The National City Earthquake Safety & Outreach Initiative

This report contains a series of policy proposals developed by San Diego State University (SDSU) students, in collaboration with National City officials and the SDSU Sage Project, to increase the use of existing earthquake preparedness resources among National City residents. The primary focus of student research was the California Earthquake Brace + Bolt program and encouraging homeowners to engage in seismic retrofitting. Additionally, students developed policy recommendations aimed at increasing general earthquake safety, awareness, and education. Being located in Southern California, earthquake preparedness
is a topic the SDSU community is very familiar with and many students were able to use this as an opportunity to draw upon prior knowledge in their research.
Students worked to create policy suggestions specific to National City, based on methods proven effective in similar municipalities, by researching how the area’s demographics may impact the use of community resources. National City is a heavily Hispanic city, with a large population that does not speak English as a first language. As such, many of the policies in this report focus on bridging that gap in communication and establishing trust between community members and those with access to earthquake preparedness resources. Another major trend among policies developed by students was a focus on finding creative ways to lower the economic burden on residents interested in seismic retrofitting. This led to the creation of several innovative proposals focused on helping residents pay for seismic retrofitting, primarily where other government programs would not suffice. These policies may be more difficult to implement than direct outreach, but they represent an alternate approach the city could take to encourage seismic retrofitting.
The policies presented in this report were chosen for their adaptability as part of a larger earthquake awareness initiative, as well as their ability to function independently. As stressed by National City officials, the city budget does not have any extra funding for extensive earthquake preparedness programs. The purpose behind choosing policies which can operate independently is to work around these constraints and offer solutions that may be more budget-friendly. These policies are categorized based upon the type of actor affected: resident, government group, or external organization.