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Shane H.
Pro Member
  • Investor
  • Wichita, KS
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For those in Earthquake prone area...Xtra cost to build/inspect?

Shane H.
Pro Member
  • Investor
  • Wichita, KS
Posted Nov 19 2015, 08:21

I'm not sure where to put this post - figured this would be the best place.  

As odd as this sounds more than likely for most of you, Wichita has been experiencing a large # of earthquakes that are mostly supposedly centered just over the OK border.  Last night was the worst one I've felt the past 5 years (that seems to be when they started or close to it).  I've felt more than I care to count and this one rattled the nerves a bit.  Happened at 145am appx - I was just heading to bed (I'm a night owl) and taking a shower on our lower level - shower door started shaking pretty violently up and down and you could see the walls vibrating a bit.  Most of the other ones I've felt have been more of a vibration/rumble -- a very light shaking/rattling -- this one had a more violent frequency if you could equate it to a wave graph.  The others were more gentle if that makes sense.

Supposedly this was a 4.7 or something.  I do have earthquake insurance on my house but need to double check and see if I can get it on my rentals or I may already.  It really typically wouldnt worry me, however the frequency of these things seem to be going up and there have been in the hundreds/thousands of them recorded 3+ and above just over the border the past 3-5 years if I remember what I've read correctly.  Maybe  it has a correlation to all the fracking/drilling activity we have around here, maybe it's not related - who knows.

So to get to my question, for a region that is not constructed at all to sustain this peril of mother nature, lets say the current trend continues and we keep having the rumblers.  If say someone wanted to develop a property and construct homes that had engineering built in to help withstand an earthquake -- what does this add to the cost?  Any ideas on resources to look online?

 If I were to want to invest in a multi story brick/concrete building built in the 20's to 60's what sorts of things should I look for to see if the structural integrity of a building may have been compromised?  

Curiously and sort of a long story - there is an 11 story building downtown I've wanted to invest in - some of the floors were available for sale individually - however I've never pulled the trigger.  Glad I havent now.  About a month or two ago I was meeting with one of the floor owners who purchased the 11th floor among others -- I went in one of the offices where some of the street facing windows were replaced 7-8 years ago and there was about a quarter to half inch gap at the bottom of one of the window frames where you could see daylight outside....Not sure if this had anything to do with the building shifting, if the window was installed incorrectly, if maybe the building had shifted that much over the years and just needed extra caulking etc.  But made one think with all the shaking that's been going in.  Building was built in the 20's - is primarily brick/concrete.

Maybe we can have an interesting discussion and others can learn something new about South Central KS -- we have tornadoes, hail, wind storms, and now earthquakes to worry about (Same for our neighbors to the S in OKC and Tulsa).  If these increase in magnitude and frequency like they have been I may rethink wanting to continue to live here.  Briefly crossed my mind this morning.

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