Damage to Public Property from the Loma Prieta Earthquake.

Steven P. French, Raymond J. Burby, Michael Jaffe, & Steven White, Georgian Insitute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia.

This project analyzed the distribution of damage to urban infrastructure and other public property from the Loma Prieta earthquake, based on analysis of the 9633 damage survey reports submitted to the Federal Emergency Management Agency through December 1991. This data represents nearly $600 million worth of damage. A one-way descriptive analysis of damage values indicated that public buildings accounted for about two-fifths of the total damage. Emergency response services and debris removal accounted for a similar proportion. Comparison with the 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake indicates the proportion of damage attributable buildings was constant, but that the proportion attributable to services and debris removal was much higher in the Loma Prieta event. Urban infrastructure damage represented a smaller proportion of the total in the Loma Prieta event and the type of infrastructure systems damaged was markedly different from the Whittier Narrows case.

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