2,000 at UCLA Could Perish in Quake, Study Shows : Panelists Ask State to Help Avert Disaster

When the next giant earthquake rumbles through Southern California, UCLA will be left in a shambles. Royce Hall, Powell Library, four dormitories and several classroom structures could crumble and collapse. The number of deaths on campus could approach 2,000 and serious injuries could exceed 4,000.

Those are the conclusions of a recently released UCLA committee report that identifies 25 campus buildings--some constructed as recently as 1968--as “very poor” or “poor” in terms of seismic safety. Titling their report “A Campus at Risk,” the joint faculty-administration committee calls for strong, concerted lobbying for state funds to reinforce the buildings and avert catastrophe.

After two years and 15 meetings, the committee completed its study on the day of the first of the recent Mexico City temblors, timing that seemed fortuitous to some committee members. They and other advocates statewide of aggressive seismic safety measures reason that now--finally--the University of California regents, the state Legislature, the governor and the public at large is sufficiently alarmed to take action.

Little New Data

Even as political momentum gathers, however, seismic safety advocates say the UCLA report serves as a reminder of how little has been done in recent years to upgrade seismically unsafe buildings not only at the Los Angeles campus but throughout the nine-school UC system and other state institutions.

Committee members acknowledge that “A Campus at Risk” provides little new information but largely reconfirms and re-emphasizes the little-publicized findings of engineering surveys conducted at UCLA in the early 1970s and for the entire UC system in 1978 and 1981. Those earlier studies also were re-emphasized in a 1981 survey by the California Seismic Safety Commission that found 250 of 1,350 state-owned buildings, including many hospitals as well as UC and state university structures, to be potentially unsafe in an earthquake.

Seismic safety advocates complain that efforts to upgrade unsafe structures have been slowed by a scarcity of funds and a bureaucratic bog--committees and studies--but little action. At a time when seismologists say the southern San Andreas Fault is overripe to produce a devastating temblor hundreds of times more powerful than the 1971 San Fernando quake some time in the next 30 years, university chancellors and other prominent officials have pursued new construction projects and other financial priorities rather than seeking money to upgrade unsafe buildings.

“This all comes down to priorities,” said Robert A. Olson, former executive director of the California Seismic Safety Commission. The UC system “made some reasonable runs at money, but it was nothing they were going to go to the mat over.”

The system has made stronger efforts in the last two years, receiving funds to begin renovation of historic South Hall at UC Berkeley and requesting money in the 1986-87 budget to study upgrading of UCLA’s Powell Library and begin architectural work for retrofitting Berkeley’s Wheeler Hall.

“We’ve made forcible efforts. . . . I can’t manufacture money,” said UCLA Chancellor Charles Young.

At UCLA--the campus that faces by far the greatest earthquake peril--there are complaints that the administration has failed to inform students, faculty and the public about the danger. Some professors who recently attempted independent research of seismic safety on campus said their efforts proved so frustrating that they suspected that officials were “stonewalling,” perhaps trying to protect the image of the institution.

“Certainly, responsible officials in the university have known for years what the situation is. . . . I don’t think there has been any administration effort to foster awareness,” said Ralph Turner, a UCLA sociology professor who was a member of the earthquake study committee.

‘It’s a Death Trap’

Turner teaches in Haines Hall--a 1927 building considered very vulnerable in an earthquake. “I know my colleagues are all aware of the fact that it’s a death trap. The students--to what extent they know, I’m not sure,” he said.

“A Campus at Risk” urges that UCLA prepare and widely distribute an annual report on the state of earthquake preparedness. The committee points out that the UC president warned the regents in a September, 1981, memo that the system’s “general counsel has recommended that occupants of buildings whose seismic resistance has been tentatively rated very poor or poor be notified if funding for further engineering studies or necessary corrective work will be significantly delayed.” Such notification was recommended as a means of preserving immunity from liability.

“Should this be done?” the committee asked.

The report also points out that the university has at times taken action that contradicts it own seismic safety policy, citing the recent $13-million cosmetic refurbishment of Royce Hall as an example.

