OSU and WOU Receive $2.6 Million in FEMA Earthquake Safety Grants

Funding will be used to protect two buildings from catastrophic earthquake damage

(Corvallis, Oregon) - A $2.6 million grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, will make two public campuses - Oregon State University and Western Oregon University - safer for students and community members.

The grant to the Oregon University System and the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries will be used to complete earthquake readiness upgrades of $1.6 million on the Nash Building at OSU, and $1 million on the Humanities & Social Sciences Building at WOU.

Called an Earthquake Building Rehabilitation grant, the FEMA funding provides 75% of the total project costs of $2.6 million to complete the seismic readiness work on the two buildings. OUS will provide $660,000, or 25% of the total, the match required by FEMA to receive the grant. This is the second such grant received from FEMA.

In 2004, DOGAMI and OUS received a $3.8 million FEMA grant to seismically upgrade two buildings at Portland State University, and a building at Oregon Institute of Technology.

The FEMA investments, and the investments made by the 2005 Legislature for capital repairs, are enabling OUS to fix the most at-risk buildings on campuses with the greatest likelihood of structural damage and human safety risk during an earthquake.

The Oregon Legislature last year approved a budget of $410 million for capital repair, maintenance and new construction, the largest appropriation ever provided.

In 2001 and 2002, the Oregon Legislature and citizens voted to establish a new law that requires schools and universities to be safe from earthquakes by 2032, and to amend the constitution to provide funds for rehabilitation of high-risk buildings.

OSU`s Nash Building, designed in 1968 before stronger building codes were in place in the state, includes classrooms, large labs, and offices.

The Humanities & Social Sciences Building at WOU was built in 1964 to provide classroom and office space after the 1962 Columbus Day storm caused catastrophic damage to historic Campbell Hall, limiting use of that building.

WOU has already retained services of an architectural and an engineering firm to complete the upgrades on the HSS Building.

Since the early 1990s scientists and engineers have accepted vast and diverse geological evidence that the Cascadia Fault poses an enormous risk for western Oregon, including the Willamette Valley.

Subduction zone earthquakes, of a magnitude 8 to 9, have struck along the Oregon coast every few hundred years, with the last one being on January 26, 1700.

Earlier this month, Governor Kulongoski proclaimed April as Earthquake and Tsunami Awareness Month.

Oregon laws enacted in 1995 and 2001 require that all schools, state and local agencies, and large private employers have better readiness and preparation for natural disasters, including instruction and drilling of students and employees on emergency procedures.