Blame neglect, not nature, for catastrophe
In time of catastrophe like this, it becomes popular to displace blame on nature. But nature is not out to get us. Earthquakes are a necessary earth function. The fault line of this disaster points to blind neglect, not the brutality of nature.
Our decision-makers, often with popular backing, have pursued policies of development, transit and housing that have placed us directly in harm's way, gambling that luck or technology always would protect us.
To its credit, CalTrans has increased its earthquake retrofit budget since the Bay Area quake of 1989. But the agency still spends more actual dollars on "landscape maintenance" along freeways than on safeguarding citizens against earthquakes.
In the last four fiscal years, CalTrans has spent $213 million on "landscaping maintenance" vs. $174.9 million on retrofits either completed or under construction. Millions were spent spraying pesticides along freeways and watering ice plants when only $1.35 million could have rapidly retrofitted the section of the Santa Monica Freeway that collapsed.
When the freeway fell, CalTrans at first claimed that plans for retrofitting the La Cienega section were only a month away. Then they admitted that they were behind schedule in the retrofitting.
CalTrans did not attach enough urgency to the fact that 300,000 drivers per day use the Santa Monica Freeway, which makes it entirely different from other multi-column structures on the CalTrans repair agenda.
The bureaucracy's priorities are determined by a changing algorithm which balances 17 factors, most of them physical issues such as soil conditions and age of structures.
One of those factors, traffic density is assigned only a 28 percent ranking within a category of "facility location characteristics" that is weighted at 40 percent of the overall mix.
The use of this murky matrix dictated the delay in retrofitting the nation's most-traveled freeway. If the quake had occurred at 7:31 a.m. instead of three hours earlier, hundreds of motorists could have died as a result of such abstract statistical weighting.
No one fault CalTrans for the retrofitting it has completed, and which by and large has worked (the calamity of the Golden State Freeway/Highway 14 notwithstanding). However, of the 1,056 multi-columned structures to be retrofitted, work on 960 has yet to begin.
For decades, the incentives have tilted toward building new freeways over safeguarding old ones. The developers' priority has been building freeway extensions to their subdivisions and shopping centers; campaign contributions have flowed freely to politicians servicing such growth.
Ten years ago, the State's watchdog Commission on California State Government Organization and Economy warned of too much "attention being focused on individual - often due to pressure from special interests - rather than on the priority needs of the system."
The pattern of neglect is not confined to freeway repair. Our universities are ruled by similar pressures to expand new buildings rather than retrofit old ones. Several structures at California State University, Northridge - like the several damaged Oviatt Library - were on the state's seismic risk list five years ago, but no corrective action was taken. Statewide, CSU has identified 60 buildings that are immediate high-risk, but their retrofitting will take from 20 to 30 years at the current pace.
The University of California and CSU are exempted from the Field Act, which required risky structures to be upgraded or torn down before 1977. Wanting similar treatment, this year the community colleges are lobbying for a Field Act exemption from AB 973, which awaits a hearing in a Senate committee. Of 371 capital outlay projects at community colleges since 1991, a mere eight have focused on seismic retrofitting, less than 1 percent of nearly $1 billion authorized or spent.
The lives of renters in substandard buildings have not been considered enough at risk to tighten seismic safety in many older apartment buildings citywide. Apparently this was the case at the Northridge Meadows apartment complex, which was built in the early 1970s under codes that today would be considered obsolete and dangerous.
Perhaps the most grotesque and ironic example of this pattern of neglect are the hospitals which had to evacuate their patients even as earthquake victims were trying to get in. Under a 1973 law, new hospital construction has been required to adhere to tougher seismic standards than virtually any other structures. But a facility like St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, which is now in basic collapse, was built in three stages between 1939 and 1965, thus exempting it from the law.
We are in danger now of simply repeating a familiar cycle of blaming nature for attacking us, then spending billions of dollars to re-create a system that continues to place expansion above safety.
If history is a guide, we will soon restore a blind normalcy, trusting our engineers to control those sneaky tectonic plates which interfere with our urban lifestyle.
Instead of pursing this deadly spiral further, we need to rezone Los Angeles to promote decentralized work, travel, education and emergency facilities in areas prone to earthquake and fire. Growth needs accountability. We need to heed the principle, better safe than sorry.
Business and government should maximize ways for people to work at home through "virtual offices" linked by electronic bulletin boards. Flexible shifts are needed so fewer people have to commute. CSUN students and faculty living on the Westside might locate their classes at Santa Monica College to avoid the driving.
Instead of dangerous proposals for an above-grounded monorail down Ventura Boulevard, the emphasis should be on regional systems of buses and trolleys.
It is time to introduce photovoltaic cells as a decentralized power source in homes and neighborhoods.
Who knows, we may need to consider the earthquake equivalent of the 1950s bomb shelter for the Big One that lies ahead.
The need to "rebuild LA" has become a citywide agenda. It will take money and imagination to do it right. But if we intend to live here responsibly, it should be with a maximum preparedness, not with the illusion of perpetual omnipotence.
Viewpoint
Daily News
1/30/94 |
Tom Hayden is national co-director of No More Sweatshops!, a coalition of labor, clergy, community and campus advocates of "sweat-free" guidelines on public procurement and enforceable labor standards for corporate behavior.
