From Deseret News archives:
Shaken to pieces
Unreinforced masonry buildings take biggest hit from the 'big one'
Over the decades, Wasatch Front residents built, sold and resold tens of thousands of pretty brick homes. Unfortunately, such houses at least those that lacked seismic upgrades turned out to be death traps in Utah's great 7.0 earthquake of 2008.
Some such buildings as well as many of other construction types dodged damage because of recent seismic upgrades to them, including such landmarks as the state Capitol, Salt Lake City-County Building and the Tabernacle.
Many hospitals paid for being too near faults and landslide areas.
Recent rebuilding of many bridges allowed them to survive, but a high number of older ones built mainly in the 1960s and '70s as interstate freeways were constructed were damaged or failed.
But the worst news of all for structures still came from those "unreinforced masonry" buildings.
Unreinforced masonry
Warnings had been given about unreinforced masonry buildings for years. Steve Bartlett, a University of Utah assistant professor of civil and environmental design, said during a 2006 community meeting on quakes that they are "the single largest threat to loss of human life" in an earthquake.
Recent comments
On the specific date mentioned in the article, it isn't an extremely...
Ixy | Feb. 23, 2008 at 3:32 a.m.
What percentage is it that this would really happen?
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