The Northridge Earthquake: An Unexpected Milestone in Real-Time Loss Estimation

Episode 4 of the Northridge 30th Anniversary Webinar Series:
The Northridge Earthquake – 30 Years Later – A Catalyst for Engineering Resilient Communities

Series Partners:

• American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Infrastructure Resilience Division
• ASCE Los Angeles Section
• Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) Southern California Chapter
• Structural Engineers Association of Southern California (SEOASC)
• Earthquake Country Alliance (ECA), led by the Statewide California Earthquake Center

Episode 4 Presenters:

Ron Eguchi, President and CEO (ImageCat, Inc.)

Mr. Eguchi has over 30 years of experience in risk analysis and risk management studies. He has served on several Editorial Boards in the past including the Natural Hazards Review published by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center, and the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute’s (EERI) Journal, Earthquake Spectra. He is currently starting a new committee for the Structural Engineering Institute of ASCE that will encourage the advancement and application of information technologies in structural engineering. In 2006, he accepted an ATC Award of Excellence on behalf of the ATC-61 project team for work on An Independent Study to Assess Future Savings from Mitigation Activities that showed that a dollar spent on hazard mitigation saves the nation about $4 in future benefits for every dollar spent. He has authored over 300 publications, many of them dealing with the seismic risk of utility lifeline systems and the use of remote sensing technologies for disaster response.

David Wald, Research Geophysicist (USGS)

David Wald a seismologist with USGS in Golden. Wald leads development and operations of real-time information systems including ShakeMap, Did You Feel it?, PAGER, ShakeCast, and Ground Failure. David is currently the Past Editor-in-Chief of the EERI’s journal Earthquake Spectra and Adjunct Professor in the Geophysics at the Colorado School of Mines. He was an IRIS/SSA Distinguished Lecturer and EERI’s Distinguished Lecture and was the 2009 recipient of SSA’s Frank Press Public Service Award. In 2021, Wald was awarded the EERI-SSA Joyner Lectureship, an AGU Fellow, and received the USGS Shoemaker Lifetime Achievement Award in Communications, an award granted annually to a scientist who creates excitement and enthusiasm for science among non-scientists by using effective communication skills. In 2023, David received the Presidential Rank Award, which recognizes a select group of U.S. Government Senior Executive Service career members for exceptional performance over an extended period.

 
Episode Overview:

The 1994 Northridge Earthquake was an eye-opener for seismologists and loss modelers alike. While serving their purpose at the time, seismic monitoring and loss-modeling benefitted from the usual post-disaster societal resource boost to take full advantage of improving instrumentation, communications, and scientific advancements. In this webinar, we first review the status of seismic monitoring at the time, followed by a discussion of the innovation and evolution of near-real-time shaking and loss estimation motivated by this major California earthquake disaster. Many of the current state-of-the-art earthquake information products now used worldwide were born in the shadows of the Northridge earthquake, including real-time seismic monitoring combining both broadband and strong-motion sensors, rapid shake mapping, citizen science contributions, and the use of such data to better forecast losses.

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