Page 88 - Building Codes News Today

Arthel: what sort of taylors specifics will be needed considering that puerto rico is an island and they are practically having to rebuild the infrastructure? >> right. there are a number of issues that play a role in a situation like this. one is building codes. many building codes in puerto rico and around the world are not really what were designing structures that have two sustained winds of category five hurricanes. these are hurricanes that we expect to return every 100 years while we typi...

Lets face it. the infrastructure is weak. there were no building codes, so there is a lot of devastation. we understand that. heres the other major challenge that we face. its an island. we dont just drive trucks and resources onto an island. with the damage you had extensive damage to the air traffic control systems, which meant sequencing life safety flights into the area, into the one airport that we could get open, san juan, initially s incredibly difficult. so you have to prioritize who acc...

20s. and lets face it. the infrastructure is weak and there were no building codes. so theres a lot of devastation. and we understand that. heres the other major challenge that we face. it is an island. we dont just drive trucks and resources on to an island. with the damage, you had extensive damage to the air traffic control systems which meant sequencing life safety flights into the area, into the one airport that we can get open. san juan initially is incredibly difficult. you have to priori...

The infrastructure is weak and there were no building codes. so theres a lot of devastation. we understand that. heres the other major challenge that we face. its an island. we dont just drive trucks and resources on to an island. so with the damage, you had extensive damage to the air traffic control systems, which meant sequencing life safety flights into the area, into the one airport that we could get on, san juan initially, is incredibly difficult. you have to prioritize who accesses the is...

And now is obviously a huge curve of learning both in terms of building codes and regulations, mexico and japan, for example, being two of the few countries that have seismic alerts that go off 10, 12 seconds before an earthquake hits which has proven to be a very important tool. and also the institutional standard operating procedures that were put in place after 85 when the mexican government at the time basically just collapsed with the buildings and was unable to respond quickly. and thats w...

It. even the first responders are struggling to communicate with each other. >> a positive is that the roads arent flooded. we have to remember san juan is not just an urban center, much of it is rural. outside the city area, the building codes are different. you had to your point those wooden structures with tin or zinc roofs. we are thinking about our friends and family in puerto rico. now to mexico where dramatic rescue efforts have captured the attention of the nation, of the world. people t...

Im going to give you as we wait more context about this school. asimages, we know that 318 children attended this school according to local media. we know the school is 35 years old. the main structure is 35 years old. the school expanded and the newer structures which are now 14 years old, they were the ones that collapsed. ironically. the newer structures with the newer building codes, they were the ones that gave way after this magnitude 7.1 earthquake hit. were seeing some movement from that...

To our hotel and we were seeing the smoke and the dust from a building that just collapsed next to us. >> and tuesdays quake came on the 32nd anniversary of another devastating natural disaster inr 19th back in 1985, killing an estimated 9,500 people in and around the capital. now, that prompted officials to toughen building codes and require greater protections against earthquakes. we now want to turn to hurricane maria, on a collision course with puerto rico, which has yet to recover from its ...

Now san juan is getting hit. fortunately theyre in the castle part, so that thing is over 400 years old. thats not going to come down at all, but it is some of the other buildings that even though they have stronger building codes, you still have winds gusting 100, 120 miles per hour for a while and that will definitely do some damage. so building codes or not, again, there is two things in this world which have never been beaten, one is father time and two is mother nature. there is no such thi...

Fault that runs from mexico up to northern california is long overdue for a big one. even though theres no way to pinpoint a major quake, seismologists do have the ability to forecast them by paying attention to small and moderate alerts that happen next to major fault lines. small quakes raise the risk of unleashing a big quake. for the past decade california and oregon have been building an early warning detection system, known as shake alert, but its only halfway done. the idea is to use 1500...