DNR School Seismic Safety Assessment Project

Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has begun taking steps to assess the seismic safety of many of Washington’s K-12 schools. Washington has a high risk of damaging earthquakes which makes it essential to establish seismic safety of schools throughout the state, especially when considering a Cascadia subduction zone event aka “The Big One.” More than 72 percent of schools are located in a high to very high seismic hazard zone

DNR recently received funding to work with the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction and we are part of a team of structural engineers to conduct seismic assessments at approximately 220 school buildings in the state. Conceptual seismic retrofit plans will be produced for 20 of the school buildings deemed most at risk. The project will also prioritize the remaining schools that are seismically deficient and help identify additional funding sources for seismic retrofit. WRK Engineers is assigned ~60 of these schools and 2 fire stations for the project. This effort is led by Reid Middleton, Inc and also supported by BergerAbam, DCI Engineers, Dykeman Architects, Rolluda Architects, and ProDims.