Past Home Page Stories: 2006
This section of the website contains past MCEER Home Page Stories
A City in Ruins: The Earthquake & Fires of 1906
This exhibit, curated by the staff of MCEER’s Information Service, commemorated the centennial of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fires that destroyed the West Coast's most populous city and leading economic and cultural center. The exhibit was on display at Lockwood Library through the summer. Bulletin article
Recent Webcast Seminars
Peter K. Ostrowski, Senior Design Specialist, Nuclear Waste Management Division, Ontario Power Generation, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, presented Temporary Structures during Construction on September 28, 2006
Dr. Hiroshi Isoda, Shinshu University, Japan, presented State of the Art of Shaking Table Tests of Wood Buildings in Japan on August 25.
Dr. Bryan Folz, British Columbia Institute of Technology, presented Seismic Analysis of Woodframe Structures on Friday, June 9, 2006.
6.3M Earthquake in Indonesia
A 6.3M earthquake occurred on Java, Indonesia on May 26, 2006. MCEER's EarthQuake Information NETwork (EQNET) website has links to preliminary reports, news releases, relief agencies and photo galleries for the Java quake and other significant disaster events. Preliminary reports (USGS) suggest that the event killed at least 4,500 people, injured 1,800 and damaged many buildings in the Bantul-Yogyakarta area.
MCEER Response to Hurricane Katrina
Preliminary reports by MCEER investigators on buildings and bridges; the use of satellite imaging technology to survey wide-spread damage; emergency response decision-making at hospitals, transportation agencies and utilities; and Katrina’s impacts on water delivery, wastewater management, and community health and hygiene are available from the MCEER website. In all, the center dispatched three sets of teams between September 6 and October 22. Full length reports are in preparation. Preliminary Reports are available, as is more about the November 2 Seminar.
MCEER Hurricane Katrina Investigations Earn Cover Story in Structural Engineer Magazine
The February 2006 issue of Structural Engineer magazine features a cover story written by Gilberto Mosqueda (University at Buffalo) and Keith Porter (California Institute of Technology), two members of MCEER’s Post-Hurricane Katrina Reconnaissance Team. In the article entitled “Preliminary Conclusions: Assessing damage to engineering buildings in the wake of Hurricane Katrina,” (external link) Mosqueda and Porter present preliminary findings from their September and October 2005 field mission to Mississippi and New Orleans, where they investigated damage to engineered buildings in the wake of the storm.
Seminar Series Features Satish Nagarajaiah
Dr. Satish Nagarajaiah, Professor of Civil and Mechanical Engineering at Rice University, Houston, Texas, presented a webcast seminar, "Smart Structures Based on Variable Stiffness and Damping Systems" on April 28, 2006 as part of the UB-EERI-MCEER Seminar Series.
