 

Francisco. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. And what about it says also that 

we have almost a 50/50 chance to have a 7.5 earthquake. How 

much greater is 7.5 than 6.7? 

Dr. HICKMAN. It is a lot greater, of course. It is greater in terms 

of ground motions and damage, and also in terms of extent, because a large earthquake like that essentially unzips a longer piece 

of the fault. So the more fault you unzip, essentially, in an earthquake, the more area is impacted. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Let me ask you something specific on that. 

We know that there was some freeway damage when we had the 

Northridge earthquake. I remember that very well. But for a 7.5 

earthquake, which is a 50/50 chance, or so we have been told, 

would the freeways remain operative? Would our water systems remain operative? Would our airports remain operative? And how 

about the electric system? Would those fundamentals for our society to function, would they be taken out of service by this? 

Dr. HICKMAN. It may be a question for someone else on the 

panel? 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Poland has an answer to that. Go right 

ahead. 

Mr. POLAND. Let me speak generally about that. A magnitude 6.7 

earthquake, like the Northridge earthquake, causes a significant 

amount of damage. It will not cause a lot of building collapses, 

even with the most vulnerable kinds of construction that we have. 

It causes a considerable amount of disruption depending on the 
71 

area that it is in. A community may be able to recover fairly well 

depending on if they have all the resources that they need. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. What about the 7.5? 

Mr. POLAND. The 7.5 earthquake is a different animal. It is extremely large. It is at the level that we are designing buildings and 

transportation systems for. It is not the largest that we expect, but 

it is at the level that we are designing for. Right now, our building 

codes are basically designing the buildings and systems to be safe. 

That means that people are going to be able to be safe if they are 

inside and get out and be out until the buildings are repaired. 

Now, that takes care of the buildings that have been built since 

about 1980 or 1985. Buildings that were built before 1980 or 1985, 

about 50 percent of them are not going to be usable. They are probably going to need to be replaced. Ten to 15 percent are going to 

collapse and kill people. This is at magnitude 7.5. All the research 

that we do and all the work that we do helps us understand how 

to fix that problem, but the problem sits with the existing buildings 

and infrastructure systems, and money is needed to rebuild those 

things. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Let me go down the list. Will the freeways 

stay up? 

Mr. POLAND. The freeways in California will likely stay up because since 1971 we have been working on our freeways. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. What about the electric system? 

Mr. POLAND. Depending on the electric provider, the electric providers have been working on that. I can’t speak expertly about 

that. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. What about water systems? 

Mr. POLAND. Water systems are highly vulnerable because they 

are dispersed across a large area. They cross liquefaction areas, 

they cross fault zones, they cross landslide zones, and all those 

things have really not been taken into account in the design. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. We get the message. How about the airports? 

Airports, it depends on where they are. It depends on whether 

they are sitting on landfill and they are going to be subject to liquefaction or not. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. Well, a 7.5, that is 50/50. The next 

30 years we have a 50/50 chance of that magnitude of an earthquake. What is the possibility that we might have something even 

more damaging than that, even greater than that? 

Mr. POLAND. The way structural engineers talk about this—and 

this is one of the issues we have about getting everybody to collaborate, because we need to talk the same language. The community 

resilience work will give us that. But structural engineers design 

their buildings with basically a 500-year return earthquake, return 

event, and a 2,500-year event is the larger event that we are expecting, and it can be up to 50 percent stronger. As was said here, 

it covers a larger area. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Am I taking too much time? Yes, we will 

have another round. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Takano? 

Mr. TAKANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to spend a little time on building codes. 
72 

Mr. Poland and Dr. McCabe, the National Institute of Building 

Sciences recently released its 2017 interim report which found that 

for every $1 spent on hazard mitigation, the nation saves $6 in disaster costs. What impact should this report’s finding have on earthquake mitigation investments? 

Dr. MCCABE. I think the answer is that NEHRP needs to be reauthorized, very clearly, and that we need to continue the work. 

Having buildings and infrastructure that perform well and don’t require significant clean-up and rebuilding is central to keeping people in their homes, keeping the economy functioning, and minimizing disruption. The earlier study by NIBS, the number was 

about $4. So the numbers are self-explanatory. Investing in mitigation pays off. If you invest in improving your building performance 

for an earthquake if you are in areas where high winds may be expected, it will likely do better with that. A water system that is improved in terms of its earthquake performance likely will be more 

reliable just in normal service. 

So the investments pay off over time, and in an area in Washington, DC. where there are significant issues with the water supply, as in other areas of the country where there are older systems, 

these newer systems perform substantially better. So investing is 

an important tactic in keeping the economic health of the country 

and to avoid having significant disruptions that cause resilience 

problems. 

Mr. TAKANO. Thank you so much for that answer. And we are 

talking specifically about building codes. 

Dr. MCCABE. Yes. 

Mr. TAKANO. We are talking about examining building codes 

going forward — 

Dr. MCCABE. Yes. 

Mr. TAKANO.—so that all future construction conforms to adequate building codes. And to look at retrofitting existing buildings, 

or rebuilding them completely. 

Dr. MCCABE. Yes. 

Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Poland, do you want to respond? 

Mr. POLAND. I would like to add to what Dr. McCabe said with 

regard to existing buildings. We don’t need all of the buildings in 

the built environment to be able to be used immediately after an 

earthquake. It is not necessary. There are certain types of buildings that we need within a few hours—hospitals, police stations. 

Those sorts of things have to be available to manage the response 

and take care of the injured. 

Another set of buildings where people live in their neighborhoods, those need to come back to life, but we have two or three 

weeks to get that to happen. We have time to do some repair work. 

The basic economic engine of a community and its business environment and all of that, there is more time available to do that. 

We have to get the workforce taken care of first. 

The reason I say that is because when we look into the existing 

building environment, we can design and retrofit those buildings to 

different levels, and this is what performance-based engineering allows us to do. This is what setting the performance goals that the 

community resilience guide from this talks about. When we go 

about doing that, the new generation of code will recognize what 
73 

needs to be done so our communities can take the resources that 

they have and apply them to the areas that are most needed as 

they plan their recovery process. 

Mr. TAKANO. I get what you are saying about sort of triaging — 

Mr. POLAND. Yes. 

Mr. TAKANO.—prioritizing what buildings we must make sure 

are resilient. What about multi-family or dense residential buildings? I understand that in many parts of California there is a social justice concern about poorer people, lower-income people occupying buildings that may be less earthquake resilient. What 

thoughts do you have, either of you, on this topic? 

Mr. POLAND. Well, let me just say first, and then anybody can 

talk about that, in my mind the key issue is to be able to maintain 

your workforce. This is something that was very important in San 

Francisco as I worked on their program. You need people to stay 

in the city, to be able to get back in their homes and get back to 

their life so they can go back to work. If they don’t, they leave. And 

if they go someplace else, you can’t restore your economy. So that 

is the key aspect. 

Now, when you go to recognizing where the key vulnerabilities 

are, you are going to find that the folks that are economically disadvantaged, the folks that you are talking about, are the ones that 

are living in the most dangerous buildings, and they have the least 

ability to help pay for that. So the issue is how do we make sure— 

and we need those people for the workforce. How do we make sure 

that the retrofit work can be done and be paid for? Because as part 

of the community obligation to protect their workforce, that has to 

be taken care of. 

Mr. TAKANO. My time is running out. It has elapsed, the Chairman has kindly showed me. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. TAKANO. I have no time to explore this further, so I will yield 

to my colleague, yield back to the Chairman. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you. 

Mr. McNerney? 

Mr. MCNERNEY. I thank the Chairman, and I thank the panel. 

I think your testimony has been very informative so far. 

As we have seen with recent natural hazards, it is clearly imperative for lifelines such as utility lines, water systems, transportation systems, to withstand hazards and to be back online as soon 

as possible, and that strong standards are a very important part 

of making sure that that is the case. 

So my question is this for Mr. Poland, if you can answer it: Are 

there any codes that apply to underground water conveyance tunnels? 

Mr. POLAND. When you think about codes, most of us often think 

about building codes. It is a building department. It is a set of 

rules that you have to go by to get your permit. When you go to 

the infrastructure systems and water systems, there is no building 

department. There are various agencies that regulate the design 

and construction, but most of the time water infrastructure providers set their own standards for what they are going to design 

to be based on what they perceive is necessary for their community, what they believe they can afford to do within the rate struc-
74 

tures that they have to live with, and what their community is saying is important to them. 

What we have learned—and this is published—is that our infrastructure systems are designed to a very uneven level of performance and safety. In fact, they are mostly designed for day-to-day 

operations, for normal conditions, with very little regard to the 

high-consequence, low-probability events like earthquakes. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Well, what I hear you saying is that there really 

aren’t any codes, standard codes really, that are used in those. 

Mr. POLAND. Correct. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. So would it be safe to say that the large water 

conveyance tunnel plan, the Governor’s plan, is not resting on 

sound geoscience to prevent significant risk? 

