In 1994, Northridge, California, was struck by a 6.7 magnitude earthquake, which caused extensive damage to the area. KPFF’s Structural Engineers were among the first responders who arrived to assess the damage and develop plans for rebuilding the community. KPFF’s response to the quake is considered a crucial moment in our history, and many employees credit it as a turning point in the company’s success.

Last summer, as the 30th anniversary of the earthquake was approaching, and with several retirements on the horizon, we decided to preserve the stories related to the event. What began as an update to a few slides turned into a full documentary. Scope creep at is finest.

With the Hollywood strikes ongoing, we enlisted the help of a striking television writer to help tell our story. His availability allowed us to complete the documentary in only a few weeks, leaving me and the rest of the marketing team fully available support our office with proposals and other marketing tasks.

Initially, there was some hesitation from the participants, but once in front of the camera, the stories flowed easily. “It really bonded us to work as a team,” reflects Susan Crichton. From Joe Stewart quarterbacking calls from owners and clients, to Juan Hinds-Rico entertaining employees from out-of-town, we worked together to accomplish the tasks at hand.

Although the most meme-able moment was Mike Dygean claiming “we don’t know sh–” when it came to facing the disaster head-on (yes, we already have a gif), Ramzi Hodali had perhaps the most inspiring reflection of the time: “I would say what we do matters. We’re here to save lives…create safe buildings.”

The documentary was first shown at the 2023 Fall LAS Basecamp, KPFF’s New Hire Orientation. Later, it was screened at a “World Premiere” party for the entire LAS staff on January 16, 2024, a day before the 30th Anniversary of the quake. The full documentary was made available to the public on January 17, 2024. “I get chills every time I watch it,” Joe Stewart shared. “My wife loved it.” You can watch the complete documentary by clicking here.

The post What We Do Matters: A Look Back on KPFF’s Response to the 1994 Northridge Quake appeared first on KPFF Greater Los Angeles Structural.

The original building was a mostly open one-story space plus a mezzanine. The exterior wall construction consisted primarily of precast concrete tilt-up panels with a plywood roof diaphragm supported by wood joists which spanned to open-web steel joists and girders. The building topped out at 30’ tall and the first floor was approximately 114,000 SF, while the mezzanine added another 33,000 SF to the usable square footage. There were significant MEP upgrades to accommodate the demands of the new laboratory program and necessary improvements to keep testers safe while handling samples and working in an indoor environment during social distancing mandates. The increased HVAC capacity meant studying to the roof to ascertain if the structure could handle the additional load. This presented an engineering and construction challenge, considering the time constraints.

This project was delivered with extraordinary speed using a highly collaborative approach and Design-Build Delivery with Hensel Phelps and SmithGroup. This delivery method was chosen because of the urgency in rapidly delivering the beneficial occupancy. It took a high level of collaboration and trust between all of the design and construction partners to achieve this remarkable turnaround. The entire team pulled together to deliver a great project and maintain excellent service in a compressed timeframe.

Some key time stamps are as follows:

• Authorization – August 24th
• Mobilization – August 22nd (yes, prior to Authorization)
• Demolition Start – August 24th
• Beneficial Occupancy – October 19
• Construction work schedule – Typically seven days a week (including Labor Day weekend), three shifts per day, overlapping schedules to transfer information and status to the next shift.

Special recognition goes to our own Ben Ferrero in the structural engineering office of KPFF in Los Angeles. His dedication to support the construction activities went above and beyond. His off-hour availability, immediate responses, sending emails with sketches and direction were clutch to keep the construction team in the field moving forward. He worked tirelessly through the week, including sending materials out late on Fridays because work was happening Saturday and Sunday.

I appreciate working on these projects: complex program, excellent Design-Build partners, demanding schedule. It reflects our dedication to projects and the trust we have built with our clients. But more so because they provide a critical service to the public.

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In the middle of a staff meeting on Friday, November 30, 2018, the Director of Construction for one of our long-time clients texted me…

Time to get out the winter jacket! Fortunately, when I checked the weather on my phone, I saw that the temperatures were in the 30’s and 40’s. I went home immediately after the earthquake, packed my bag and awaited confirmation that the client wanted me to go.

Being ready to assist the community and our clients when there is a natural disaster is part of being a structural engineer. KPFF LA’s response to the 1994 Northridge Earthquake is pivotal in the history of the LA Structural office. One of the lessons I’ve learned after immediately arriving on site post-earthquake to assist our clients in Fullerton and Napa is that getting to these campuses as soon as possible is critical. People are nervous about any damage they see, from a harmless razor thin concrete crack that probably has been there for years to the non-structural damage (including their personal belongings) strewn about, even if there is no damage to main structural systems. It is incredibly helpful just to be a calm, concerned professional and to be there to help calm nerves and triage the critical damage from the incidental.

At the time of the staff meeting, I wasn’t aware earlier that day on Friday, November 30, 2018, at 8:29 a.m. local time, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck 10 miles north of Anchorage. Anchorage is in an area of very high seismic activity including the 1964 Good Friday magnitude 9.2 earthquake that is the largest ever recorded in North America and the second largest ever recorded. So, when I got on that red eye flight Friday night, I wasn’t really sure what I was going to encounter from the earthquake damage, the daytime darkness, the weather and my wife’s fear of me being eaten by a bear.

I visited our client’s campus and several offsite buildings to perform a visual observation of the buildings and to determine if any significant damage had occurred that affected the life safety or usability of the buildings. None of the observed structures showed signs of significant damage to the primary structural system. However, all the buildings on the main campus (closest to the epicenter) did have some degree of damage to secondary systems. The secondary system damage was not a structural life-safety issue but did need to be addressed from an operational and cleanliness perspective for the facility.

What I have since learned about this earthquake is that its frequency content was such that it was felt strongly by people (very short period ground motion) and by unbraced non-structural systems (very long period ground motion). The frequency content most applicable to a building’s primary structural system was not as pronounced. This helps explain why the people of Anchorage, who experience earthquake activity on a regular basis, felt that this earthquake was particularly strong. It also explains the fairly significant amount of non-structural damage without damage to the primary structural systems. Most institutional buildings in Anchorage were constructed after the large 1964 Good Friday earthquake and designed to current codes, keeping the primary structural systems intact during this 2018 Anchorage earthquake. We don’t see this for some of the older institutional buildings in Southern California.

So, I’m relieved to report that I did not freeze to death or get eaten by a bear. Most importantly I was happy to support a client and the Anchorage community when in need. I will say that the closest I came to danger is when this moose almost ran into my Uber. Yes, I just used the words “moose” and “Uber” in the same sentence.

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