San Francisco has passed an
ordinance recently called the Soft Story Ordinance
San Francisco, which calls for a seismic retrofit for all the buildings
that currently exist and have been identified as having a potential hazard of
soft-story…especially the first floor.
San Francisco is definitely not the first city to come up with this kind
of an ordinance but is the largest one to do so.
In order to get a clearer picture
we need to first understand what is meant by soft story. A few buildings do not have enough seismic
sustenance capacity and generally it is the first floor that is more
susceptible to hazards during such natural calamity. The first floor is often termed the weak
story or the soft story. It is the first
story that does not show adequate seismic strength during an earthquake. Glass front walls, under parking areas are
also considered to be good examples of these.
One should understand that not
all buildings have the soft stories that are seismically deficient. The newer ones are in compliance with the latest
building codes and of course will sustain the seismic event successfully. The ordinance applies to all those buildings
that have been built before 1978 and are three stories tall and have more than
five dwelling units.
The seismic retrofits are
accomplished in phases with over 7years span during which the entire program
would get concluded. HCSE is one such
structural engineering company that can offer the right engineering and expertise
to accomplish the retrofit for San Francisco Soft Story
buildings. The professionals will
run a seismic analysis of the structure and ascertain the kind of retrofit that
is required.
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