Safe Enough? A Building Code to Protect Our Cities and Our Lives. Issue 2 (May 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Porter, Keith A.
• Is Part Of: Earthquake spectra. Volume 32:Issue 2(2016)
• Page Start: 677
• Page End: 695
• Publication Date: 2016-05
• Subjects: Earthquake engineering -- Periodicals; Earthquake engineering; Periodicals; 624.1762
• DOI: 10.1193/112213eqs286m
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 8755-2930

Abstract

Seminal works on earthquake engineering hold that greater seismic resistance of building stock is impractical; that the public is unwilling to pay for it; that the public has no proper role in setting code philosophy; and that current seismic provisions encode the proper performance goals. Recent projects undermine these conventionalities. In light of performance expectations for new buildings, the code seems to almost guarantee that a future large but not very rare earthquake will damage enough buildings to displace millions of people and hundreds of thousands of businesses from a major metropolitan area, producing a catastrophe more severe than Hurricane Katrina. A discussion with the public should take place in which we reconsider how to measure risk and how to balance risk and construction cost in code objectives.