San Francisco Starts Tagging Earthquake-Unsafe Homes

It's easy to see which buildings in San Francisco haven't yet complied with new earthquake safety regulations: Look at the tag on the front door.

San Francisco has begun pasting notices of seismic unsafety to the front of 380 homes that have not yet complied with new earthquake safety rules, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

A law passed last year requires certain multi-unit buildings built before 1978 to undergo a seismic retrofit within several years, the newspaper reported.

Some 6,600 notices went out to buildings, but 380 buildings so far have not returned theirs.

The retrofits can cost as much as $130,000, the newspaper reported.

The 25th anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake, which caused some soft-story buildings – that is, wood-frame structures with a large open space on the ground floor such as a garage or commercial space – to collapse in the Marina District is Oct. 17.

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