The report states: “The renovation will bring more people and activities to an attractive ‘new’ Royce Hall, while university policy states that, ‘For buildings and other facilities which are reported as poor or very poor by the consulting structural engineer, the chancellor . . . shall immediately consider alternatives to undiminished continued use . . . including temporary emergency measures, reductions in use, reconstruction or combinations of these alternatives.’ ”

‘Special Liability’

The committee also warned that the university’s “lack of planning, and the avoidance of low-cost but high-benefit actions, could add to the legal liability. The recent Royce Hall renovation, as a missed opportunity for seismic upgrading, may possibly present special liability.”

The report further notes that UCLA, as state property, is exempt from the jurisdiction of the city Department of Building and Safety, thus allowing the Royce Hall refurbishing to take place without any seismic upgrading.

Michael McManus, assistant vice chancellor for public information, also was on the earthquake committee. He said the reports were available to the public but added, “I don’t know how widely the previous studies were circulated.”

“The reason we’re criticized is because we appointed this committee and we’re trying to do something about it. . . . If we hadn’t done anything, there wouldn’t be any kind of criticism,” said Chancellor Young. All of the committee’s recommendations have been adopted by his cabinet, he said.

Young said that UCLA has sought funds for seismic retrofittings--including one at Royce Hall--every year since the 1982-83 budget but that those requests have been denied.

Surveys of the UC system by the engineering firm H. J. Degenkolb Associates in 1978 and 1981 identified hundreds of buildings deemed seismically unsafe. The cost for upgrading the buildings at UCLA alone has been estimated at $140 million.

Campus Responsibility

After the Degenkolb studies, the UC system and campuses also had to wrestle with the problem of how to handle the information that so many structures were seismically unsafe. Committee members say that, despite the general counsel’s warning in 1981, the decision on how or whether to publicize the reports was left to each campus.

Sam Aroni, an engineering professor and chairman of the earthquake committee, said he does not find fault in the administration’s handling of the information. “I don’t know of special attempts to disseminate the information, but that doesn’t mean there was an effort to keep the information not available.”

Two other professors, however, Wellford W. Wilms and Julia Wrigley, said they were frustrated by administration officials and committee members when they inquired into the safety of campus buildings following the Mexico quake. After several days of effort, they were able to obtain copies of the Degenkolb studies after contacting UC system officials in Berkeley and the Degenkolb firm.

Wilms said their experience led them to believe that university officials were “stonewalling” and deliberately trying to suppress information--assertions that administration officials deny.

Times staff writer Robert Schwartz in Orange County contributed to this story.

UCLA’S LEAST QUAKE-PROOF SITES

UCLA has identified these buildings as seismically poor or very poor:

VERY POOR

Building Const. Date Bunche Hall Tower 1964 Franz Hall Tower 1965 Haines Hall 1927 Kerckoff Hall 1930 Kinsey Hall 1928 Knudsen Hall 1961 Men’s Gym 1932 Moore Hall 1928 Powell Library 1927 Royce Hall 1929 Women’s Gym 1932 Residential Buildings Dykstra Hall 1957 Hedrick Hall 1961 Rieber Hall 1961 Sproul Hall 1958

POOR

Building Const. Date Clark Library 1924 Univ. Extension 1968 Haines Addition 1934 Math Sciences 1957 Parking Garage at Gayley-Landfair 1961 Slichter Hall 1965 School of Dentistry 1963 Jules Stein Eye Inst. 1964 Rehabilitation Center 1963 School of Public Health 1966

FAIR

Residential Buildings Hershey Hall 1931 Univ. Residence 1930

UC EARTHQUAKE SAFETY

More buildings at UCLA are considered unsafe in an earthquake than those at any other campus in the UC system.

CAMPUS BUILDING RATINGS (In thousands of square feet.) Total Space Poor Rating Very Poor Rating Los Angeles 12,316 1,379 2,050 Berkeley 9,744 1,382 419 Davis 5,146 717 301 San Diego 4,377 474 500 Santa Barbara 3,179 468 71 Irvine 2,603 401 132 San Francisco 2,783 155 0 Riverside 2,131 583 41 Santa Cruz 1,861 280 0

Source: UCLA report based on surveys by H.J. Degenkolb & Associates, Engineers .