Seismic Safety & Disaster Preparedness
The probability that the Bay Area will suffer a magnitude 7.0 earthquake by 2030 is greater than 60 percent, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
To prepare for this likelihood, state law requires all acute care hospitals – including 171 facilities in the Bay Area – to meet strict new seismic safety standards by 2013.
The law, Senate Bill 1953, was enacted after the 1994 Northridge earthquake rocked Southern California, doing more than $3 billion in damage to the region’s hospitals and leaving 12 hospitals “red tagged” as unsafe for occupancy.
The law mandates that all hospitals comply with the new standards, which were established to protect patients and staff during earthquakes and to ensure that large healthcare facilities remain open and operational in the aftermath of a major disaster.
Seismic-safety and disaster preparedness are major components of this project. Originally built in 1959, during the Eisenhower era, the Stanford Hospital & Clinics’ main facilities are dated and cannot be brought up to new seismic standards. Stanford Hospital & Clinics must rebuild by 2013 in order to comply with the law or the state will require the hospital to shut its doors, depriving the Peninsula of its only Level 1 trauma center and other essential, world-class healthcare facilities. The School of Medicine must replace its facilities to meet new seismic-safety standards and accommodate modern technology.
Hospitals that operate at or close to capacity on a daily basis can be overwhelmed if faced with a sudden influx of patients. The surge that follows a natural or manmade disaster, or could accompany a pandemic flu season, can be challenging for an already busy hospital to accommodate. As the Peninsula’s only Level 1 trauma center, creating space for the victims of a disaster is of paramount importance.