EERI SESI Subcommittees are open to any EERI member, and are tasked to achieve various actions and activities of the program. Each Subcommittee will be lead by a Subcommittee Chair. If you are interested in joining a subcommittee, please email the associated Chair listed below.
- Safety Screening, Inventory, and Evaluation of Schools
- Classroom Education and Outreach
- Safety, Advocacy, and Messaging
Safety Screening, Inventory, and Evaluation of Schools
Chair: Open
Members: Lizzie Blaisdell, David Bonowitz, Silvana Cobos (staff lead), Phil Gould, Jeremiah LeGrue, Heidi Tremayne
Charge: Facilitate and encourage implementation of risk reduction measures by developing and helping to carry out stepwise screening methodologies to identify school buildings with the highest seismic risk efficiently while minimizing the effort and expense for school districts.
Products:
- Case Studies of Successful U.S. School Seismic Screening Programs, V1.0, December 2016 [PDF]
- The Washington Schools Earthquake Performance Assessment Tool (EPAT) is designed to help school districts better understand the seismic vulnerability of their school buildings. The goal is to help districts prioritize the limited resources available for seismic evaluations and retrofits on the buildings most likely to pose the highest risks for life safety, severe damage and extended downtimes for repairs in future earthquakes.
- EPAT User Guide [PDF]: By Kenneth A. Goettel, Cale Ash, and Erica Fischer
EPAT Quick Start Checklist for Data Entry, August 10, 2017 [PDF]: Checklist for Data Entry - Washington Schools EPAT for prioritizing building retrofit, August 10, 2017 [XLS]: Earthquake Performance Assessment Tool (EPAT)
- Appendix 1: FEMA Hazus MH 2.1 Earthquake Technical Manual: Building Types [PDF]: A general description of each of the 16 structural systems of model building types
- Appendix 2: FEMA Hazus MH 2.1 Earthquake Technical Manual: Damage States [PDF]: Damage State Descriptions for Seismic Fragility Curves
- Washington State Building Code History, February 9, 2017 [PDF]: By Cale Ash, Erica Fischer, and Kenneth Goettel
- EPAT Results, Okanogan Chelan Schools [XLS]
Classroom Education and Outreach
Chair:
Members: Email Silvana Cobos (
Charge: Use education in the classroom to create an ongoing dialog with parents, teachers, and administrators and to develop advocates for earthquake school safety. Bring together EERI regional and student chapters to collaborate on delivering the activities and serving as expert resources for stakeholders.
Visit the Classroom Education and Outreach website for more information
Safety, Advocacy, and Messaging
(now including the Code Updating and Improvements Subcommittee)
Co-Chair:
Members: Lucy Arendt, Veronica Cedillos, Silvana Cobos (staff lead), Guillermo Diaz-Fanas, Bill Holmes, Ayse Hortacsu, Mike Mahoney (ex officio), Praveen Malhotra, Sissy Nikolaou, Gary Lee Patterson, John Sherstobitoff, Alissa Tan, Heidi Tremayne, Barry Welliver, Ivan Wong
Charge: Bridge the communication gap between technical professionals and non-technical partners and stakeholders interested in earthquake risk reduction for schools. Also advocate for code improvements, refinement and/or implementation practices that will enhance school safety and use after major earthquakes.
To initiate action at a local grassroots level, SESI has developed a template PowerPoint that can be presented by EERI members and other school safety advocates to parent organizations, school boards, community leaders and decision-makers, and local and state agencies. The purpose of the PowerPoint is to describe the school safety issues of the local community. The PowerPoint will introduce EERI and SESI, describe what the specific earthquake hazard and school vulnerability issues are in the community, what can happen in an earthquake, which types of buildings are most vulnerable (such as URM), the impact and risk of nonstructural component failures, disruption to the community due to damaged schools, and what steps can be taken to improve school safety. SESI can provide resources and assistance to any school safety advocate. It is our hope that EERI members and school safety advocates who are aware of school safety issues in their local community will use this PowerPoint to initiate meaningful communication with the appropriate decision-makers. Once that communication link has been established, a core group of advocates can assist in moving the process forward with assistance from SESI.
SESI Promoting Safe Buildings for Our Schoolchildren - Powerpoint Template [PPT]
