Most of the buildings in the area are built to the newer codes, but the older buildings, especially unreinforced masonry structures, are the first thing you see going down. That s what happened in Seattle. Maragakis said the study identified only a sampling of such buildings, but there are many more unreinforced masonry buildings in northern Nevada. Officials said they aren t worried about the newer buildings, which were built to withstand quakes. The building code we re using now is sufficient if properly followed and enforced, Anderson said.
Older buildings can be retrofit to withstand quakes but that s extremely expensive.
The Riverside Hotel in Reno has been retrofitted to make it less vulnerable to earthquakes, but the idea is to protect the occupants, not the structure. If a 6.8 magnitude quake hit Reno, the occupants of the Riverside would be able to get out of the building and it wouldn t come down on anybody, said Mike Mitchell, in charge of building code enforcement for Reno. But once an incident like that occurred, the building would be history. Mitchell agreed many old masonry structures would crumble during a significant quake. Some owners have gone in and reinforced their buildings, he said.