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Major Expansion for Nevada Quake Research Center

September was national preparedness month. But disasters aren’t just going to take the other 11 months of the year off, you guys, so it’s important that the efforts to increase readiness continue. 24/7/365 is what I always say.

Critical but under-reported to that endeavor is research. We can’t know how to prepare unless we know precisely what we are preparing for. So it was with great exuberance that I came across this news story from the Insurance Journal about a major expansion to one of the nation’s premier earthquake research labs, the Center for Civil Engineering Earthquake Research at the University of Nevada, Reno.

A new $12.2 million federal grant will allow the University of Nevada, Reno, to more than double the size of its earthquake research center, making it the largest quake simulation facility in the country, school officials said.

Construction of a new 23,000-square-foot Shake Table Laboratory will allow for seismic tests on much bigger models of buildings and bridges than have ever been tested.

The lab has been conducting earthquake research for 25 years on shake tables, simulating seismic waves propagating through layers of soil beneath foundations to see how different structures react. The expansion will make it possible to house five 50-ton-capacity shake tables instead of the present four.

Great news indeed.

The final pricetag of the expansion is expected to be $18 million, creating a center of more than 30,000 square feet by 2013. And perhaps most encouragingly, this $12.2 million allocation comes as part of a $50 million package of grants that the Commerce Department handed out recently for the construction of new scientific research facilities in the United States — meaning that nearly 25% of the funds went to disaster research.

Looks like natural catastrophe risks are moving up the federal radar.

And as Ian Buckle, director of the center’s Large-Scale Structures Lab, aptly noted, the pay-off is well worth the investment.

“This will be a quantum jump in the range and complexity of experiments that can be undertaken in both new and existing laboratories, with advances in state-of-the-art earthquake engineering that are not currently possible,” said Ian Buckle, director of the center’s Large-Scale Structures Lab.

“Safer buildings, bridges and more resilient communities will be the end result,” he added.

I think everyone can get behind that.

Nevada Earthquake Research

The Rogers and Wiener Bridge Structures Lab at the University of Nevada, Reno. (Photo: University of Nevada)

Risk Management Links of the Day: 12.16.09

janet napolitano DHS

  • Department of Homeland Security Fail: “Tahaya Buchanan, an American fugitive who’d been on the run for more than two years, dodging a national arrest warrant for insurance fraud, has spent her years underground gainfully employed by the Department of Homeland Security.
  • Our homeland security watchdog is doing something right, however, as DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano yesterday announced a “first of its kind federal-state cybersecurity partnership” between the department and the state of Michigan. As someone who reads dozens of horrible press releases every day, I can assure you that this is one of the least informative press releases ever written (and, not for nothing, DHS could probably use some proofreaders), but the gist of this thing seems to center around some sort of collaborative IT system to uncover malware and cyberattacks — or something.
  • With the financial collapse bankrupting Iceland and putting once-low-risk economies like those of Greece and Latvia on the ropes, Ellen Brown looks at how even the developed world nations of the EU are now bucking IMF debt-repayment protocols. And as former fat cats like Dubai have shown, today’s global climate means that even formerly nonvolatile nations need to be given more scrutiny when it comes to credit risks. “Dozens of countries have defaulted on their debts in recent decades, the most recent being Dubai, which declared a debt moratorium on November 26, 2009. If the once lavishly-rich Arab emirate can default, more desperate countries can; and when the alternative is to destroy the local economy, it is hard to argue that they shouldn’t.”
  • The video streaming site Justin.tv is under scrutiny for its inability to prevent its users from illegally uploading copyrighted content. Ultimately, this is the same fight that has been going on regarding digital intellectual property since Napster and, later, Kazaa gave rise to widespread music piracy across college campuses in the late 90s. YouTube faced similar scrutiny and many lawsuits and, like Napster, has used the “we’re not doing anything wrong — it’s our users” defense. But where Napster (and other, more brazen sharing sites like The Pirate Bay) failed, sites like YouTube have (thus far) been able to sidestep major legal recourse by having procedures (which, if we’re being honest, are only minimally effective) that ensure the removal of content if it is reported as infringing copyright. Getting back to the main story…Now under the threat of legal action, Justin.tv told its side of the story in front of the House Judiciary Committee this morning. “Justin.tv calls on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which they claim should provide them with a safe harbor for copyright-infringing content that appears on the website before they or the appropriate right owners get a chance to remove it … The startup states that it aims to bring live video into the mainstream much like Flickr, The Huffington Post and YouTube have done for online images, news and video clips. The question is: are they really doing everything they can to fight piracy?”

Find an interesting link? Email me any stories, videos or images you come across and would like to see included. Or just follow me on Twitter @RiskMgmt and pass it along that way.

Italy’s Devastation

The death toll seems to jump every few minutes. From 30 early this morning, to 40 just a few minutes ago, to “more than 90” at the time this post is written.

Hopefully, it will climb no higher.

The epicenter of the 6.3 magnitude earthquake was in L’Aquila, a picturesque town approximately 95 miles east of Rome. Officials stated that 40,000 to 50,000 people had been left homeless in the area, also known as the Abruzzo Region. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has declared a state of emergency in the area.

It has been reported that several historic sites have been damaged or destroyed by this morning’s quake, taking away hundreds of years of history in just a few moments. These aging sites are oftentimes difficult to insure since the design and construction of historical buildings invariably makes them more vulnerable to damage and more expensive to repair. Two of the few insurers who do offer historical property insurance here in the U.S. are Fireman’s Fund and National Trust Insurance Services, though historic property policy rates are certainly higher than rates for your average property insurance.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the last two major earthquakes to hit the area were devastating as well. In 1997, a magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck just 50 miles from this morning’s quake, killing 11, injuring more than 100 and destroying 80,000 homes. In 1980, a magnitude 6.9 earthquake occurred 150 miles southeast of L’Aquila, killing 2,483 people.

In response to the ever-present danger of earthquakes and the widespread damage they produce, catastrophe risk modeling firm AIR Worldwide released its Global Earthquake Model (GEM), to be used to assess seismic risk. “GEM will be the critical instrument to support decisions and actions that reduce earthquake losses worldwide,” said Dr. Ross Stein, geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey and GEM co-founder.

Though GEM is still in its infant stages, hopes are that it will someday be able to prevent or lessen the losses, both human and property, we see in Italy today.

 

(United States Geological Survey)

(United States Geological Survey)