Mr. POLAND. No, I wouldn’t say that. One of the nice things is, 

I believe, when you have a project like that, the kind of effort that 

goes into it in recognition of what the hazards are, that special 

studies are done, and I assume that these have been done and that 

the protection is going to be in place. I would not draw that conclusion from what I just said. 

Most water districts in communities are small. They serve a 

small area. They are localized, and they are subject to the kind of 

discussion that I just made. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Thank you. That is a question that is very important to me in my district, how safe are those plans, and recent 

studies I have heard and testimony that was taking place in San 

Joaquin County showed that there wasn’t a set of standards that 

would be reliable in terms of designing large tunnels for big advanced projects that cross a large region of space. 

Mr. POLAND. And I don’t want to disagree with that. I don’t want 

you to interpret my comments as disagreeing. Those standards are 

particular to that particular type of construction. I am not familiar 

with those at all. But I would like to believe that because of the 

dependence on that water by people downstream, by people in 

Southern California and the Central Valley, that we are not going 

to be able to overlook the consequences of a major earthquake. 

That has to be built into the system. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Thank you. 

The USGS produces and updates, Mr. Poland, national seismic 

hazard maps. How would developing community seismic standard 

maps help communities across the nation prepare for earthquake 

risk? 

Mr. POLAND. What we have now from USGS, which is extremely 

helpful, is an ability for every location within a city to determine 

what the strong motion is, and they can produce maps for us that 

show us the contours across a city. That is great for the shaking 

level, how hard it shakes. 

We don’t have those kinds of maps universally for areas that are 

subject to liquefaction, and when you talk about utility systems, 

and your utility system is brought out across your whole community, you have to know where your liquefaction is going to occur if 

you want to understand what is going to happen to your utility systems. 

The same thing with faulting and landsliding. There are targeted 

areas, very dense urban areas where some of this information is 
75 

available, but it really needs to be available for any community 

that wants to understand their resilience. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Has my time expired? Oh, another minute? Oh, 

boy, I am going to use it. 

Mr. Poland, you mentioned that there is chronic underfunding of 

developing standards and for the United States. How do we compare, in terms of having standards, to other countries around the 

world? I mean, are we behind? Are we ahead? Are we in the middle 

of the pack? How do we stand? 

Mr. POLAND. It depends on which areas. In Third World countries, they don’t have any standards. In countries comparable to 

ours, there are a wide variety of standards. I have never done a 

study myself to compare those. I know there are international forums where we get together and we talk about each other’s standards. 

I think the most important part is it is not how we compare to 

our neighbors. It really depends on how is our built environment 

going to perform, and is it going to meet our expectations or is it 

going to surprise us and we are going to be caught with a built environment that is not going to serve us very well? 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will yield back. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. How do we compare in terms of the danger 

that we face as compared to other countries? I mean, I remember 

reading accounts of St. Sebastian in Spain, that they had a huge 

earthquake there. Is Europe still—where do they compare to us? 

Where do we compare to other countries? Japan seems to be going 

through a number of earthquakes. So the risk to our country compared to other countries, where would you put it? 

Dr. MCCABE. It depends on where you are. If you are along the 

Ring of Fire, Japan and New Zealand in particular have significant 

risk, all the way up the West Coast of the Americas. That is all 

part of that Pacific plate juncture. Interestingly, in Chile, their 

building codes are based on U.S. building codes in large part, and 

they have had significant strong shaking down there, and their 

buildings have done quite well. The latest one was in 2010. So we 

have anecdotal information from actual application of our building 

codes, but it is a significant risk. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So this Ring of Fire that we are talking 

about, does that mean that all the countries that are around that 

edge of the Pacific are at the maximum risk in the world of having 

quakes? 

Dr. MCCABE. I will defer to my seismology colleague here. 

Dr. HICKMAN. The Ring of Fire countries obviously have a lot of 

risk. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. You have to talk into your mic, please. 

Dr. HICKMAN. The Ring of Fire countries obviously have a lot of 

risk, and we share information with those countries. For example, 

we learn about how to model or understand reductions in earthquake damage by looking at Chile or Japan. However, if you look 

at other countries, like India, for example, and also Iran and Iraq, 

Italy, they face a great deal of hazard from smaller costs, not as 

dramatic as the Ring of Fire. 

But at the end of the day, a lot of countries suffer because their 

building codes are not as good as ours, and their enforcement of 
76 

their building codes, if they have them, are not as good as ours, 

and that was mentioned earlier. The same earthquake that makes 

for good building codes like ours will do a lot less damage than in 

countries without those building codes. So the risk is spread 

around the country. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I understand. That is a good point, and it has 

been made today, and we hear that. We really need to make sure 

that—you can’t stop the earthquake, but we can be prepared for it. 

Thank you. I am a Boy Scout. ‘‘Be Prepared’’ is the motto of the 

Boy Scouts, right? 

But let me ask you this. In terms of actually understanding the 

threat, I would like to ask you a little bit about prediction and 

warnings. Does it make sense for us to have sensors in space, satellite sensors? For example, this Committee oversees that type of 

activity, sensors that might be able to determine pressure building 

or smaller movements of the earth. Does it make sense for us to 

be doing that? 

Dr. HICKMAN. Monitoring from space does play an extremely important role in keeping track of the deformation of the earth; for 

example, radar images taken from satellites. That is very important for mapping out hazards, where the faults are being loaded 

most rapidly when an earthquake occurs, how does the crust respond. But we really cannot do short-term prediction from this. We 

can’t do short-term prediction at all. We thought it was easier before. And by ‘‘short-term’’ I mean predicting that there is going to 

be an earthquake of a particular size in a particular place tomorrow or the week after. 

We used to be more optimistic about that. We now know that 

earthquakes are much more complicated than that. Earthquakes 

basically start small. Some of them decide to grow big, but most 

of them stay small. The ones that become big, they start very deep. 

So it is very hard to see the signals associated with the initiation 

of an earthquake close enough to tell whether you could even predict an earthquake at all at that level. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. We end up predicting an earthquake to say 

within the next five days there will be an earthquake, so they come 

back on the 6th day, and then you have the earthquake on the 10th 

day. I think we are facing that kind of thing. So what our efforts 

should be, instead of providing warning, we should focus on what 

comes next to make sure that, number one, beforehand we are prepared; number two, what do we do after the earthquake has come 

to mitigate that. 

Dr. HICKMAN. This is exactly where early warning comes in. 

Early warning is not early warning for the earthquake. It is early 

warning of shaking from an earthquake that has already started. 

So once the earthquake starts, you don’t have to predict it anymore. You just need to have sensors very close to the starting 

point. If you can pick that vibration up, you can see how big the 

earthquake was, how much shaking there is going to be, and you 

broadcast that out as fast as you can. 

The emphasis is shifting, of course, away from earthquake prediction, because that is not going to save lives and property. But 

warning about shaking from an earthquake that already has started will, as well as increasing the strength of the built environment. 
77 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. My time is up again. 

Mr. Takano? 

Mr. TAKANO. Well, Mr. Chairman, I am confident we are going 

to get through all these questions because we are taking turns and 

playing nice. 

Mr. Poland, I just want to continue my question where I left off 

with what you were saying. It was interesting to me what you were 

saying, that we have to focus in the aftermath of a major earthquake on preserving our workforce because that is going to be key 

to rebuilding, and a large part of our workforce is going to be coming from the lower-income folks who are going to do the rebuilding, 

and a lot of these low-income people live in our most vulnerable 

areas. 

I recall from this latest earthquake in Mexico City that we saw 

the tall buildings actually did okay, but it was these mid-size buildings that didn’t do so well. Can you maybe describe what the risks 

are in these low-income areas and maybe paint that picture more 

fully for us? 

Mr. POLAND. I think the experience that we saw in Mexico City 

had more to do with the time that the buildings were built and the 

quality of the construction that went into building the buildings. It 

didn’t really have as much to do with the height or not, so just to 

say that. 

We do know that there are classes of buildings that are extremely vulnerable, unreinforced masonry buildings, the woodframe buildings with soffer stories. We call them the soffer story 

buildings. There is an opening at the bottom, so there is a real 

weakness down there, and the older concrete buildings that don’t 

have sheer walls. 

When you walked into this building, you probably noticed the diagonal braces on this building. Those braces were put in there to 

supplement the strength of this building because it was an older 

concrete building that didn’t have enough strength to be able to resist the lateral loads. So they put braces in to hold the building up 

so it would be able to perform. That is good. 

The point that I want to make is that the older buildings that 

we have, because they are older, don’t have the features, don’t have 

the same quality, and so they tend to be the ones that tend to be 

more affordable for folks to be able to live in, and those are the 

buildings that are the most vulnerable buildings. 

Now, in order to correct that, and where the NEHRP program 

comes in, is there is a huge amount of research and activity that 

needs to go into understanding about just how much we need to fix 

the buildings. An engineer given a task will solve it. I might spend 

three times as much money as I need to, but I am not sure because 

I don’t have all the information that I need. So we do the research, 

we figure out the programs, we do the testing, and I can identify 

through analysis what actually needs to be done. The less I have 

to spend on each building, when a community looks at this, the 

more buildings we can fix. 

Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Poland, so we don’t want to over-spend, right? 

