Estimated Temporal Variation of Losses Due to a Recurrence of the 1933 Long Beach Earthquake

Abstract

The temporal variation of damage and loss estimates are presented in decadal increments since 1950 for an earthquake on the Newport-Inglewood Fault (NIF) equivalent to the M_w 6.4 1933 Long Beach earthquake. Deterministic damage and loss calculations were performed utilizing Hazus-MH software and updated structural inventories. We estimate that building stock loss density (total losses within each census tract divided by tract area) due to the recurrence of this event in 1950 would have been about $84 million, increasing to $300 million in 2006 (2002 replacement costs). With the phenomenal growth in new construction in Long Beach over the past 50 years, the results indicate that the proportion of wood and unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings predicted to suffer at least moderate damage has stabilized. Given the many seismic sources in this region which also pose significant threats, we demonstrate that modeling tools such as Hazus-MH can provide meaningful estimates of future losses from earthquakes.

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