EERI Newsletter, September 2008 Volume 42, Number 9

News of the Institute Travel Scholarships Call for Nominations for WSSPC Excellence Awards Annual Meeting News Several scholarships are available to assist student members and young- WSSPC is accepting nominations Call for Poster Abstracts er EERI members (out of school no for its 2009 Awards in Excellence, which recognize achievement in Individuals interested in participating more than three years) to attend the different areas of earthquake mitiga- in one of the 2009 Annual Meeting 2009 Annual Meeting, thanks to sup- tion, preparedness, and response. poster sessions are invited to submit port from FEMA. The financial sup- State, provincial, county, territorial, abstracts, not exceeding two pages port will be contingent upon partici- and city governments as well as in length, to the organizing commit- pation in one of the poster sessions nonprofit agencies are eligible. The tee. The accepted abstracts will be (see first column), either through the awards help to facilitate the transfer reproduced as submitted in the An- applicant’s own research project, or of exemplary programs, products, nual Meeting notebook and there- as a representative of a student and policies to other organizations fore must be in final form. Abstracts chapter depicting the chapter’s activ- and to recognize creative and inno- should be prepared with one-inch ities. Each scholarship will be for a vative efforts within the earthquake margins on all sides, single-spaced fixed amount and can be used to hazards reduction community. The in 11-point Times Roman or equiva- cover registration, three nights’ lodg- awards will be presented at the lent font. Text should be flush left. ing, and round-trip economy airfare. 2009 joint WSSPC/EERI Annual The title, in upper case, should be To apply, e-mail a letter of request Meeting. To download a nomination centered at the top, with presenters by December 1, 2008, to the Stu- form and for information about cat- identified by name, title, and orga- dent Activities Committee in care of egories, eligibility, and selection nizational affiliation. They should be Juliane Lane at [email protected]. criteria, visit http://www.wsspc.org/ e-mailed by December 1, 2008, to Applicants should describe their cur- Awards/2009/index.html. Nomina- Juliane Lane at [email protected]. rent involvement in earthquake engi- tions must be made by someone Presenters will be notified in early neering or a related field and their outside of the nominated agency January of acceptance. status as students or professionals. and are due by October 31, 2008.

Learning from Earthquakes 10 miles west, suffered some damage in its older M5.4 Chino Hills, Cal- buildings. A minor land- slide near Route 91 in the ifornia, Earthquake Anaheim Hills, 7 miles to Caltrans geologist Martha Merriam the south, caused some contributed this report. traffic congestion, but no injuries or structural dam- Late in the morning on July 29, 2008, age were reported. The a M5.4 earthquake shook southern volume of telephone use California. The earthquake was the after the shock disrupted strongest to hit the Los Angeles area service into the afternoon, since the 1994 Northridge earth- and some power outages quake. It occurred at a depth of 9 occurred. miles and the aftershock sequence was 75% less energetic than the The earthquake gave or- average California aftershock se- ganizers of the Great Location of the Chino Hills earthquake epicenter. quence for a M5.4 mainshock, pos- Southern California Shake- sibly because of its depth. out (http://www.shakeout.org/), Ground shaking predicted by the planned for later this year, an oppor- latest ground motion prediction Strong shaking was reported to the tunity to promote the event and equations developed for use in the north in the Chino basin and to the stress the need for preparedness in 2008 USGS seismic hazard maps west in the Los Angeles basin. Build- this active seismic area. The magni- fits well with most observed record- ings swayed in downtown Los An- tude 5.4 earthquake is about 5,000 ings of this event. The greatest ac- geles 28 miles from the epicenter, times smaller than the magnitude celeration observed (horizontal pga) area amusement parks were evacu- 7.8 earthquake, considered realistic was about 0.44 g recorded near ated and temporarily shut down, but for the region, that will be depicted Walnut, about 11 km northwest of damage was minor. California State in the Shakeout. University, Fullerton, located about continued on next page