I wish we had an economist who was also here with us, because 

part of this problem we have, this conundrum, is the cost of retro-
78 

fitting, or the cost of just rebuilding if we think that retrofitting is 

not enough. 

Was it you, Dr. McCabe, who was talking about a block by block 

analysis, or was that somebody else? You were talking about block 

by block, right? That seems awfully tedious, but is that something 

that we can do, and is that something that is worth the money? 

Tell me more about that. 

Mr. POLAND. Well, I think it is worth the money. We can’t go 

block by block and do the kind of detailed evaluation by the design 

professionals that I am accustomed to doing for my projects. You 

are right, that is way too much. But let’s start with the ground 

shaking and liquefaction potential. 

As the science develops and the understanding of what is going 

on underneath the ground—I am talking like a structural engineer 

now, what is going on down there, what the vulnerabilities are— 

that information can be extrapolated, and we can get much better 

information block by block if the science is improved so that we can 

understand. USGS needs to do the research to sort that out. 

As NIST and Steve McCabe’s group does their research and looks 

at building performance, we can recognize classes of buildings. 

Right now we categorize 15 different classes of buildings, and our 

procedures are all built around those things. As we understand 

how those buildings perform, then all we have to do is identify in 

a community what class that building is, and it gives us a good 

measure about how it is going to perform, so then we can understand where the mitigation needs to be done. 

So over on the science and research development side providing 

new information to allow us to extrapolate to our inventories of 

buildings so that we can officially figure out what needs to be done. 

Mr. TAKANO. Do you have any idea whether the current compromise in the Senate legislation is including resources for this 

kind of research or not? How much more would it cost us to do 

this? 

Mr. POLAND. The National Research Council in 2011, at the request of NIST, did a study about what we needed to spend in the 

NEHRP program over a 20-year period. I mentioned this in my testimony. They came back and said we need to spend $306 million 

a year for 20 years, and they gave us 18 different line items of 

things we needed to do and a whole book full of explanation about 

what needed to be done in order to achieve what I am talking 

about. 

So my answer to you is we need $300 million. I believe the Senate version has $80 million in it, or $90 million. 

Mr. TAKANO. My time is up. It is not just by coincidence that we 

are talking about increased need for money. The Chairman, I just 

put that in front of him. It just happened to be at the same time. 

I yield back. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. McNerney. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. I thank the Chairman again. 

I am going to follow up on your question. 

Mr. Poland, on the block by block analysis, wouldn’t it tend to 

be, getting in its own way—I mean, if there is so much data, if 

there was a big hazard, wouldn’t that kind of information be just 

so massive and so inaccessible that it wouldn’t be useful; in fact, 
79 

maybe even cause problems? Do you envision something like that 

as well? 

Mr. POLAND. No, I don’t. Let me give you an example. In San 

Francisco—you probably heard about this—they put in place a program to retrofit their soffer story buildings. The recommendation 

was made, because San Francisco is bound on three sides by water, 

that if they didn’t do something to keep their people in town, to 

shelter in place, if you will, that they would leave, and they would 

never get them back. The recommendation was that 95 percent of 

the people need to shelter in place. 

They came back and did some studies and found out that we 

were at about 50 percent, and we needed to get to 95 percent. We 

could get 25 percent more people sheltering in place if we strengthened the soffer story buildings. So that program was put in place. 

Now, as we started to work through the details of was it really 

going to accomplish what it needed to accomplish, it became really 

important to understand how the shaking was going to vary across 

the city, where the liquefaction was going to occur, where there 

was landslides, because a building in a landslide area, there is 

really not much we can do to it economically to make it shelterin-place capable. If it is in a liquefaction area, it is the same thing. 

So having the block by block information to answer a specific 

question—how many of those 6,500 buildings are in areas that we 

can’t fix, how many can we fix—is what I am talking about that 

we need the information block by block. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. All right. Thank you. 

Dr. McCabe, you mentioned that you want to prevent a building 

from collapsing, an important part of the standard, but also a 

building having survivability so that it can be reoccupied and reused quickly. Where are we with regard to those kinds of standards 

that allow a building to be reused after an event? 

Dr. MCCABE. Well, with an existing building that has been built 

to an older standard, a 1950s-era standard, the level of performance is going to be less than a newer building, right? It is a function of the age of the building, the type of the building, the level 

of the shaking certainly, the ground that it is on. A new building 

properly designed and competently done is going to probably do 

pretty well, except under great earthquake-level shaking. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. So, for example, that new building they are putting up in San Francisco, it is taller than anything else by quite 

a bit, you would think that would be not only survivable but would 

survive intact and allow people to use it the next day? 

Dr. MCCABE. I wouldn’t say that. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Well, the next day is a little bit — 

Dr. MCCABE. Yes. I mean, what the conversation is evolving to 

is not necessarily a life safety, get out of the building, pat yourself 

on the back, and you may have to demolish the building question, 

which is what it was maybe when NEHRP was enacted. We have 

gotten things refined. We have gotten things improved. The ground 

motion information, the hazard modeling is improved. We have 

done a significant improvement in our ability to design new buildings. 

What we are doing, though, is we are evolving the conversation. 

Chris Poland is talking about shelter in place, keeping people in 
80 

their communities, keeping the communities able to continue to 

function. That is an essential part of this whole conversation. We 

have met an initial goal here, and we are moving beyond that, and 

we have done this on our own because it is an important thing to 

do. We want to keep communities viable. We may not be able to 

get a building reoccupied immediately, a hospital, a fire station, 

something like that certainly. There may be more time required. 

But as we get better, we ought to be able to shorten those times 

as well. That is where this immediate occupancy or the functional 

recovery standard that is being talked about in California comes in. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. So what I am hearing is pointing to a vision 

where all these agencies working together can make a community 

livable after an event. 

Dr. MCCABE. Yes. We are stepping the game up, and it is due 

to the conversations about resilience, about knowing the ground 

motion hazards better, about recognizing that buildings are not 

stovepipes by themselves but they are connected via lifelines—electrical, water, waste water. All of these things are necessary to keep 

a community alive. So we have a broader vision now, which is pretty exciting. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Okay. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. We have time for one more round, 

if the witnesses have time for one more round for us. 

Let me just note that I think one of the primary responsibilities 

of government, especially the Federal Government in this case, is 

to make sure that we are prepared for major threats to the overall 

safety and well-being of the country and the American people, and 

that includes what we are discussing today, and thank you for your 

input on that, and that is understanding what threat we face and 

how should we approach that threat about earthquakes. 

There is also a threat that I am very concerned with about asteroids, that an asteroid could appear. No scientist ever told me that, 

oh, no, that will never happen, or it is a thousand years away. Not 

one scientist I have ever talked to would be surprised if we didn’t 

find one five years away tomorrow. 

We have people who are warning us about our antibiotics that 

are being faced with new challenges at the bacterial level. 

We have EMP, which is some solar activity that could happen 

and fry our electric system. 

All of these are challenges that I think are important for the 

Federal Government to, number one, look at and see how much 

danger there is and try to at least see what we can do, if nothing 

else, to mitigate the damage that will be done if we can’t stop it 

altogether. I am hoping that we would develop a system that could 

actually take an asteroid and nudge it off of a path far enough out 

so that it wouldn’t hit the earth. But then again, we have to know 

that that might not happen. 

With that said, I want to thank all of you for giving us some suggestions today. But it comes down to, in all of these areas, how 

much money are you going to spend. Mr. Poland was very clear in 

his testimony: We have to spend more money. Okay. Let me just 

note that we are spending already a trillion dollars a year more 

than we are taking in, already. That is without doing these things, 

without coming to grips in a big way. 
81 

So what we have when we discuss these issues of the safety of 

large chunks of our population, we have to understand that if we 

are serious about that, we have to figure out where the money will 

come from and what programs will have priority. Does this have 

priority over other types of programs? I mean, we just voted for a 

farm program. I voted against it, but I don’t know what my colleagues did. We had an amendment that said we are going to 

spend so many millions of dollars promoting beer and wine, America’s beer and wine. 

Now, when you are spending more than a trillion dollars a year 

more than you are taking in, that just means we are going to have 

to start making priorities in terms of what we are going to spend, 

and I assume by your testimony today is what you are telling us 

is that there is a serious threat. That is why I came along in the 

beginning saying how serious is this threat? There is a serious 

threat that large numbers of people in our population could be in 

great danger, and if we focus on this it will cost a certain amount 

of money, but we can save lives afterward. 

With that said, I would hope that the next time—I am not going 

to ask you guys or any of our witnesses to say what areas we 

should cut. But let me just suggest that that bit of information as 

comparing one program to another will help us a lot more than 

simply telling us what the threat is. 

Does anyone have any suggestion of how much money we need to spend now? Mr. Poland suggested $400 million. I forget the 

exact amount. 

Mr. POLAND. It was $300 million a year. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Two hundred million dollars a year. 

Mr. POLAND. Three hundred million. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Three hundred million dollars a year. And is 

there some other program that you think, a science-based program 

that you think does not measure up to that? 

