2004 NATIONAL EARTHQUAKE CONFERENCE

Award of Excellence Recipient

Award Category:  Mitigation

Program Name: ABAG Home Quake Safety Toolkit & Outreach Education Program

Contact: Jeanne Perkins, Program Manager

Association of Bay Area Governments

PO Box 2050

Oakland CA 94604

Phone:  (510) 464-7934

Fax:      (510) 464-7970

Email:   jeannep@abag.ca.gov

The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) is a joint powers agency of the 110 city and county governments located in the San Francisco Bay Area. In its role as a regional planning agency, ABAG has had an active earthquake program since the mid-1970s. The housing mitigation education program consists of a number of components that have evolved over the past decade and continues to expand to include new information, tools, language translations, and types of housing. Since the Internet is the primary communications medium being utilized to convey information, the project is already helping to educate people in earthquake risk zones in other parts of California, the United States, and the world. The project website was recently evaluated by a collaboration of agencies in Turkey who are developing similar educational tools.

ABAG posts general ways of bracing and anchoring typical building contents on its website through new residential pages, which have been expanded. There is also a quiz that "tests" the user's knowledge on the causes of nonstructural damage. The online information section that deals with the home's structure includes an innovative quiz that owners and tenants of single-family homes, mobile homes, and apartments can take to "self-assess" the structural vulnerability of their home based on a combination of shaking intensity and structural type. The video, Stand Up to the Quake — Get Your Home in Shape, has been shown several time on KQED-TV, Bay TV, and several cable access stations. As a result, community workshops were implemented with as many as 300 persons in attendance. There is also a Participant Handbook for Seismic Retrofit Training for building contractors & inspectors.  

The Organizing Committee of the 2004 National Earthquake Conference is doing business as the Western States Seismic Policy Council.