You hear messages in the media about preparing yourself and your family for earthquakes. But, how ready is your house?
Depending on the age and construction of your home, a state program may be able to help you retrofit it to improve its earthquake resiliency.
"A lot of our residential infrastructure is vulnerable to earthquake damage, simply because it was designed and constructed before we had really strong building codes," said Janiele Maffei, Chief Mitigation Officer with the California Earthquake Authority.
"There were significant changes, and houses built since 1980 will do a lot better," said Maffei. "The particular vulnerability we're going after in the Earthquake Brace and Bolt Program is the crawl space house that isn't properly bolted to the foundation. If it has the short stud walls around the crawl space called cripple walls, those are not properly braced with plywood. They can slide or topple off the foundation."
She talked about past damage to homes with raised foundations that weren’t braced or bolted.
"It's just devastating. We saw in the Napa earthquake in 2014 houses that came off their foundation where, on average, [they] were not yet reoccupied two and a half years later," said Maffei. "You can imagine (how hard it was) paying a mortgage, moving your family out of the house, and trying to come up with the capital to lift it up and put it back on the foundation, and then repairing all the damage."
Maffei talked more specifically about the homes eligible for the program.
"The program is for single-family dwellings, specifically dwellings with this particular vulnerability with a crawl space. So, it's not for the hillside homes, for the single-family soft story living over a garage. None of those houses will qualify," said Maffei. "I think if you picture in your mind the classic pre-1940 bungalow, with a crawl space, that is the kind of house we are going after."
The Brace and Bolt Grant Program covers homes in areas considered at higher risk.
"We are a zip code-based program," said Maffei. "We're in over 1,100 Zip Codes in California. All of the areas of high hazard up and down the coast are covered, with about 80% in the San Andreas Fault zone."
It includes owner-occupied and rental properties.
Maffei said that with the FEMA funding they have for this new round of the ongoing program, they are hoping to help retrofit around 9,000 homes.
"Our grant provides up to $3,000," added Maffei. "The median cost of this retrofit is $5,200 statewide. We have now done over 33,000 retrofits with this program."
There are also supplemental grants available for low income homeowers, to help make up some of the difference.
She said they also provide information and support to help people with the online application process. And, Maffei said one of the hardest things for homeowners to find is a contractor who can handle the specialized work. The Brace and Bolt Program has compiled a list of those who have gone through specialized training for these projects.
You can find a link to the webpage for the Earthquake Brace and Bolt Program here. The grant application window is open now through October 1.