Mr. POLAND. Great question. You are in a whole lot better place 

to judge that than I am because you see all the programs. We are 

the experts. We see a program. We recognize that there are things 

that could be done that are not being done. 

I know in my practice, for all the thousands of buildings that my 

staff and I have evaluated and recommended strengthening for, 

very few, probably less than 20, were ever strengthened because it 

is too expensive. Why is it too expensive? Well, we don’t know everything we could know. 

Now, if you could invest $300 million a year in the program, and 

you could create design guides and maps and GIS systems and 

tools that are necessary to activate the money that is available out 

there to do all this, none of this money is going for brick and mortar, none of it is going to fix anything. All it is doing is doing the 

research necessary to provide the refined tools to make this thing 

affordable and practical so that people go ahead and want to do it. 

And the other thing that I keep noticing is when these hazards 

occur, when these natural disasters occur and people haven’t taken 

care of things because they didn’t think they could afford it and 

they don’t have insurance, then you guys are great. You come in— 

and I hope you do it for us when it happens to my community— 

you come in with a whole lot of money and you fix things, and that 
82 

is great, and that is part of what this program is about, trying to 

figure out how to get the cost of that repair bill down, because the 

Federal Government is the last stop for repairing things. 

So it seems to me the comparison you are asking for, the programs to cut, I have no idea. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. 

Mr. POLAND. But I think that we need to have a different view 

of what this $300 million a year is going to get us. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, we do have, just as I say, lurking right 

there in the background as we are trying to make our decisions, 

a trillion dollars in debt every year more. So at some point that 

will be a huge threat to the well-being, and I hope we never see 

it, the type of financial crisis we are setting ourselves up for by not 

being able to prioritize. 

But with that said, you have made your case today, I think very 

well. 

Yes, sir, Dr. Hickman. 

Dr. HICKMAN. I think those are great questions. We obviously are 

not in the same position you are. But I look at the Haywired scenario, which is the scenario of the losses from a magnitude 7 earthquake on the Hayward Fault, more than $82 billion in damage, 

18,000 injuries, 800 fatalities, and then there is fire after that, loss 

of water, loss of telecommunications, migration of people out of the 

Bay Area, the potential devastation of an economy. 

There are some tough decisions to make, but I think we need to 

revitalize the entire NEHRP program. This is a huge problem, and 

I agree with sheltering in place. We need to look at infrastructure, 

we need to make sure the water comes in, the roads can come in 

for rescue personnel, the water can come in to fight fires. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And strengthening them, as you have made 

the point, actually can make them more effective even before any 

type of earthquake were to happen. 

Just one last question about the threat itself. We see this volcanic activity in Hawaii. Is that a warning sign to us? Is that something that could indicate that there might be some earthquake activity here? Does the volcanic activity in some way relate to earthquake activity? 

Dr. HICKMAN. I think this is a question for me. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Whoever can answer that. 

Dr. HICKMAN. In the case of Hawaii, that is really not connected 

to the plate boundaries that cause the earthquakes. Hawaii is sitting on top of a hot spot coming up from the mantle. So it basically 

is being melted from below. Hawaii is the end of a chain of mountains that were formed by melting through the crust. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay, so that is different. 

Dr. HICKMAN. All by itself, it makes little earthquakes. We had 

a 6.9 earthquake associated with eruptions in Kilauea. That is 

pretty big, but that is not really part of the same problem we face 

here in California. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. One of the things, the last thing, and then 

I will make sure my colleagues get a chance to ask whatever questions you have. 
83 

I have been very concerned that we have nuclear energy facilities 

that, in an earthquake—I mean, look at what happened in Japan. 

They were told this is absolutely safe, there is no way you are 

going to have any problem with this, and then look at what happened in Japan. 

Just very quickly, number one, let me just note that we can build 

the next generation of nuclear power—we are capable of that; we 

haven’t done it yet—that I know would be safe. But currently, with 

these light-water reactors, which I think are inherently dangerous, 

are we safe now if there is an earthquake? Is that a part of this 

threat? 

Just very quickly I will go down the line. 

Dr. MCCABE. What do you mean is this part of the earthquake 

threat? 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Do you think that our current nuclear power 

plants can withstand a 7.5 earthquake and not leak radioactivity? 

Dr. MCCABE. Well, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory—I started out in 

the nuclear business, but I haven’t been in that for quite a while. 

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has each plant site do an 

in-depth seismology survey. So each individual plant is sited and 

is designed based on the risk that exists for that particular location. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. Let me ask you this: Where is San 

Onofre on the fault line here? Is it on the fault line? Is it down 

here? Okay. Well, it doesn’t look that far away from a fault line to 

me. 

Dr. MCCABE. If I were living in Southern California, I would 

have less concern about that because of all of the attention of all 

the engineers and all the regulators at the state and Federal level. 

I would have less concern about that than I would about, perhaps, 

other things that are out there. Risk is relative. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. It is. However, if that happens to go down, 

we are talking about millions of people being irradiated, as compared to some people who, maybe thousands of people losing their 

lives in unstructured buildings. Also, of course, I think that all the 

experts, as I say, just guaranteed the Japanese that there is just 

no possibility ever. What I think is very damaging and just outrageous is we are still trying to sell light-water reactors to different 

countries in the world, and they are inherently dangerous. We have 

the technology capabilities to build safer nuclear reactors, and we 

should. 

But anyway, does anyone else have any comment on this? 

Mr. POLAND. I just want to add to what Dr. McCabe said. I think 

that it is important not to compare buildings that were built without any consideration for seismic design, unreinforced masonry 

brick buildings, with a nuclear power plant, even if it was designed 

and constructed 30 years ago. It was given an extraordinary 

amount of consideration in design analysis by the best experts that 

we had because of the very threat that you are talking about. 

One of the things that we saw in Japan, I believe, is that we had 

a black swan event. We had an event that nobody thought was 

going to happen, or at least the consensus of the community was 

that event was not going to happen. The wave wasn’t going to be 

that high, we weren’t going to experience that. So to me, I don’t 
84 

think it is proper—maybe I shouldn’t say that. I think we have to 

recognize that that event was something completely out of the ordinary expectation. 

But the main point I wanted to make was not to draw conclusions from very poorly built buildings and something that has been 

built deliberately in a very careful process. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, they are two different threats, and I 

just have to say that I personally have been disturbed that we have 

not developed the next generation of nuclear power, which we know 

we can do, that would not leave us as vulnerable as the current 

system. 

Mr. Takano? 

Mr. TAKANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Poland, this $300 billion figure that you — 

Mr. POLAND. Three hundred million. 

Mr. TAKANO. Three hundred million. 

Mr. POLAND. Million. You guys always say billion. We gulp to say 

million. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. TAKANO. I was thinking $300 billion. 

Mr. POLAND. Oh, no. 

Mr. TAKANO. So, $300 million. 

Mr. POLAND. We could fix all the buildings with that kind of 

money. 

Mr. TAKANO. We could fix all the buildings. But that makes more 

sense, $300 million, which is not bricks and mortar but which is 

about research, which is about information. The picture I am getting from you is it would help us understand what buildings were 

built in a liquefaction area that would make little sense to invest 

a lot in retrofitting. But that information that the Federal Government would provide to the local planners and the building codes 

would say if you are going to build on areas of liquefaction going 

forward, you had better build to this standard or not build there, 

just discourage building there at all. 

Mr. POLAND. Or accept the consequences, yes. 

Mr. TAKANO. Well, it also, I assume, would bring the market into 

this, because insurance companies who underwrite earthquake insurance would be able to use this information also and price their 

policies accordingly. 

Mr. POLAND. That is right. 

Mr. TAKANO. So it would be government data that would also inform other kinds of market incentives to be able to drive this in 

the right direction. 

Mr. Vernon, you have something to say about this? 

Dr. VERNON. One other aspect of that $300 million per year, it 

also fully fills up the Advanced National Seismic System. So not 

only do you have the research component that you have talked 

about, it also gives us the seismic network monitoring capability 

that had been fully planned for. So that is another component of 

that $300 million a year. 

Mr. TAKANO. It is not all the block by block analysis. 

Mr. POLAND. No, that is one piece of it. 

Mr. TAKANO. One piece of it. 
85 

Well, this has been a very fascinating hearing. I want to understand, is this research, the conclusions you have drawn about what 

people would do if they couldn’t shelter in place, is that part of the 

social science that needs to be done? I understand that there is a 

social science aspect to responding to earthquake disasters. 

Mr. ARBA. That certainly sounds like an opportunity for that. I 

think a lot of the focus on the social sciences, especially in the current environment with the focus on earthquake early warning, is 

how to best utilize that alert. But that is certainly an opportunity 

that could be pursued. 

Mr. TAKANO. Go ahead, Mr. Poland. 

Mr. POLAND. I would add one thing. The NIST Community Resilience Planning Guide, which is kind of the framework for this new 

generation of building codes and this new generation of thinking 

about how we want things to perform, starts by understanding 

what the social institutions are, and that is working with social scientists, and then prioritizes which of those social institution products and economic products are necessary at what time, and then 

how those are supported by the built environment. That is how the 

performance goals are developed. 

