FERNDALE, Wash. — Some local schools were included in a Department of Natural Resources study that found most school buildings in Washington would suffer major damage in a severe earthquake.
Ferndale’s Beach Elementary and the Mount Baker Junior and Senior High Schools were among the 222 examined in the study.
A building’s age is the most significant indicator of how it would survive an earthquake.
Almost 90% of the schools in the study were built before 2005 and aren’t designed to withstand shaking from a Cascadia Subduction Zone or Seattle Fault quake.
And most of the schools, including the Whatcom County schools in the study, were built before modern seismic standards were adopted in 1998.
The study finds that the cost for seismic upgrades varies widely, with estimations ranging from $63,000 per building to $5,010,000 per building.