Building Tougher Schools

When the massive earthquake hit China’s Sichuan province, Juyuan Middle School collapsed, tragically crushing many children. Those who ran managed to escape as the building crumbled behind them.

In the wake of this frightening natural disaster, we find ourselves thinking about infrastructure in high population, and often poor areas. Dot Earth has a good post about the effort by engineers, activists, parents, development workers, etc. to strengthen the design of buildings like schools so they can stand up to seismic disasters. School children are at risk in earthquake hot spots everywhere from Portland to Istanbul to, indeed, the Sichuan province of China. But Andrew Revkin says today that the country with the most children at risk is the U.S.

Revkin sites experts who say that the obstacles standing in the way of safe schools being constructed are "more social than structural." He points to institutional failures, the lack of oversight and inspection, the lack of accountability and the failure to expect the unexpected and plan for catastrophic events.

School buildings often have the weakest design, with masonry going only halfway up the space between columns and windows. If the space between columns is filled, the structure is stronger. Gaps make the buildings vulnerable to seismic activity — and those gaps are especially bad in Oregan schools. California tends to have stronger school buildings, but poorer school districts are still the exception.

Washington State took action the week of the Chinese earthquake. Seattle officials released a map charting 575 buildings with unreinforced masonry believed to be "rubble in waiting."

In his piece, Revkin explains more about turning weak, dangerous buildings into stronger, safer ones.