That is something we have never done before, in my mind, is 

turn to the social science community and have them help us understand what people need, how they are going to respond, and what 

communities need in order to efficiently recover. 

Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Arba, I understand that San Francisco and Los 

Angeles have undertaken major initiatives as described by Dr. 

McCabe, the ordinances they have passed, the commitment to look 

at what buildings need to be retrofitted, and there is a social justice element to how these ordinances were designed. I understand 

the California legislature is moving forward with some of its plans. 

How is it that we can make sure that this reauthorization works 

in tandem and helps leverage what California is doing, and how 

can the Federal Government be of the best assistance to the State 

of California? 

Mr. ARBA. Yes. I mean, certainly as these policy issues advance, 

as part of Cal OES and working with our partners, we are often 

looking to that research in order to make the decisions that we 

have to make on these separate considerations. So I would just say, 

consistent with what was said earlier about continuing to make 

sure that among all of the different research topics that we have 

that are covered in the NEHRP program, that a specific emphasis 

is called out for research as mentioned. 

Dr. MCCABE. I will just add that we believe that the social 

science aspects, the policy aspects, are very, very important. We 

brought on social science expertise at NIST to help in this process 

because it all has to do with accepting the risk, making decisions 

about the risk, ultimately engaging in programs that will make 

things better. This is a very grassroots kind of thing, but you are 

talking about a community surviving and potentially flourishing. 

So it is not just the engineering, and that is a big part of this going 

forward. 

Mr. TAKANO. So the seismic hazard maps—go ahead, Mr. Hickman. 
86 

Dr. HICKMAN. Yes, I was going to add—maybe that is where you 

are heading with your question. Getting the more kind of high-resolution pictures we need for seismic hazard in urban areas is something that people have done in Seattle and Los Angeles, but we 

need to do more of that. So urban seismic hazard mapping is one 

way to produce a very high-resolution picture, not quite block by 

block, but close, of how the ground is going to shake during an 

earthquake using realistic models for how the sediments focus the 

energy, where the faults are, how the faults might break. 

So it is important to think about the science, too, because your 

liquefaction models depend upon the ground-shaking models, because it is ground shaking that causes liquefaction. 

So when you think about this, think about the integrated package that involves the engineering, but also the earth science that 

feeds into that, and the social science that controls how people respond. I think that is the beauty of NEHRP, that we all work together on these problems. We are already working very closely with 

Cal OES on earthquake early warning, for example. So I would just 

like to see this sort of horizontal building of these kinds of models 

that depend on solid science, really good engineering, and then the 

social science to make sure people know what to do with the information they have. 

Mr. TAKANO. Yes, I was going in that direction with the seismic 

maps, that that is going to be very useful for city planners, for insurance companies. More information will help. The market can 

also help guide us in the right direction as well. 

But I think the public needs to understand the risks and where 

the liabilities are in a community, how are we going to address the 

low-income folks who are living in the riskiest areas that constitute 

our important workforce. We are a great economy, depending on 

which statistics the fifth or sixth largest economy in the world, and 

what happens to us if we become disabled? And the question is how 

disabled? And the perfect word again is resilience. How do we plan 

for resilience? 

Thank you very much. I am going to yield back my time. This 

has been a fascinating hearing. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. McNerney? 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Again, I thank the Chairman again. And again, 

I am going to follow up on Mr. Takano’s question to Mr. Hickman. 

You were talking about models or how we can model the kind of 

resolution to be helpful in planning. How advanced are the models 

that could be used to do that? Is that an area of research that the 

$800 million would go to? 

Dr. HICKMAN. Absolutely, that is an area where more work is 

needed. We have very sophisticated computer models now. We are 

missing information, for example, on the structure of sedimentary 

basins beneath Seattle, beneath Los Angeles, beneath San Francisco. We know from Mexico City that sediments resonate with different earthquakes, and that has big implications for tall buildings 

and engineering. 

So we need more information to characterize the geology beneath 

the big cities that face so much risk. We need more information on 

characterizing the faults that are along them. How are those faults 

likely to break based upon their past history? So that means doing 
87 

more of what we call paleo-seismology, looking backward in time 

to see how faults broke over time. And we need to do more work 

on seismic wave propagation, how do the earthquake waves coming 

away from the fault change as they come up to the surface, and 

how are they modified by the soils. How does that lead to liquefaction? How do landslides occur? 

There are a lot of unanswered questions. So I think the science, 

the drive, a lot of important hazard and risk reduction products 

here. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Would you say that is more empirical science or 

more computational theoretical? 

Dr. HICKMAN. It is both. But we are computational. There are 

certainly super-computers churning away right now on these kinds 

of models, but we need more data to feed into those, and we also 

need more theoretical understanding. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Okay. Good. 

I also want to hear a little bit more about the TAs and the 

ANSS. How do you say ANSS? 

Dr. VERNON. It is the Advanced National Seismic System. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. I mean, the TAs, are they flexible geographically? How does a TA work? 

Dr. VERNON. It was a project that started under the National 

Science Foundation and is now pretty much finishing its end of life. 

It is completing its deployment in Alaska now. What we have left 

behind is this Central and Eastern U.S. network, which is now part 

of the ANSS — 

Mr. MCNERNEY. But what is a TA? 

Dr. VERNON. Transportable array. It is part of the EarthScope 

program under the National Science Foundation. It was an 

MREFC, Major Research Equipment Facility — 

Mr. MCNERNEY. But what does it mean? Are there major sensors 

every few kilometers, or — 

Dr. VERNON. Each station was deployed for about two years. 

There were 400 deployed at a time. You would pick one up on the 

back on the West Coast and move it more to the East, and they 

just kept rolling them forward. Each station was in place for about 

two years as we moved across the country. 

Magically, right about the time in 2007 and 2008, we got into 

Oklahoma right when all the earthquakes started there, happening 

there. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. How do they fit in with the ANSS? 

Dr. VERNON. They inform the ANSS in the sense of where the 

seismicity is. It gives you a snapshot in time. It gives you more information about the structure, like Steve was talking about, talking 

about how do you actually get the amplitudes that you might expect from certain size earthquakes. So it gave us a data set that 

we can use to inform some of these models and studies that we are 

talking about, cross reference. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. So is the ANSS also an array? What is it? 

Dr. VERNON. No. The Advanced National Seismic System is a set 

of seismometers deployed permanently in the ground throughout 

the U.S. There are big components here in California. There is a 

Northern California Seismic Network, a Southern California Seismic Network. There is one in Washington. They are integrating 
88 

them together to do these earthquake early warning systems. 

There is a big system in Alaska. There are ones in the Central U.S. 

around the New Madrid area. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Can the TA become part of the ANSS? 

Dr. VERNON. It could have been if it were left in place, but we 

lost that opportunity. That is what I was trying to say. When we 

do these large-scale programs, we should be thinking about the 

longer-term implications, how we could leverage those investments 

to make more efficient use of the dollars that we do spend on 

science. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. All right. 

Dr. MCCABE. If I can add, ultimately if you are going to have an 

engineer design a building or a lifeline system, we need to know 

what the threat is, what the seismology is. Particularly in the eastern two-thirds of the country, that data provided by the TA system 

is invaluable. Rare events like the 2011 Mineral, Virginia earthquake revealed the importance of having instruments, even in 

places where you may not expect earthquakes to occur with regularity. But it is important for us to do our job as engineers. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, I want to thank our witnesses. I want 

to thank my two colleagues for joining us. 

This has been, I would say, an enlightening hearing. It was fun, 

transmitting important information and doing so in a way that is 

interesting. Thank you, witnesses. Thank you very much for coming and sharing your expertise in the way you did. 

Let me just say that I visited Pompeii with my family. Have you 

ever visited Pompeii? Pompeii was one of the most powerful cities 

in the world. People who have not been there should visit Pompeii 

to see what nature can do overnight. There you have this evidence 

that has been put down. People’s bodies are covered with that soot 

and everything. 

But what is most important is here you had this powerful city, 

and within a day it no longer really existed. We know that there 

are major challenges in nature. I mentioned asteroids or something 

like that, and we do need to make sure that we do understand that 

these challenges are there and what we can do about them. You 

have outlined today what we can do that would perhaps save lives 

in the long run and make sure that if there is a major earthquake, 

which there will be, in Southern California, that we survive that 

and that we minimize the suffering that will take place in one of 

these acts of nature. 

So you have given us specific actions and specific policies that 

you said would help deal with that and help us minimize that type 

of suffering that would result from an earthquake. So let’s hope 

that we can now—we understand the challenge. The biggest challenge is making sure we are responsible enough. If it is only $200 

million, not even billions — 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. When people come to us, it is always billions, 

right? Well, that is a very reasonable amount. But we have a trillion-dollar deficit we have to deal with. And I would hope that 

when we look at that issue of spending a trillion dollars more than 

we are taking in, that what you have talked about today, I believe 
89 

a primary responsibility of government, especially the Federal Government, is to make sure that they protect the safety of the American people, both from foreign attack but also by natural disasters, 

what we are discussing today. So it is our responsibility. Thank you 

for giving us some insights that will be useful to us. 

