Most of these buildings survive intact, but with significant nonstructural damage. Several are used as emergency shelters. About 52,000 students of high school age or younger attend school in the region that would be subjected to intense shaking. Of these, about 37,000 are in 77 elementary and middle schools. A school-time earthquake creates the problem of large numbers of students isolated from their families for a period of hours to a day or more.
Nonstructural damage is significant in schools within areas of intense shaking.
Nonstructural dangers in all schools in western Nevada should be mitigated prior to the occurrence of an actual earthquake. Hospitals and medical facilities within the areas of intense shaking experience severe nonstructural damage because of the large amount of mobile equipment and unsecured materials. Consequently, there is a significant loss of hospital beds available following the scenario earthquake. The scenario also hypothesizes that one hospital has to be evacuated and is unusable for 2 days due to nonstructural damage and problems with back-up electric power. An analysis of hypothetical hospital bed loss from the scenario event using 1995 data yields about 1,945 medical beds surviving the earthquake and available for use.