WHEN IT SHAKES DOWN

HOW THE MHCC CAMPUS MIGHT FARE AFTER AN EARTHQUAKE

The proposed $136 million bond measure for Mt. Hood Community College on the May 20 special election ballot would help pay for badly needed repairs and upgrades at the Gresham campus. Perhaps deserving a top priority: Addressing campus areas most vulnerable to devastating earthquake damage.

All Photos by Leo Fontneau

Daina Hardisty, a geology instructor at MHCC, recently produced a video clip for the college where she argued that Mt. Hood urgently needed to pass a bond in order to install seismic upgrades to reduce the risk of buildings collapsing on students. In an interview with The Advocate, Hardisty described how the campus’s age and the context of its construction (in the 1960s, before the implementation of seismic building codes) mean facilities were not designed to withstand earthquakes to the extent required for modern buildings. As a result, Hardisty is all too aware of the risks. “To be honest, there are some things that terrify me about being in this room. I’m underneath a structure (the concrete-laden main Academic Center) that needs seismic retrofitting, seismic upgrades – something,” she said. Charles George, head maintenance and public safety official for the college, said that not being able to complete seismic upgrades has really been bothering school leaders for a while. There are three specific places on campus that George focused on to explain the campus’s need for seismic upgrades. He said the Yoshida Events Center (gymnasium), which is a designated American Red Cross shelter (for widespread community emergencies), currently would not be a building that people should enter after an earthquake. George also pointed out a wall near the library as a potential weak spot during a major shake. “(In) Building 13 where the library is, between the second and third floors, there is a shear wall… that has been pointed out by the architects and engineers that we need to rebuild and fortify to let the building have a better survival rate during a seismic event,” George said.

All Photos by Leo Fontneau

And then, there is a problem from the college’s distant past that could put another of its buildings at an increased risk of collapse. George said Mt. Hood tried to install an underground water heating/cooling system in the early days of the college. The effort floundered but there remains a filled water storage tank under part of Building 17 that could make the area “unusable” in case of a significant quake. George told the Advocate that “built into the bond (planned spending) is draining all of the water out of that” storage tank and “making it structurally sound.” Both Hardisty and George see an urgency to get seismic upgrades completed before any earthquake that could inflict serious damage to the campus arrives. “We need to get some seismic upgrades,” Hardisty said. “I mean, we really do.”

MHCC journalism student Brandonn Catabay contributed to this story.

Editors Note: A previous version of this story mispelled the name of MHCC Geology Instructor Daina Hardisty