With that said, the record will remain open for two weeks for additional comments and written questions from members. 

The hearing is now adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:58 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

(91) 

Appendix I 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS
92 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Dr. Stephen Hickman 
(93) 

Appendix II 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL FOR THE RECORD
94 

REPORT SUBMITTED BY REPRESENTATIVE JERRY MCNERNEY

May 31,2018 

Representative Lamar Smith 

Chairman, House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

2321 Rayburn House Office Building 

Washington, DC 20515 

Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson 

Ranking Member, House Committee on Science. Space, and Technology 

2321 Rayburn House Office Building 

Washington, DC 20515 

RE: Earthquake Miti[!,ation: Reauthorizing the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program 

Dear Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Johnson: 

On behalf of Core Logic (NYSE: CLGX) please accept the following statement and materials for the record regarding the 

Committee's recent field hearing on earthquake mitigation programs. 

CoreLogic is a leading global property information. analytics and data-enabled solutions provider headquartered in Irvine. 

California. Our combined data from public, contributory and proprietary sources includes over 4.5 billion records spanning 

more than 50 years, providing detailed coverage of property. mortgages, hazard risk, consumer credit, tenancy. location. 

and related perfonnance information. We serve diverse markets including real estate and mortgage finance, insurance, 

capital markets, and the public sector. Our vast data, powerful analytics. cutting-edge workflow technology, advisory and 

managed services help identify and manage growth opportunities, improve perfonnance and manage risk. 

Core Logic's natural hazard and catastrophe solutions allow for insurers and enterprise risk managers to know property-level 

hazard risk across their portfolios. As the Committee recognizes, natural hazards including, but not limited to earthquakes, 

floods, wildfires, hurricane winds and tornadoes present threats to Americans and the economy every year. We believe that 

having access to the latest technology and most accurate hazard risk insights can help improve how communities prepare 

for and respond to these types of natural hazards. Using proprietary science, our predictive modelling has helped risk 

managers answer three critical questions: What could happen? What if it happened? And, what did happen? After the recordbreaking catastrophes acrpss the United States in 2017. CoreLogic spent time reflecting, analyzing and evaluating the 

severity of natural hazard events in an effort to infonn and protect homeowners and businesses alike. 

This letter contains two Core Logic reports: our 2017 Natural Hazard Risk Summary & Analysis Report contains a qualitative 

and quantitative evaluation of last year's natural hazard events; and our recently published report Financial Implications of 

the HayWired Scenario, a companion document to the USGS' analysis of a hypothetical massive earthquake along the 

Hayward fault. We hope these reports can serve as a resource to the Committee as it works with federal agencies, state 

governments, local communities. and private sector businesses to evaluate options and tools available to strengthen 

preparedness, response, and post-loss assessment capabilities across the United States. 

Sincerely, 

Stuart Pratt 

Global Head, Public Policy and Industry Relations 

Core Logic 
95 

Title: 2017 Natural Hazard Risk Summary & Analysis Report 

Published By: CoreLogic 

Date: January 25, 2018 

https://www.corclogic.com/insights-download/natural-bazard-risk-summary-and-analysis.aspx 
96 
Summary 

The Hayward fault is one of the most dangerous faults 

in the United States. Running down the length of the 

San Francisco East Bay beneath densely populated 

and economically vital communities, the Hayward fault 

represents a dear and present danger of hosting a 

catastrophic earthquake. The last major earthquake 

along the Hayward fault was a magnitude (M) 6.8 on 

October 21, 18681 ; a repeat of such an event today 

would be devastating to the Bay Area. 

In a series of reports, the United States Geological 

Survey (USGS) and a coalition of multi-disciplined 

collaborators descnbe a hypothetical magnitude 7.0 

earthquake along the Hayward fault followed by 16 

aftershocks of MS.O or greater-collectively known as 

the Hay Wired earthquake scenario.~ This spec1al report serves as an independent 

companion document to that scenano and 

highlights damage and insured tosses from these 

events, including the effects of construction, 

property valuations, buy-rates (the fract1on of 

properties insured for earthquake shaking 1s tess 

than 100 percent), incremental damage resultant 

from aftershocks, and hours clauses3 for msurance 

conditions-all of which will be explained in greater 

depth in this wnteup. 

Corelogicct analyses of the main earthquake and 

subsequent aftershocks indicate that over 1.1 million 

homes are likely to suffer visible damage, with a 

smaller number expected to be functionally impaired, 

The total damage to private property for the entire 

sequence is estimated to be $170 billion, w1th only a 

small fraction of this insured. 

"The Hay Wired scenario is not a prediction of events 

to come, but it is a realistic portrayal of a series of 

earthquakes that could credibly occur along the 

Hayward fault," said Tom Larsen, principal, industry 

solutions for Core logic. "Our analysis evaluates the 

interaction between the physical aftermath of the 

events, with earthquakes and aftershocks occurring 

over time, and the financial world of insurance policies. 

Assessing that interaction can help determine how 

such a catastrophic event, in conjunction with the 

low penetration rate of residential and commercial 

earthquake Insurance, can have significant and 

long-lasting damage on the people and economy 

of the region." 

Accounting for the effects of aftershocks and the 

manner in which these aftershocks can be expected 

to impact insurance payments to homeowners 

produces an estimate of the amounts recovered from 

insurance at $30 billion, approximately n6 percent 

of the total damagR This leaves 82A percent 

(or $140 billion) of the losses unable to be recouped. 

The difference between the estimated property 

damage and the amount recovered by insurance is 

driven largely by the estimated property damage and 

the amount recovered by insurance is driven largely by 

the lack of insurance for most properties in California 

and, to a lesser degree, the effect of insurance 

deductibles and limits. 
Planning is a 

Necessary Pre-Cursor 

to Rapid Recovery 

Insurance has historically played an important role 

in the recovery of communities and economies 

following natural catastrophes. In 2010-2011, 

a series of earthquakes in and around Christchurch, 

New Zealand, caused significant stress to the 

financial recovery system. The added complexity of 

the sequence of earthquakes in the HayWired scenario 

allows us to explore and quantify consequences of the cascadmg earthquakes. 

The earthquakes addressed in this report are 

documented more completely in the USGS report2 

The epicenters of the earthquakes are mapped on 

page four, highlighting the geographic concentration 

of the ma1n shock and aftershocks in the 

San Francisco Bay Area. The goal of this exercise 

is to investigate the financial impacts resulting 

from the earthquake occurrences and the expected 

performance of the estimated insurance policies in place to assist recovery and reconstruction. 

Earthquakes are inevitable in this reg1on. There are 

millions of buildings in the Haywired study region, bUJ!t 

to varying strength standards and at varying levels 

of deterioration due to age or deferred maintenance. 

Despite modern building codes which produce 

stronger construction, the diversity of buildings in the 

region make earthquake damage inescapable. A key 

component of resiliency is to ensure that adequate capital will be available to assist in the recovery from 

damage. Effective responses 

and recovery plans can be implemented only 1n the 

presence of reliable estimates of the damage and insurance recoveries following the events. 
99 
100 
Important Terms 

and Facets 

In the moments during and immediately after an 

earthquake, many types of damage can be observed. 

The practice of insurance in the U.S. is to offer 

specific peril endorsements, so the damage must be 

estimated for each of these specific of an earthquake. In all aspects of loss estimates. damage is 

the estimate of monetary cost to repair the property 

to the condition it was in prior to the occurrence of 

the earthquake. 

Direct earthquake ground shaking damage 

is the most common damaging impact of 

earthquakes. The susceptibility of property to direct 

ground shaking damage is a complex function 

of ground motion duration, ground motion peak 

1ntens1ty, and construction characteristics such as 

materials, building codes, and occupancy. 

Earthquake ground shaking damage is indemnified 

by a spec1fic earthquake ground shaking policy 

or endorsement. 

Earthquake sprinkler leakage is caused by 

leaking building fire sprinkler pipes. Water pipes are 

susceptible to leakage after an earthquake due to 

the interaction between the earthquake induced 

motion of the building and the sprinkler systems. 

Recent California legislation has mandated the 

inclusion and retrofitting of fire sprinklers into many 

structures that had previously been Jacking these 

important systems. However, the presence of fire 

sprinklers also produces an increased risk for leakage 

of the sprinkler pipes during and after significant earthquakes and the ensuing water damage that 

is produced. 4 Earthquake sprinkler leakage is 

presumed to be covered by a homeowner's policy 1n 

the residential analysis below. In some commercial 

properties' insurance pol1c1eS, sprinkler leakage is an 

optional insurance coverage and results in the model 

are pro-rated to account for partial coverage. 

Fire-following earthquake is the term us

describe the phenomena of urban fire co

following an earthquake. Driven by the pofor earthquake induced ignition sources, 

potentia! broken gas lines, with control h

possrble damage to firef1ghting capabilitie

a part of many historic earthquakes. Fireearthquake losses are tabulated separateearthquake ground shaking losses becaus

following earthquake is covered under thfire policy for the preponderance of fire i

policies in California. 

