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Myth:

"My company cannot afford to prepare for an earthquake."

Fact: Many business mitigation steps require no cost. Any on-going business can afford to mitigate.

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Make A Plan | Knowing Your Office Space | To Do > Get It Done

  • Confirm your mitigation objective by reviewing your potential risks. Are you seeking safety only, or do you also need to assure recovery of business operations within a certain time?
  • Assess your contents and furnishings, making a list of items vulnerable to earthquake damage and likely to compromise your objective. FEMA 74 and other resources are available to guide a do-it-yourself assessment.
  • Assess the nonstructural components of your building relative to your objective. This could involve a combination of do-it-yourself assessment using FEMA 74 or other resources and professional assessment.
  • Assess your building's structure relative to your objective. Do-it-yourself assessment using FEMA 154 or ASCE 31 procedures might be possible.
  • From the three assessments, roughly rank or prioritize the vulnerable conditions in terms of their expected effects on safety, repair or replacement costs, and business disruption.
  • Supplement your assessments by considering significant externalities. Useful information might be found in your community's Disaster Mitigation Plan, Emergency Operations Plan, or Public Safety Element of the General Plan.
  • Design or select concept-level mitigation solutions for at least the highest priority conditions on your list. FEMA 74 and other resources are available to assist you with respect to contents and furnishings. For nonstructural building components and structural issues, you will probably need to consult with a professional engineer or qualified architect or builder.
  • Estimate the cost of implementing each mitigation solution in the prioritized list. If off-the-shelf products are used and you do the work yourself, this is straightforward. For structural work and for most nonstructural components, however, a reliable estimate requires consideration of many factors and should be done by a qualified professional.
  • Coordinate the mitigation solutions with other plans for capital projects, space renovations, equipment upgrades, and routine maintenance, and draft a schedule showing roughly when and how each solution will be implemented.
  • Identify or develop funding sources as needed.