 EERI Newsletter, September 2008 Volume 42, Number 9

Chino Hills Earthquake Subscribing Member News continued from page 2 the epicenter. Peak velocity mea- Risk Engineering Merges with WLA sured at the Walnut station was 38 Risk Engineering, Inc. (REI), an EERI Subscribing Member since 1995, has cm/sec and the duration was a few been acquired by William Lettis & Associates (WLA), a leading consulting seconds. Recordings in the greater company specializing in geological and geotechnical investigations for engi- Los Angeles area were commonly neering facilities, with offices nationwide. WLA is an operating company of in the 10% g to 20% g acceleration Fugro, with offices worldwide. REI will merge with WLA’s geohazard division. range, and peak velocities in that REI’s expertise in seismic hazard and risk analysis as well as its expertise in area were mostly in the range 5 to hazards and risks from hurricanes, wind and wave loads, and storm surge, 15 cm/sec. will complement WLA’s expertise in site investigations and geotechnical char- acterization of sites. According to Sue Hough of the USGS, the earthquake occurred in a REI’s software programs EZ-FRISK™ and ST-RISK™, with applications and complicated tectonic region, namely, databases for characterization of hazard and risk for facilities worldwide, the wedge sandwiched between the will continue to be licensed and supported. REI will continue to support cli- Whittier and Chino Hills faults that ents from its Boulder, Colorado, and Acton, Massachusetts, offices, and its has many small faults with different personnel and contacts will not change. Robin McGuire, REI founder, will orientations. The current theory become vice president and executive manager of WLA. Gabriel R. Toro will (offered by Caltech seismologist become a senior principal engineer with WLA. Egill Hauksson) is that the wedge conceals a structure known as the Yorba Linda trend with no surface Miyamoto: A New Subscribing Member expression but with a linear trend of seismicity. The moment tensor EERI is pleased to announce that the firm Miyamoto International recently showed a mixture of thrust and left- became a Bronze Subscribing Member. Miyamoto provides structural, earth- lateral strike-slip faulting on a plane quake and risk engineering services. The firm’s earthquake risk reduction striking 43° east of north, with a program utilizes performance-based design concepts and applies them to southerly dip of 58°. The preliminary existing facilities. This program has been expanded over the years to incor- locations of aftershocks suggest that porate other natural hazards. The award-winning staff has engineered over this is the fault plane. 8,000 buildings and consults to clients worldwide on state-of-the-art designs, consistently delivering cost-effective innovation. With California offices in Updates to this information may be West Sacramento, Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, and the San found at: http://www.cisn.org/. Francisco Bay Area, in addition to offices in Portland-Vancouver and Tokyo, Miyamoto is one of the largest and fastest growing structural engineering firms in California. The firm’s roots go back toArthur Sauer & Associates in Board Nominees California’s central valley in the 1940s, when they specialized in school and continued from page 1 hospital projects. The firm eventually evolved into Marr Shaffer & Miyamoto, Additional nominations may be Inc. In 1997, Kit Miyamoto became president and sole owner of the firm. Kit made by the membership in accor- was named one of the “Top 40 Executives under 40” in 1999 by the Sacra- dance with Article VII of the EERI mento Business Journal for his enthusiasm to develop the firm into an indus- Bylaws (Sections 4 and 5), upon try powerhouse. submission of a petition with signa- tures of 25 members. Petitions must ® be received prior to November 1. WPM Awarded LEED Silver Biographies of the candidates and EERI Subscribing Member WALTER P MOORE’s new corporate officein short vision statements will be pub- downtown Houston has been awarded CI (Corporate Interiors) LEED® Silver lished in a future issue of the News- by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). LEED (leadership in energy letter and posted on the EERI web and environmental design) is the USGBC’s leading rating system for design- site, www.eeri.org. ing and constructing the world’s greenest, most energy efficient, and high- performing buildings. The LEED certification was achieved through energy EERI wishes to thank the Nominat- use, lighting, water and material use as well as incorporating a variety of ing Committee: Donald Ballantyne other sustainable strategies. LEED considers environmental performance, (chair), Scott Ashford, Craig Comar- occupant health, and financial return. For more information, visit www. tin, Rich Eisner, and Patricia Grossi. walterpmoore.com.