Nearly three-quarters of the city’s residential subdivisions were built in the last 15 years and feature the latest in plywood-reinforced walls, tied-down foundations, strengthened concrete and stronger welds.
Other communities farther from the epicenter of Tuesday’s temblor saw fallen bricks, cracked walls and windows, warped door frames and broken water mains and gas lines.
One big reason: Chino Hills went up mostly in the mid- to late 1990s and was built to the stringent earthquake standards that the state wants to see adopted everywhere across California before the Big One strikes.
“I was wandering around out there after the quake and it struck me that there’s no building there that’s more than 10 years old. They’re all built to the most recent codes, and I think that’s true of the whole Chino area,” said Lucy Jones, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. “The type of earthquake that used to be a major event just isn’t anymore.”
Since the 1930s, California has gradually boosted its building standards. Each severe quake has prompted new rules, with the most recent major overhaul coming after the 1994 quake in the Northridge section of Los Angeles that killed 72 people.
After that disaster, the building code was amended to require, among other things, the use of plywood to reinforce sheetrock walls in homes. The new rules also prescribed a different way of welding steel that makes the welds less likely to become brittle and crack.
Read it here: Strict building codes credited after Calif. Quake