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D. OVERVIEW OF OTHER TYPES OF DAMAGE

For this assessment, estimates of damage to substantial numbers of
different type facilities essential to the immediate response
capability were updated. Earthquakes associated with the same four
major fault systems identified earlier in this chapter were used as a
basis for these estimates. The types of facilities analyzed included
_hospitals_, _medical supply storages_, _blood banks_, and _custodial
care homes_, together with their essential services and personnel
resources. Although newer hospitals in California are being built
according to substantially improved seismic safety standards and
practices, older hospital facilities can be expected to be poorly
resistant to earthquakes.

Among residential buildings, single family homes are expected to
suffer structural damage and loss of contents. Damage to multifamily
dwellings--particularly older buildings--would, in all likelihood, be
more extensive. Analysis of expected damage indicates that temporary
housing for as many as 200,000 families might be needed--a requirement
calling for careful planning and exceptional management skills.

Schools are judged to be among the safest facilities exposed to the
earthquakes. Since passage of the Field Act in 1933, after the Long
Beach earthquake, school buildings in California have been
continuously improved to withstand seismic hazards.

As a result of continuing and substantial upgrading of design and
construction practices in the past 10 years, dams and reservoirs can
be expected to show an improved performance in an earthquake.
Nonetheless, on a contingency basis, one dam failure might be assumed
for each planning effort.

Realizing the fact that 84 key communications facilities, earth
stations, Department of Defense voice and data switches, commercial
transoceanic cable heads, Federal Telecommunications System switches,
and major direct distance dial switches are located within 55 miles of
either Los Angeles or San Francisco, damage must be expected to occur.
With this realization, priorities have been assigned to all critical
circuits transiting the key facilities, based on established criteria
of criticality of service continuity. _National warning systems
circuitry, command and control circuits, and circuits supporting
diplomatic negotiations_ (of which a high concentration exists in
California) are examples of those circuits carrying high-restoration
priority.

In