Sunday, February 21, 2016

CSA Standard: Seismic evacuation of buildings

Article



No there isn't such a standard, but I love to start one.  Except I don't get paid, and I really, really hate endless meetings.  Perhaps somebody else could do it.

Scope:

Businesses, such as shopping malls, are getting into liability problems if they do not evacuate for seismic ground motion as small as 1 mm/s.  The evacuation process has it's own hazards, as well as a loss of business, if it is not required.  For large shopping concerns, there is the problem of carts left, and items stolen.

City centres have their own problem with unnecessary evacuations.  There is simply  not enough room for everybody, unlike a fire evacuation which only involves one building at a time.  As we have seen with the constant rain of Toronto building glass, there is a problem with early evacuation during an actual earthquake of 20 cm/s.  Many people will be killed on the streets, who would have been perfectly safe, had they stayed indoors.

We propose a new CSA standard, which will require simple instrumentation of all structures, tied into an PA system.  Using latest seismic engineering, the committee will devise PGV levels, of at least 3 levels -- No evacuation, delayed evacuation, and orderly evacuation.  This is expected to save many lives, and releases businesses, and public places, the burden of deciding these things for themselves, resulting in a chaotic mishmash of different standards, as well as endless lawsuits.

**Somebody talk to Justin about this.  He's the only one with deficit money, everybody else is just plain bankrupt.  :)

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