Safety Assessment Program Evaluator Student Manual

CA Emergency Mgmt. Agency Safety Assessment Program Evaluator Manual April 20111.0 Safety Assessment Program OverviewSafety assessment is the process by which structures and specific lifeline systems and facilitiesare evaluated for their safety, either for immediate use, conditional use, or disuse. The SafetyAssessment Program (SAP) was developed to help local government building departments aftera disaster by providing additional architects, civil engineers, and building inspectors to helprapidly complete the surge of safety evaluations made necessary by the event.The beginnings of this program started with the 1971 San Fernando Earthquake, when privateindustry volunteers asked to help local governments with the demands caused by the event. Itbecame more formalized after the 1986 Whittier-Narrows Earthquake. The Applied TechnologyCouncil of Redwood City, CA was contracted by the State of California to standardize safetyassessment methods and forms; they produced ATC-20: Procedures for Postearthquake SafetyEvaluation of Buildings, which became available in 1989, three weeks before the Loma PrietaEarthquake struck. The program was revised after Loma Prieta to improve the placards, and wasrevamped in 2002 to include damage review from windstorms, floods, and fires. In 2005,damage from explosions was included as part of the program. Jim Alexander and Rick Ranous,SE, both of the California Governor‟s Office of Emergency Services, were early champions ofthe Safety Assessment Program. The California Governor‟s Office of Emergency Services wasmerged in January 2009 with the California Office of Homeland Security to form the CaliforniaEmergency Management Agency (Cal EMA).The demands on shelters and other temporary living arrangements can be quickly reduced by theswift evaluation of structures for continued use. The process and procedures found in ATC-20are essential for the safety evaluation of earthquake-damaged structures. More will be saidabout this in Chapter 2 of this manual.SAP has the ability to provide evaluations of both building stock and lifeline infrastructuresystems. The latter includes airports, roads, bridges, pipelines, pumping stations, water tanks,and treatment plants. City or county building officials have the oversight responsibility forbuildings within their jurisdictions, and public works officials likewise have responsibility fortheir infrastructure within their jurisdictions. Special districts can have both buildings andinfrastructure within their responsibility.1.1 Concept of Emergency OperationsThe Incident Command System (ICS) is the foundation of emergency management in Californiaand throughout the United States since the inception of the National Response Framework andthe National Incident Management System (NIMS). Under ICS, the lowest level of governmentclosest to the disaster is always responsible for the management of the emergency responsewithin its jurisdiction, with higher levels of government supplying needed personnel andequipment to aid in the response. For a city, the city‟s emergency services will provide directionto the disaster response; the city building department will be requesting safety assessmentassistance in accord with the emergency services direction. It will be likewise the case for acounty to work in a similar manner for safety assessment help within their jurisdiction.Special districts, such as school or water districts, have their own jurisdictional authority, andcan ask for SAP assistance independently of the neighboring cities or counties. In addition, these9