3 years after the Magna earthquake, here’s how Utah is preparing for an even bigger quake

LOGAN, Utah – Brady Cox’s civil engineering and earthquake engineering career has taken him all over the world over the past 20 years. He has traveled from Utah to places like New Zealand, Turkey, Peru, Japan and Haiti to study earthquake damage and do earthquake reconnaissance.

“(I) always thought I would like to go back to Utah and try to do more for the citizens of Utah — for my home state — to encourage better earthquake preparedness in terms of engineering design and construction,” said Cox.

Two and a half years ago, Cox moved back to his home state, where he is now a professor of civil engineering at Utah State University and serves as a leading seismologist.

Immediately after his return, Cox began encouraging Utah, the most seismically dangerous state without an earthquake engineering research center, to form one.

“My goal was to get this center up and running so that we could focus our engineering efforts to prepare our infrastructure for a major and destructive earthquake,” said Cox.

Now, nearly three years after a 5.7-magnitude earthquake struck and was widely felt across the Wasatch interface, Cox spoke with KSL.com about the issue of earthquakes in Utah, as well as the upcoming launch of the Utah Earthquake Engineering Center.

Weak Utah earthquake

Cox was scheduled to return to Utah when the Magna earthquake struck, something he said reinforced his decision to push for the center.

“Although it was relatively small in terms of engineering consequences, it caused about $600 million in damage and really exposed some vulnerabilities that we need to address before a major earthquake hits,” Cox said.

The brunt of the damage was borne by more than 150,000 unsupported structures located in Utah—a total five and a half times greater than in California.

To further complicate the issues, Cox said that these buildings are the leading cause of death in “most” earthquakes.

“We have a huge problem with unreinforced building structures in the country,” said Cox.

While these structures are the weakest link, there are other factors that make Utah more likely to sustain significant seismic damage. Cox said Utah has a lot of land that is considered liquefiable, which could be a big problem.

“(That) means they’re vulnerable to a problem we call soil liquefaction in an earthquake. Soil liquefaction causes all kinds of damage where buildings will, you know, hit the ground or tip over; buried pipelines will pop up — so, your water lines.” and your sewer lines.”

Although the Magna earthquake wasn’t large enough to cause any liquefaction, Cox saw the devastation it could cause while he was in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2010 and 2011.

“It caused billions of dollars in damage to their city,” said Cox. “The liquefaction was so bad that they had to force residents in about 7,500 homes to vacate their properties and move away, and they decided they were not going to build on that land anymore.”

“Late” for a larger earthquake

As a seismic engineer, Cox collaborates closely with seismologists including those working at the University of Utah’s seismograph stations.

While earthquake engineers focus on designing infrastructure that can withstand earthquakes, seismologists work out how large earthquakes can be expected and how often they are expected to occur.

“They basically went by and said, ‘Hey, we can say earthquakes are happening along the Wasatch fault, somewhere — there are five major segments between Navy and Brigham City,’” Cox said. Salt Lake City, it happened about 1,100 or 1,200 years ago. So, by our reckoning, we’re a few hundred years too late for a major earthquake in Salt Lake City.”

However, the Salt Lake City Strip isn’t until the late part at fault. That distinction goes to the Brigham City sector, which Cox said was 2,000 to 2,500 years late for a major earthquake.

“All parts of the rift that runs between Navy and Brigham City, they can produce earthquakes of magnitude 7 or just over 7 magnitude,” Cox said.

Seismologists make earthquake predictions through a process that involves drilling through the fault, viewing fault-rupture compensations and carbon dating those compensations.

The consequences of an earthquake of the magnitude that both seismologists and seismic engineers agree is overdue could be startling and deadly along the Wasatch Front.

In 2015, the Utah branch of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute estimated that a “large rib” along the Salt Lake City portion of the fault would result in approximately:

2,500 deaths 8,000 injuries 84,000 families displaced 330,000 families without potable water for more than 90 days Economic losses of $33 billion

Cox acknowledged that although the data is a bit out of date, the estimates are on the smaller end of the spectrum due to the rapid growth the beehive state has experienced since 2015.

“Eighty percent of Utah’s population lives within 15 miles of the fault, and a lot of that population is spread up and down the I-15 corridor, from Utah County and Brigham City,” Cox said.

what happens?

Although Utah has a major earthquake looming, there is work being done—thanks in large part to Cox’s determination and urgency to start the Earthquake Engineering Center. The goal is to get ahead of the curve and mitigate the disaster when the next earthquake strikes.

After the end of the 2023 legislative session, USU was awarded $2.5 million in one-time funding to launch the Utah Earthquake Engineering Center in hopes of strengthening resilience and preparing for faster recovery across the state after a major earthquake.

“Anything new built in the state…we want to make sure it’s designed and built to the highest standards so that not only will the new construction withstand an earthquake, but it will allow us to reduce recovery time,” Cox said. “We don’t just want to survive the earthquake; we want to be able to quickly return to life as usual.”

The debilitating effects of the earthquake is something Cox has seen many times around the world.

“Earthquakes will definitely destroy your city for years, and we want to avoid that happening,” he said. “We will focus on making sure that our national design codes are as good as they can be when applied to Utah-specific geological conditions and Utah-specific problems.”

Besides new construction, the center will also focus on retrofitting old buildings and existing buildings – particularly unreinforced masonry structures – to increase their durability and resilience in the event of an earthquake.

“We will need to retrofit those existing buildings, schools and other structures, such as water canals and sewer lines, that have not been built to modern standards,” said Cox. “The new Earthquake Engineering Center in Utah will help focus these efforts.”

A key component of the center’s applied research program will be large-scale shaker tables specifically designed to simulate earthquake loads and test building and infrastructure components. The funding will also be used to acquire specialized fiber optic systems to measure seismic responses in bridges, pipelines and other infrastructure, according to a USU press release.

The center will officially launch this fall with continued support from USU and a one-time accreditation of $2.5 million from the state.

“We are excited about the opportunity to work with everyone across the state to improve seismic resilience and are very grateful to the Utah Legislature for funding this important effort,” said Cox. “I just want to let people know that we are going to do everything we can to help the citizens of Utah prepare for a major earthquake.”

And as it happens, Cox is the perfect person to lead the charge toward the more earthquake-resistant state of Utah.

“I started my career in earthquake engineering in Turkey. When they had a big earthquake in 1999. … I went to Turkey at that time and studied that earthquake and now, over 20 years later, they’ve had these two massive earthquakes that have killed about 50,000 people, Cox said. “In Turkey, they did not learn the lesson from the earthquake 20 years ago, and now they have an even more devastating event.”

This, in many ways, fuels his endeavors now.

“I hope we can prevent that from happening in Utah. That’s my main goal. I don’t want to see that happen,” said Cox. “It’s very easy to ignore it because we don’t get earthquakes very often and we forget about it. But we have to stay diligent because when that big earthquake happens, we will be sorry we didn’t do more to prepare.”

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