San Francisco M7.0 earthquake would damage more than a million homes
A hypothetical magnitude 7.0 earthquake epicentered in Oakland would damage more than a million homes and less than 10 percent of total residential losses would be insured because of a low residential earthquake insurance take-up in the Bay Area, according to a scenario developed by the US Geological Survey (USGS).
“The HayWired scenario is just that—a scenario—but it’s also realistic: It could happen today,” said California Earthquake Authority (CEA) CEO Glenn Pomeroy. “This scenario really underscores the need to prepare, so you can recover physically and financially after the ground stops shaking,” Pomeroy added.
The CoreLogic model estimates that insured residential losses from HayWired-scenario shaking could be as high as $5 billion or $6 billion. CEA has more than $15 billion in claim-paying capacity, an amount that is growing by about $2 billion per year.
Houses built before 1979 (when California adopted improved building codes) are particularly vulnerable to a Hayward-fault rupture like the HayWired scenario. Older houses can slide off their foundations during an earthquake, and the Bay Area has many such older houses: The median year of residential construction in Oakland is 1951, the median in San Francisco is 1942, and the median in San Jose is 1974, according to the statement.
Certain types of older houses would benefit from brace-and-bolt seismic retrofitting, which means bracing the walls between the foundation and the house’s first floor and bolting the house frame to the foundation, the statement added.
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