Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
♪♪ (wave sounds)
Hoyt Fields I was in my office, and all of a sudden, the building started to rumble
the building started to rumble and I was
saying something’s going on.
My name is Hoyt Fields. I’m the museum
director here at Hearst San Simeon State
Historical Monument, better known as
Hearst Castle. Construction on the
castle began in 1919, this is one of six
homes that was owned by newspaper
publisher William Randolf Hearst.
Julia Morgan was the architect;
Julia Morgan went through the
earthquake in 1906 in San Francisco
and so what we have here are reinforced
concrete boxes with items affixed to the
building's exterior and also on the
interior. We did lose 12 artifacts
during the earthquake in 2003.
But there was no structural damage what
so ever. So we have a 1919 construction
and not one bit of earthquake damage.
Julia Morgan was ahead of her time.
Since there were not problems with the
building structure itself. We needed
to look closer at mitigating issues like
the 12 items that…the artifacts that
were damaged during the earthquake.
When I came up here to the library, this
Roman vase, its first century BC, was
shattered here on the floor. Of course
now it’s been affixed to a larger diameter,
larger base and its not going to go
anywhere. But it’s all reversible without
any damage to the pot, or even this 15th
century Spanish table. You can build to
withstand the shaking that comes and the
devastation sometimes that comes from
earthquakes. The castle is big generator
of revenue for the State of California.
♪♪
Of course, it’s a historical monument and
it's filled with artifacts from 18th
dynasty Egypt all the way to the 1940s.
♪♪
It is an icon.
It is one of America's castles.
♪♪
Jim Saunders When an earthquake hits, you
hear the building creaking, groaning,
moaning and snapping because there are
things that move in the building.
And you have this sense that you’re
going to go with this one and your
time is over.
My name is Jim Saunders. I’m from
Paso des Robles. I was born here
and this building used to be one of my
little neighborhood hang outs when I
was a very small child and downstairs,
in the middle portion of the building
was a candy store, my favorite hang out.
During the 80s, the downtown wasn’t very
vibrant. So I had an idea if that I
bought this building and renovated it,
perhaps I could create a desire for
other businesses to come downtown.
So it really did work that way.
There was an ordinance that was created
in the county years ago that gave every
building property owner until 2017 to
retrofit their building. I though we
better do it on the front end rather
on the back end.
♪♪
The seismic retrofit, structural
retrofit of the building was to bring it
up to current code. So that it is
structurally sound in the event of an
earthquake. We're in the highest
earthquake zone in the state.
We essentially stiffened the building,
so it would ride out an earthquake.
So in an effort to do that, we put
garter belts on it, if you will. From
the inside out, we put what are called
ledger beams in,new trusses, new I-beams
across the floors to hold walls up.
Second floor, third floor, reinforced
the hundred year old trusses that were
there. Sister trussed those trusses.
Seismically tied those trussed to the
outside walls, to the parapet walls.
Epoxyed new connections in to hold those
trusses in place. New roof structure held
the new air-conditioning systems down.
Re-attached the facade, new windows, new
elevator shaft…to name a few things. We
bought the property at a very good value,
so we could afford to put a lot of money
into it. About six months after,
coincidentally after we finished our
seismic retrofit for earthquake preparedness,
there was a 6.5 magnitude earthquake. And it
tested the integrity of our building, more so
than I'd ever dreamed it would be tested.
I knew the building was going to hold up,
I felt good about it. About twenty feet
away from our building across the alley,
our neighboring property owner's
building came to the ground and two
people lost their lives. It was
devastating, a young girl and a
middle-aged woman, totally innocent,
just feared for their lives, ran outside
and that's when the façade of the building
and the roof had fallen in and caved in
over top of them. It's very difficult to
relate, too. It was a very emotional day.
There is no question in my mind, subsequent
the earthquake, that our seismic retrofit
absolutely saved lives and I was very glad
that I did it. It definitely paid off.