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May 20, 2005
Dear Members and Friends of GHI,
Your support continues to help us work toward a world in which
people are safer because they act in advance to reduce the potential
of natural disasters. Over these first 14 years in the life
of GHI, we’ve often summarized GHI’s philosophy
with the proverb: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound
of cure.” Since GHI is now a budding teenager, I’d
like to share with you a trendy expression of this same wisdom
that I heard just a few weeks ago: “Stop mopping and turn
off the faucet!”
The ongoing work of GHI and its associates to “turn off
the faucet” by addressing the threat of natural hazards
through advocacy, preparedness, prevention and mitigation greatly
inspires me. The following paragraph tells you about one such
example.
School Seismic Safety in British Columbia
Perhaps you’ve already read our website story about GHI
member Dr. Tracy Monk, a parent and family physician, who was
recognized by the Canadian magazine Today’s Parent in
September for outstanding efforts on behalf of school seismic
safety in British Columbia. Since she founded Families for
School Seismic Safety (www.fsssbc.org)
in June 2003, her efforts convinced the provincial government
to undertake an assessment of the 864 school buildings within
the zone of risk there. Of these schools, 311 were considered
to be at high risk of sustaining severe damage to structural elements
in the event of a moderate to strong earthquake. On November 6,
2004, the Premier of British Columbia made a 1.5 billion dollar
commitment to seismically upgrade more than 700 schools over the
next 15 years. We have supported Tracy’s work and commend
her successful efforts to rally community involvement. She is
now participating in some GHI activities so that her exemplary
leadership to make schools safer in British Columbia can be applied
in earthquake-threatened developing countries.
Earthquake
Mini-Summit
GHI and the Seismological Society of America initiated a meeting
of representatives from fourteen earthquake engineering and seismology
professional societies at Lake Tahoe on April 24-25. The meeting
was officially sponsored by the International Association for
Earthquake Engineering, the International Association for Seismology
and Physics of the Earth’s Interior, and the International
Union of Geological Sciences. National and regional earthquake
engineering and seismology societies that participated included
those of USA, Japan, China, Mexico, South America, Europe, Uganda,
India, New Zealand and Turkey. The purpose was to “determine
what specific types of activities the world’s earth science
and earthquake engineering professional societies could jointly
undertake to better influence public policy and advocate seismic
safety, internationally, in order to reduce earthquake losses”
and also “to determine what concrete steps must now be taken
to start these activities.” Outcomes of the meeting were:
(1) an action plan of our next steps, (2) a draft description
of the kind of “partnership” we might form, (3) a
list of 9 illustrative activities that we could do jointly, (4)
an agreement that all participants will take this description
and list to the Board of Directors of their societies and ask
for authorization to send a representative to the next meeting
to further develop this idea, and (5) an invitation by China to
host the next meeting in Beijing.
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