Reconstruction cost is used as an input t

earthquake risk model to estimate damag

The reconstruction cost differs from the c

construction in many ways. Repairing a p

more time consuming and labor-intensive 

construction because it includes debris re

rate surges, and low availablllty. Post-cat

demand surge spikes as the urgent need 

can overwhelm available labor and mater

resources. The valuations used in this stu

summarized by county m Appendix Table 

Buy-rate refers to the portion of the popu

purchases insurance. Somet1mes referred 

purchase rate or Insurance penetration ra
For this report, the term direct damage refers to 

estimates of the financial damage to all properties 

in the region. The term insurance Joss refers to the 

amount of money pnvate msurance companies are 

expected to pay to their policy holders to restore 

insured properties. In practice, residential earthquake 

insurance policies have deduct1bles typically varying 

from 15 percent to 25 percent of the reconstruction 

cost of the structure. Insurance loss refers only to the 

amount pa1d by the insurer above the deductible. The 

insured peril of fire~fol!owing earthquake is generally 

covered by the homeowners' policy, 5 Fire insurance 

deductib!es are typically smaller than earthquake 

deductibles. Spnnkler leakage is usually covered by a 

homeowners' policy as a pipe burst. For this analysis, 

we presumed that sprinkler leakage was covered by 

the fire insurance policy. 

The HayWired earthquake scenario postulates a series 

of earthquakes that affect the same set of buildings, 

In the time sequence imposed by this scenario, it 

is very unlikely that properties will be repaired in 

the interval between earthquakes. The concept of 

mcremental damage-that in which properties will 

be subsequently damaged by aftershocks-was 

considered in this report, and to the best extent 

possible, incrementa! damage was estimated based 

upon the damage state at the time of the event and 

the severity of ground motions. 

A property insurance policy is a legal contract 

between the property owner and the insurer. 

The wording of the contract must be considered 

tn the evaluatton of tnsurance loss. 

Earthquake insurance contracts typically provide 

insurance coverage on an occurrence basis, with the 

contractual definition of an occurrence considering 

a specified hours clause. An aftershock that occurs 

outside of the hours clause timeframe may be 

considered a new occurrence for which a homeowner 

must satisfy an addttional deductible before the 

insurance policy will provide additional payment to 

the homeowner. With California earthquake policies 

often having significant deductibles. earthquakes that 

outlast the timeframe of the hours clause can result in 

a significant diminution 1n the benefits of the insurance 

coverage to the lnsured. 

A survey of earthquake policies purchased in 

California indicated that the most common contractual 

definition of an earthquake occurrence for a residential 

earthquake policy is 360 hours. For the analysis below 

the damage from all earthquakes and aftershocks 

with a 360~hour period were accumulated and only 

one earthquake insurance deductible was applied to 

the cumulative damage within this period of time. 

A 168-hour time clause was considered for commercial 

damage. From an insurance po!1cy perspective, the 

incorporation of the hours clause "converted" the 

17 earthquakes in the HayWired scenario to five 

residential earthquake insurance events and e1ght 

commercial earthquake insurance events. 

The analyses in th!s report were completed using 

CoreLogic data and analytics, The Core Logic 

Insurance Exposure Database (lED) was used to model 

the location, characteristics, and valuation distribution 

of properties in the san Francisco Bay Area. 

The U,S. Earthquake Model from CoreLogic, 

a probabilistic and scenario catastrophe loss model, 

was used in conjunction with the ground motion maps 

prov1ded by the USGS to estimate direct damage and 

insured losses for all scenarios. Th1s model computes 

direct damage and insured loss estimates for smgle 

earthquake ruptures, and secondary models were 

developed to estimate the incremental damage from 

the earthquakes and to estimate the impacts of a 

single deductible applying to multiple earthquakes. 
The Big One 

The main shock (M7.0 near Oakland, California,) is the 

most severe damage and loss event The extent of 

the damage encompasses most of the San Francisco 

Bay Area. Corelogic estimates almost 1 m1llion homes 

damaged from this event. The monetary estimates of 

damage from this event are to the nght. 

The main shock produces damage broadly throughout 

the San Francisco Bay area, but the damage is 

concentrated in Alameda County (Appendix 

Table 2). Contra Costa and Santa Clara counties 

are also expected to see significant damages from 

a large earthquake along the Hayward fault. 

These estimates display only the mean damage. 

The uncertainty in risk modehng cannot be ignored: 

time of day, day of the week, weather, and other 

unforeseeable effects cannot be predicted and thus 

all loss estimates include a range of uncertainty. 

The geographic d1stribut1on of losses is consistent 

w1th the distnbution of damage (Appendix Table 3). 

Effects of Aftershocks 

The incremental effects of the aftershocks are 

tabulated, first as a listing by each individual 

aftershock, second as a listing of cumulative 

aftershocks, and finally added to "The Big One" 

to provide the combined impact. 

The HayWired scenario includes 16 specific aftershock 

earthquake occurrences distributed in time throughout 

the San Francisco Bay Area. The Cu640 and the Pa621 

aftershocks are the most damaging (Appendix 

Table 4), consistent w1th their being the 

highest magnitude aftershocks. 

Aftershock damages are concentrated in Santa Clara 

county (Appendix Table 5), consistent w1th the Cu640 

and Pa621 aftershocks located in Santa Clara County. 

Table 1: Direct Damage from Main Shock 

Total Residential Comm

Table 2: Insured Loss from Main Shock 

Total Residential Comm

Table 3: Cumulative Direct Damage from aftershocks 

{automobile d~msga included m reS>dentlal and commercial) 

Total Residential Comm

Table 4: Cumulative Insured Loss from aftershocks 

Total Residential Comm
104 
Post-Earthquake 

Phenomena 

There are many phenomena following an earthquake 

that can have a significant effect on the financial 

impact of the event (or events). Key sensitivities 

contributing to this fluctuation in estimated cost include: 

• Demand surge, or post-catastrophe inflation 

• Damage to key infrastructure 

and impacts upon resilience 

• Weather and the impacts 

upon fire-following 

Demand surge characterizes the increase in labor and 

materials costs following a catastrophe compared 

to the 'normal' labor and materials costs pnor to the 

event Following a catastrophe, the urgent demand for 

building materials and skilled labor can easily exceed 

the local pool of resources ava1!able. Less·efficient 

means of hous1ng imported labor and bringing in 

supplies 1s a major component of demand surge. 

The 1996 earthquake insurance rate filing for the 

California Earthquake Authority (CEA) accepted an 

estimated 20 percent demand surge in the Northridge 

Earthquake (1994). The estimates in this report 

include demand surge factors that vary through 

the region depending upon local and regional 

demands for resources. 

Damage to infrastructure is not explicitly accounted 

for in these estimates. Damaged infrastructure occurs 

in the form of damaged bridges, roads, and highways 

as well as critical utilities such as electrical, water, 

gas, and telecommunications includmg internet 

connectivity. The estimates in this report presume that 

infrastructure w111 be functional within days or weeks 

of the event. Permanently damaged mfrastructure could greatly increase loss estimates by imposing 

additional costs upon those performing repairs. 

Weather, or specifically wind speeds, can greatly 

influence the likelihood of an urban conflagration. 

Wind speeds are a critical factor m the extent of 

fire· following losses. Immediately 

after an earthquake, firefighters will be focusing on life 

safety for people in collapsed buildings. Heavy winds occurring at the same time will enable fires to quickly grow before resources are available to fight them, 

increasing the potential of large fires. 

The scenario factors addressed in the development 

of the marginal damage estimate include identifying 

which shock caused the most violent ground motions 

at the location, the damage from prior events, and the 

interval since the last damage shock. The relationship between marginal damage and the modeled damage 

varies by event. The Mountain V1ew, Cupertino, 

Sunnyvale, and Santa Clara sequence of aftershocks 

(Mv598, Cu640, Sv535, and Sc509 as defined by the 

Hay Wired scenario2 ) highlights this vanability- these 

particular aftershocks come six months after the 

main shock, allowing time for repairs, and ground 

motions in th1s area are generally more severe from 

the localized aftershocks than they were for the more 

distant ma1n (but larger magnitude) shock. 

Loss 

Estimation 

Estimating the insured loss to properties 

an earthquake requires the identification 

properties which are insured and the esti

their insured coverages (deductibles, limi

and exclusions). Corelogic uses public in

from rate filings and summary reports fro

California Department of Insurance (DOl) 

and complete this data. The data from pe

insurance is more certain due to the comp

regulatory reporting in admitted lines and homogeneity of this line of business. 

The data from commercial Hnes of insura

significantly more uncertainty, and there 

factors that can influence the likelihood o

owner or operator to purchase earthquak

coverage. In addition, insurers have demo

tremendous flexibility in varying insuranc

such as deductibles. As noted above, insu

is calculated using the insurance hours cl

definition of an earthquake occurrence an

the physical occurrence of an earthquake 

Insurance payouts are an important comp

of regional resHlence. 
Earthquake Scenario 

Descriptions 

Analysis was done using the ground-motion footprints 

available from the USGS for the sequence of events. 

