As an outcome of a 2011 strategic planning meeting, the EERI NC Chapter has launched an Adopt-a-City Program for the City of Albany.  The initiative’s goal is to improve understanding of the risk, vulnerability and impacts of a future earthquake for cities along the Hayward Fault, and to empower stakeholders within those cities to take action to mitigate their earthquake risk. We will start in 2012 by focusing on the city of Albany.

To achieve its goal of improved risk awareness and empowerment of stakeholders in Albany, work is underway by the Chapter that will:

1. Inform –provide clear technical information and background to the stakeholders so that they understand their risk, vulnerability and potential earthquake losses, using language and terms understood by the stakeholders.
2. Inspire stakeholders to take action to reduce their local risk.
3. Assist – provide documents, resources, guidance and expertise to the stakeholders while they develop their action plan and complete the risk mitigation process. Be the city’s long-term technical resource and link to additional information by using the broad diversity of expertise within the chapter.

More specifically, the Chapter will aim to complete the following tasks:

Task 1: Identify strengths and vulnerabilities in Albany.

• What mitigation is already completed?
• What areas need more work or are at particularly high risk?
• What reports and other resources provide statistics and data already that can quantify these vulnerabilities?
• Find and post the city’s general plan.
• Find and post the city’s seismic safety element.
• Use census information and other sources to identify the economic & demographic characteristics of the city.
• Create a Hazus run for the city, if possible.
• Identify the seismic hazard to the city including known faults, pga’s, etc.
• Provide maps of the geologic risks to the city.
• Gather any ABAG or FEMA studies for the city.

Task 2: Estimate the consequences to their risk to Albany based on the Hayward Fault Scenario.

• What will be the extent of damage to their vulnerable items?
• What effect will these vulnerabilities have on the physical, social, economic, political and cultural fabric of the city?

Task 3: Communicate the vulnerability and consequences to several stakeholder groups.

• What are the stakeholder groups (i.e., neighborhood groups, building owners, school board, city council, etc.) that are related to this topic area?
• Which of the related stakeholders has the greatest opportunity to effect change?
• What can the stakeholders do to mitigate this problem?
• Who should the stakeholders contact to encourage action?
• What are some possible next steps?
• What resources may be useful to help them mitigate this risk?

Task 4: Collate all the information gathered so far by the initiative into a comprehensive resource that can be presented to the City Council to give an overview of their city’s risk, vulnerability and impact from future earthquakes. This resource may include the following items: a summary report of findings, a power point presentation covering all risk areas investigated by the committees (each committee will develop some slides), and a website of resources (successful case studies for other jurisdictions, sample ordinances, etc.) that the council can use to start their mitigation effort. The chapter will also offer the City Council future help to create and achieve a mitigation plan.

The Adopt-a-City initiative will be an active area of Chapter efforts in 2012.