BE OUR GUEST: NEW STUDY SHEDS LIGHT ON EARTHQUAKE CASUALTIES

Edwin A. Lampitt has been in private practice as a structural engineer since 1950. He is registered as a structural engineer in Illinois and as a professional engineer in Missouri and several other states. He has designed 150-200 seismically resistant structures, and he investigated damage to 43 buildings in the 1985 Mexico City earthquake. He has lived in Cape Girardeau about four years.

A new study has been released that allows us to project with confidence the number of people who would be killed or injured in our school buildings, based upon the building's age and number of stories. The results are frightening. If an earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale occurs within 30 miles of Cape Girardeau, we can expect 373 dead children and adults and an additional 1276 injured!

A conference on earthquake damage mitigation for architects, engineers and building managers was held in St. Louis last Sept. 10-11. The conference was sponsored by the Central United States Earthquake Consortium in cooperation with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Missouri Emergency Management Agency, and the National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research. During the meeting, professionals from various parts of the country spoke to us on the subject of seismic damage to buildings.

Among those who addressed us was Dr. Lawrence Reaveley. Dr. Reaveley's firm has investigated more than 400 school buildings to determine the abilities of the various buildings to resist earthquake forces. The study was based on a moderate quake measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale. This study found that a correlation existed between the year the building was designed and its seismic resistance capability. This correlation is not too surprising since earthquake resistance requirements have become more strin~gent with each new code edition since 1950.

When school buildings were designed to meet code requirements, the seismic force resistance ratings were: (See Table One).

They also found a correlation between the number of floors in a school building and the likelihood of casualties in buildings located from 10 to 30 miles from a 6.2 seismic event: (See Table Two).

The information about the existing school buildings published recently in the Southeast Missourian gave an opportunity to apply to Dr. Reaveley's firm's study to the situation in Cape. The results are shown in Table Three.

The seismic forces which a building structure receives are directly proportional to the weight of the building and to its height. (This is why trailers and single story homes are seldom damaged in a quake.) In my professional opinion, the three buildings to be replaced cannot withstand an earthquake of any significance and the remaining schools need retrofitting.

There appears to be some doubt in the minds of some of the Cape Girardeau voters regarding the necessity of providing local students with earthquake resistant buildings in which to learn. As a registered structural and professional engineer who has both designed seismic resistant buildings and investigated the damage to buildings which have partially or completely collapsed under earthquake forces, I feel compelled to share the information which we professionals know about the risks.

I fail to understand how there can be any doubt about investing money to prevent casualties among our children and grandchildren.