The following statement was written and issued by members of the Envision Utah Youth Council regarding the Utah K–12 Public Schools Unreinforced Masonry Inventory.
Envision Utah Youth Council’s Recommendations to
Keep Utah’s Students Safe During Earthquakes
If this were an English assignment instead of a press release, we as students would have given our recommendations a catchier title – maybe “Quaking in Fear,” “Attack of the Crack . . . in the Wasatch Front” or “Beware the Killer Schools.” But we decided to stick instead with a title that captures our primary goal: keeping ourselves, our brothers and sisters, our friends, and our neighbors safe at school during a major earthquake.
Who We Are: The Envision Utah Youth Council brings together students from across the state to learn about the challenges and opportunities facing Utah. For the last few years, one of the focuses of the Youth Council has been on the dangers many Utah schools would pose to us, as students, if a large earthquake struck along the Wasatch Fault.
Why We Care: We have a special interest in the safety of our schools because we spend so much of our time there, both during school hours and after school—studying and learning, playing on basketball and volleyball teams, competing in debate tournaments, putting on plays and musicals, performing in orchestra concerts and on drill teams, hanging out with our friends, and participating in many other activities. We want to know that when we are in school buildings, we are safe, even if a major earthquake strikes.
Our own research shows that Utah’s students are very concerned about the seismic safety of our schools. Last year, the Envision Utah Youth Council helped design a survey of thousands of Utah high school students. That survey found that more than 90% of Utah high school students thought it was important for them to know how safe their schools would be in the event of a major earthquake. (Specifically, 32.5% of surveyed students said it was “extremely important,” 33.1% said it was “important,” and another 25.1% said it was “moderately important” for them to know how safe their schools would be in an earthquake.)
The Magna earthquake on March 18, 2020, gave us a preview of the seismic risks to our schools. Luckily, school was not in session that day because the pandemic had just begun. More than twenty schools were damaged. At West Lake STEM Junior High in West Valley City, walls collapsed and ceilings caved in. That building now has to be demolished. At Cyprus High School in Magna, heavy bricks fell off walls and walls cracked. There was even significant damage at a relatively new school – Silver Crest Elementary School in Herriman – where large bricks rained down right by the school’s front door and could easily have injured someone.
A major 7.0 magnitude earthquake would be almost twenty-times bigger than the 5.7 magnitude Magna quake, and it would release more than 100 times the energy of that quake. The risk to our schools—and thus to us and our classmates—is serious, especially in older schools built before current building codes and without adequate reinforcement.
We are grateful to the Utah Seismic Safety Commission, FEMA, the Utah Department of Emergency Management, the Utah legislature, and all the others who helped write the report that was released today that answered many of our questions. We now know that more than 72,000 students in Utah attend 119 schools that are URMs: buildings made of unreinforced masonry that may collapse during an earthquake. There are also many other students who attend schools that are likely URMs or likely under-reinforced.
What We Recommend: Now that we know what we wanted to know—about how safe our schools are—it’s time for action. And we need action quickly. For some of us (and our parents), this report is reassuring, but many of us are now more concerned about our safety.
We urge the Utah Seismic Safety Commission, the Utah Legislature, the Utah State School Board, the State’s school districts, and all other parties who can influence the seismic safety of our school buildings:
To publicize the results of the current study so all students and parents understand the seismic risks at their schools.
To expand the current study to include charter schools and private schools. The report is an amazing start, but it wasn’t able to address these other schools, many of which are housed in older buildings. Every Utah student deserves to know how safe their school is.
To allocate sufficient funds to evaluate the seismic risk of all school buildings in Utah and study whether seismic retrofitting or replacement is appropriate. We respectfully ask the Legislature to immediately fund the $3.7 million for the School Seismic Improvement Feasibility Study. This will fund an engineering study on each school that has been identified as a URM, a potential URM, or potentially under-reinforced, to determine whether that school should be retrofitted (fixed) or replaced so quick action may be taken to make each of those schools safe.
To commit the necessary funds to retrofit or replace all Utah schools that pose substantial seismic risk to student’s lives. In particular, the Legislature should assist school districts that cannot shoulder these burdens themselves. While some of our school districts can afford these expenditures, others cannot. To promote equity in school safety, the Utah Legislature should make up the difference for these at-risk schools in less affluent districts so that all students can be safe at school.
Any students who are interested in joining the Envision Utah Youth Council to help us work on these important issues can email us at envisionutahyouth@gmail.com.