San Jose State, located around the Calaveras, San Andreas and Hayward-Rodgers Creek faults, is vulnerable to earthquakes.
SJSU’s emergency response and preparedness program works to create and enforce emergency operation plans in response to natural disasters.
The 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Türkiye and Syria has drawn concerns from students about the safety of SJSU campus if it were to experience an earthquake of similar magnitude.
Some campus buildings including Tower Hall, Morris Dailey Auditorium, Dwight Bentel Hall and Yoshihiro Uchida Hall were built over 100 years ago, some of which were a part of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake according to SJSU King Library Digital Collections.
Traci Ferdolage, senior associate vice president of Facilities, Development and Operations, said campus buildings were built under the California Building Code and California State University Seismic Policy.
“The CSU system is focused on safety for students, faculty and staff for any type of emergency,” Ferdolage said.
Seismic policy requirements were implemented by the Board of Trustees, according to the CSU Office Of The Chancellor.
The board of trustees is a 25-member committee that governs the entire CSU system through campus planning, education policy, facilities, and finances.
CSUs perform independent technical peer reviews to inspect construction and design of campus buildings to ensure that protective safety measures are in place to avoid severity of injury from an earthquake, according to the CSU seismic policy.
“Campus buildings were evaluated for seismic safety over the last few years and all were determined to be suitable for ongoing use,” Ferdolage said.
SJSU Facilities Department and Operations stands with the CSU seismic policy, prepared to support the campus as needed to respond to a natural disaster.
When an earthquake occurs near a CSU campus or facility, there is immediate need for evaluation of the safety of buildings and facilities at campus, according to the CSU seismic policy.
Facilities Department and Operations and the University Police Department have made plans to work together during an incident of this nature.
“[Facilities Department and Operations] would first focus on safety and evacuations as well as ensuring there are no other utility issues which could further compound the challenges from a seismic event, in example, natural gas, line ruptures, electrical lines down, etc,” Ferdolage said.
She also said Facilities Department and Operations would work with UPD and other campuses to methodically ensure buildings were evacuated, and then begin to assess damages to determine if a building is inhabitable or must be closed.
Ferdolage said the initial focus would be on life safety before turning to property damage control and safety.
“The Chancellor’s Office has an emergency management policy that says each campus needs to have an emergency preparedness manager like myself, as well as an emergency operation center,” said emergency services manager Mike Edwards.
The Emergency Operations Center serves as an emergency team that communicates with UPD to find out what is happening and if any resources are needed.
University Police Department Capt. Frank Belcastro said UPD would conduct a windshield survey to assess damage and provide assistance to injured persons.
A windshield survey is when UPD will drive around to collect data post-earthquake and note conditions of the community.
After the survey, engineers and seismologist professionals from the CSU system will check buildings.
In the immediate event of an earthquake, emergency services, EOC, UPD and the president plan to attend to such matters.
“With consultation through Traci and her team, if buildings were not safe to be occupied, we would then through the police department and through working with the president’s office, order an evacuation of campus and you’ll get the SJSU alert that comes to your phone through texts,” Edwards said.
If there is no signal or service, Edwards said SJSU plans to communicate through public address systems on campus, blue light phones and will have police cars going around with loudspeakers alerting people.
SJSU has emergency supplies spread across campus in big old shipping containers, two on the main campus and one on South Campus.
“We’ve got three of those filled with emergency supplies on campus, from everything from triage, medical, gurneys, and tents,” Edwards said.
Edwards said he believes the university systems could do a better job communicating resources and information to students and faculty.
“My goal is someday in the future for there to be emergency preparedness information in course syllabi,” Edwards said. “All campuses should have the basic evacuation, earthquake, fire, active run, duck, and hide in every single syllabi so professors could have those conversations with students that first day of class of course syllabus introduction.”
Edwards said he encourages people to prepare themselves for any type of huge disaster because there is a finite amount of people that can come around during an emergency.
The SJSU Muslim Student Association held an earthquake relief bake sale to provide relief for Türkiye and Syria’s earthquake on Tuesday.
The association had basbousa, spinach borek, biscoff cake, cookies, cupcakes and popcorn for sale at the fundraiser.
Mehmood Rahmatullah, applied and computational math senior, is one of the organizers for the association and was present for Tuesday’s event.
“Türkiye and Syria are predominantly Muslim countries and when anything happens overseas, it’s our responsibility to do anything in our power to help out the victims of said disasters,” Rahmatullah said.
All funds raised will be given to the Zakat Foundation of America. The foundation is a Muslim-run charity that does humanitarian actions aiding those in need around the world.
“This is a start, based on whatever capacity our club has, we function within that,” Rahmatullah said.
