Charles Scawthorn on June 13-14, 2018 made two presentations at the AWWA Annual Meeting in Las Vegas, on the topic of the PIPE algorithm (Pipe Importance and Priority Evaluation), a new method that solves for the first time the question of how to identify which pipe has the highest benefit if mitigated. The two papers are available here and here.
Keith Porter represented the Engineering team at the April 18 release of the USGS-sponsored major report The HayWired earthquake scenario—Engineering implications which describes a hypothetical yet scientifically realistic earthquake sequence scenario in order to better understand hazards for the San Francisco Bay region during and after a magnitude-7 earthquake (mainshock) on the Hayward Fault and its aftershocks. Findings, many due to work by Porter, include: (1) 800 deaths and 16,000 nonfatal injuries result from shaking alone, plus property and direct business interruption losses of more than $82 billion from shaking, liquefaction, and landslides; (2) the building code is designed to protect lives, but even if all buildings in the region complied with current building codes, 0.4 percent could collapse, 5 percent could be unsafe to occupy, and 19 percent could have restricted use; (3) people expect, prefer, and would be willing to pay for greater resilience of buildings; (4) more than 22,000 people could require extrication from stalled elevators, and more than 2,400 people could require rescue from collapsed buildings; (5) the average east-bay resident could lose water service for 6 weeks, some for as long as 6 months; (6) older steel-frame high-rise office buildings and new reinforced-concrete residential buildings in downtown San Francisco and Oakland could be unusable for as long as 10 months; (7) combining earthquake early warning (ShakeAlert) with “drop, cover, and hold on” actions could prevent as many as 1,500 nonfatal injuries out of 18,000 total estimated nonfatal injuries from shaking and liquefaction hazards. (8) SPA’s Charles Scawthorn was author of Chapter P of the report, which focused on fire following earthquake, finding about 450 large fires could result in a loss of residential and commercial building floor area equivalent to more than 52,000 single-family homes and cause property (building and content) losses approaching $30 billion. Volume 1 of the report, on Earthquake Hazards, was released in 2017, and Volume 3 will be released later this year.
Charles Scawthorn presented a paper at the 10th Water System Seismic Conference in Tainan City, Taiwan, October 2017, sponsored by the Taiwan, Japan and American Water Works Associations, on the topic of ” Determining Water Distribution System Pipe Replacement Given Random Defects – Case Study of San Francisco’s Auxiliary Water Supply System “.
Charles Scawthorn is co-author of a paper, ‘Water Distribution System Pipe Replacement Given Random Defects – Case Study of San Francisco’s Auxiliary Water Supply System‘, for the 2017 Pipelines Conference in Phoenix, Arizona in August 2017.
Keith Porter and Charles Scawthorn both participated in sessions at the Workshop, convened each July by Natural Hazards Center of the University of Colorado. Porter will be moderating a session on the Mitigation Saves project (click here ) and Scawthorn will be moderating a session on the Global Alliance for Disaster Research Institutes (GADRI, click here ).
Charles Scawthorn gave a presentation at the May 2017 retirement party for Prof. Robert Geller of the University of Tokyo, speaking on “An engineer looks at M-S-G (2017)’s criticisms of PSHA”
Charles Scawthorn attended the 3rd Global Summit of the Global Alliance for Disaster Research Institutes (GADRI) in Kyoto in May. He serves on the GADRI Board, and chaired a session during the Summit.
Keith Porter and Charles Scawthorn both participated in the first “All-Team” kick-off meeting for the HayWired scenario on April 24, 2017 at East Bay Municipal Utilities District in Oakland, sponsored by the USGS, Association of Bay Area Governments, Joint Venture Silicon Valley, Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center and the State of California Seismic Safety Commission. Porter is lead on the Engineering aspects of the project, and Scawthorn leads the investigation on fire following earthquake.
SPA Risk LLC is updating and expanding the classic 4:1 benefit-cost analysis of natural-hazard mitigation for the National Institute of Building Sciences. To learn more, read this.
SEPTEMBER 21, 2016
Charles Scawthorn gave a Guest Lecture to CE 105 “Wind and Water – Design for a Changing Environment“on the topic of Emergency Water Storage and Supply, at the invitation of Prof. Sally Thompson. A pdf of the lecture can be found here.