Image 1: This was a column on a soft-story retrofit project we have in Los Angeles. As you can see, the column has rusted to a point that it has become very brittle and weak. At the time this was discovered, emergency shoring was put into place for additional support. That very same night, the Ridgecrest Earthquake happened. A 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck Ridgecrest, California, some 100 miles away from Los Angeles.

Image 2: Once we came back to the property the very next day, we noticed the entire column had snapped in half due to the movement from the quake! If we hadn’t installed that additional shoring, the unit above may have met the ground…