The events are listed to the right and are delineated 

as individual occurrences and will be referenced by a 

unique descriptor name, as defined by the HayWired 

scenario (e.g., "Uc523" references the magmtude 5.23 

event in Un1on City on 4/18/2018). 2 

Name Date/Time in PDT Lat Lon Location Depth (km) 
Fire-Following 

Earthquake 

Earthquakes are typically coupled with fire ignitions 

because of the interaction between the built 

environment and shaking associated with earthquakes. 

The basic elements of a catastrophic fire analysis are 

ignitions, fuel, and air. Reviews of past earthquakes 

show that fire ignitions are a function of ground 

motion intensity and housing density. 

The predommant fuel for urban and suburban 

catastrophic fires is the building materials used in 

construction. In the San Francisco Bay area, the 

predominant residential construction is wood, 

although the prevalence for wood residential 

construction changes within communities. 

Commercial construction tends to be constructed 

from fire~ resistant materials, and larger commercial 

facilities have separations that Inhibit fire spread. 

Air is a critical component in the estimation of the 

potential for catastrophic conflagration following an 

earthquake. A fire that can quickly spread to burn 

thousands of buildings requ1res the presence of 

extreme winds. The 2017 wildfire events in the 

Sonoma and Ventura counties were concurrent with 

extreme winds reported to exceed 40 miles per hour6 ; 

winds of this severity can generate a fire spread rate 

that easily overwhelms a fire response service 

that is distracted with other life safety priorities. 

Diablo winds, where high speed and warm winds flow 

from the Diablo Valley to the east across the Hayward 

fault zone have the capability to greatly increase fire 

rlsk, and in conjunction with an earthquake result in 

serious conflagration. These conditions typically peak 

in the fall and spring. 

There are many uncertainties involved with 

earthquake risk modeling. The uncertainties range 

from the neighborhood level (Imperfect information 

of the properties) to the aggregate level (time of 

day and day of the week can influence the effects 

of earthquakes, but models that account for 

these factors were not used in this study). 

This study focuses on the expected value of the 

damage and loss gtven the knowns and unknowns. 

For the sub-perils of earthquake shaking and sprinkler 

leakage, the average outcome is useful because the 

impacts of these uncertainties are generally a small 

shift in the outcome. 

The sub-peril of fire-following earthquake behaves 

differently than the shakmg and sprinkler leakage 

sub-perils. The rare occurrence of very large fire 

losses following earthquakes (the 1906 San Francisco 

earthquake7 had very large fires as did the 1995 

Hyogoken-Nanbu (Kobe) earthquake8 where more 

than 6000 homes were destroyed) supports the 

argument that fire-following earthquake is a "tippingpomt" risk where, if conditions are adverse, the loss 

potential is quite large. To ma~ntain consistency 

with the overall study, the average fire-following 

earthquake loss estimate is used in this study. 

Sprinkler 

Leakage 

A significant potential impact of earthqua

motion on buildings equipped with autom

fire sprinkler systems is that such systems 

damaged by the earthquake, resulting in 

leakage. The severity of the resultant dam

with occupancy and the assets that are w

sprinklers. Detailed reviews of past events 

that sprinklers are likely to cause damage 

events, even in buildings which suffer onl

structural damage. Improvement of fire p

standards for building construction in the 

decades has Jed to the presence of fire sp

in new construction throughout the area. 

In 2011 the State of California required tha

be installed in all new construction of one

unit homes although many municipal ord

imposed thls reqwrement earlier. Multi-un

and commercial properties have had spri

requirements for much longer and a muc

portion of these types of occupancies ha

partial or full sprinklered floor areas. Thes

mitigate fire risk but do have the potentia

of being the source of water damage foll

significant earthquakes. 
108 
Although California has a history of large, damaging 

earthquakes and is the most seismically active reg1on 

of the contiguous U.S., the damage experienced in 

California earthquakes to date has yet to eclipse 

$40 billion. That peak occurred in 1994 as a result of 

the catastrophic Northridge Earthquake.9 In contrast, 

the projected $170 billion of the HayWired scenario 

would account for 20 percent of the 2016 regional 

Gross Domestic Product (GDP).10 This is comparable to 

the devastating Chnstchurch earthquake sequence in 

2010-2011, which had resultant damages representing 

-25.3 percent of the region's GDP.'l.l2 

rnsurance payments to property owners are estimated 

to be approximately $30 billion, less than 20 percent 

of the overall damage. This is primanly due to the 

very low purchase rate of insurance.n The $140 biU1on 

financing shortfall ($170 billion !ess $30 billion in 

insurance) presents a real risk to effective regional 

recovery. Of special concern is the potential for 

systemic impacts triggered by the lack of insurance. 

A great portion of the property damaged by 

the earthquake serves as collateral for property 

mortgages. Delinquency rates are expected to 

increase after a large earthquake, as has been 

observed in Superstorm Sandy (2011) and Hurncane 

Katrina (2005).14 The severity of uninsured damage in 

this earthquake scenano loss estimate is far greater 

than the damage estimates for Sandy and Katrina 

and the resilience of this market is uncertain for th1s 

level of severity. The disruption potential from a much 

larger event is very sensitive to the speed of recovery 

of hous1ng and commerce. 

The cumulative effect of aftershocks mcreases the 

losses by about 10 percent for the Hay Wired scenario. 

The losses from the modeled aftershocks are strongly 

influenced by their location relative to the main shock 

as well as the built environment. In th1s scenario, the 

event Cu640 was the most expensive aftershock for 

two reasons -the Cu640 aftershock was the largest 

magnitude aftershock, and being distant from the 

primary earthquake meant that it impacted properties 

with typically very low levels of existing damage. 

The inclusion of aftershocks 1nto the risk evaluation 

better aligns the planning scenario with the potential 

for earthquake occurrences in California and produces 

a more pragmatic planning scenario than a scenario 

that does not account for such aftershocks. tt must be 

caut"1oned that it ls impossible to predict the location 

and magnitude of earthquake aftershocks and the 

damage and loss mcrease of 10 percent 1s appropriate 

only for the scenario evaluated here. 

The effect of the insurance policy hours clause 

benefits policy holders in this analysis. Earthquake 

deductibles are often 5 to 25 percent of the 

reconstruction cost of the property and earthquake 

damage rarely exceeds this. ln this exercise, there 

were many properties where the modeled incremental 

damage from an aftershock was less than the 

earthquake deductible, but due to pnor damage, the 

additional damage was recoverable under insurance. 

It's not a matter of if but when a catastrophic 

earthquake will strike California. Citizens, homeowners, 

and businesses all must prepare for the devastatmg 

impact that may result. Earthquake insurance offers 

a means to help aid in the financial recovery of a 

devastating event. 

The damage from earthquakes presents a real nsk to 

California, and our ability to influence the effects of 

earthquakes range from building stronger buildings to 

developmg rapid response and rebuilding plans. 

Eight years later and Christchurch, New Zealand, 

1s still in the process of recovery. With a better 

understandmg of a practical planning scenario for the 

effects of an earthquake, we can begin to rethink how 

we respond to these disasters and thus improve our 

ability to recover. 
About 

Corelogic 

Corelogic (NYSE. CLGX) is a leadmg global property information. 

analyt1cs and data-enabled solutJO'lS provid&r. The company's 

comb1ned data from pubi1c, contributory and proprietary sources 

includes over 4.5 billion records spanning more than 50 years and 

prov1dmg dettnled coverage of property, mortgages and other 

encumbrances, consumer credit, tenancy, location, hazard nsk 

and related performance mformation. The markets Corelogic 

serves mclude real estate and mortgage fmance. msurance. capital 

markets, and the public sector. Corelogk delivers value to clients 

through un1que data, analytics, workflow technology, advisory and 

managed serv1ces. Clients rely on Corelogic to help identify and 

manage growth opportunities, improve performance and mitigate 

nsk Headquartered in kvine, Calit, Corelogic operates tn North 

Amenca, Western Europe and Asia Pac1hc. For more informatiOn, 

please visit wwwxorelog\c.com. 

SOURCES 

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111 
Appendix Table 1: CoreLogic Reconstruction 

valuations used in study ($ million) 

Values represent the reconstruction cost of bt.Jildings plus buildmg 

contents, automobiles, Insured loss estimation includes additional 

livmg expense and t1me element coverages, 

Reconstruction Values used in Study($ milli
Appendix Table 2: CoreLogic estimates 

of property damage (shake only) for the 

M 7.0 HayWired scenario malnshock 

(excluding fire and sprinkler damage) 

($million) 
Appendix Table 3: CoreLogic estimates 

of insured loss for the M 7.0 HayWired 

scenario mainshock (excluding fire and 

sprinkler damage) ($ million) 

Commercial Residential Automobile Total 
Appendix Table 4: CoreLogic estimates 

of Incremental damage for each HayWired aftershock (including fire and 

sprinkler damage) ($ million) 
Æ 

Appendix Table 5: Corelogic estimates of 

incremental damage for all HayWired 

aftershocks (including fire and 

sprinkler damage) ($ million)