Are schools quake-safe?

OREM — The single-story, red brick elementary school on Main Street has a certain charm.

Large windows line the walls, allowing sunlight to pour in. Light-colored wood doors open to classrooms, many with second doors opening to the playground.

White tile with brightly colored drawings — the artwork of students — covers the wall outside the main office.

But Westmore Elementary School stands out for another reason: its lack of earthquake safeguards.

According to three of four lists compiled by a Salt Lake City engineering firm, the 1950 school ranks No. 1 in need for seismic retrofitting among all the 221 schools, office buildings, school additions and warehouses in the 56,000-student Alpine School District.

The school district plans to retrofit the building — but not until 2011.

The district has done some work, however. This spring, custodians removed Westmore's chimney, considered seismically unsafe.

The nearly 900-page Seismic Vulnerability Assessment, prepared in August by Salt Lake City's Reaveley Engineers and Associates, does not include the cost of construction code upgrades that would be necessary if schools or sections of schools were renovated, said the school district's business administrator, Rob Smith.

The $30,000 seismic study, obtained by the Morning News through an official government records request, is the first in the school district's history.

Elsewhere in Utah, schools have been evaluated for seismic safety. Some have been retrofitted.

Salt Lake City School District studied life safety in 1996, which led the Board of Education to decide which buildings to rebuild or retrofit at all the district's elementary and middle schools.

Jordan School District studied its buildings in 1993, and Davis School District hired Reaveley Engineers for a seismic study in 2006.

The Provo School District has hired a firm to study this summer its oldest buildings.

For the Alpine School District, Reaveley Engineers studied buildings by using the Federal Emergency Management Agency Rapid Visual Screening Procedure.

Engineers studied blueprints for the materials from which the buildings were constructed — for instance, wood, reinforced or unreinforced masonry — whether roofs are securely connected to walls, whether walls are connected securely to foundations, and the strength and stiffness of walls.

"You have to remember this is a very quick (study); it's more of a visual inspection and a plan check," said Domingo Moran, Reaveley's reviewing engineer for the Alpine seismic study. "A further analysis goes into a series of checklists looking at structural systems, columns, diaphragm, walls. It is calculated; more engineering is involved."