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CEA Mitigation Program
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CEA Mitigation Program
7 Steps to Earthquake Safety
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CEA Mitigation Program


The CEA's commitment to mitigation is reflected in its Strategic Plan, adopted by the CEA Governing Board in 2003. The plan includes the following mitigation strategy: "Educate residents about their earthquake risk and motivate them to protect themselves and their property."

The California Residential Mitigation Program ("CRMP") was created through a Joint Exercise of Powers Agreement between the California Emergency Management Agency ("Cal EMA") and the California Earthquake Authority ("CEA"). The CRMP is a public entity and is separate from Cal EMA and the CEA. The CRMP's goal is to provide incentives to California homeowners to seismically retrofit wood frame residential structures. Currently the CRMP is in the process of developing an incentive program, and is issuing Requests for Qualifications for:




The CEA is developing residential retrofit programs that could help make any house in California SAFER® (Smart Actions for Earthquake Recovery).  CEA actively works with engineers; scientists; contractors; code councils; and related local, state and federal agencies to develop SAFER programming.  Among other goals, SAFER will assist in developing a statewide mitigation program that may provide financial incentives to consumers that retrofit their houses. This program will be based on the most current seismic retrofitting building codes and will include specialized training for retrofit contractors and other important support services.

Putting Down Roots in Earthquake Country

The CEA is well established as a major sponsor of the highly regarded and very popular consumer safety handbook, Putting Down Roots in Earthquake Country (PDR).  More than 3.5 million handbooks have been delivered to consumers through mass media, insurance agents, Red Cross, United States Geological Survey (USGS), and the CEA itself, among many others.

In January 2007, the USGS, with the assistance of New American Media and the Asian Pacific Fund and using funding provided by the CEA, launched the latest iterations of the handbook, Protecting Your Family From Earthquakes - The Seven Steps to Earthquake Safety.  These new versions of the popular PDR handbook are tailored to the Bay Area's Latino, Korean, Vietnamese, and Chinese communities, in whose families there may be both English-speaking and non-English-speaking members.  The handbooks deliver important messages of earthquake preparedness and recovery, including information on risk mitigation, retrofitting, financial preparedness, and recovery.  Community members assisted in providing handbook content and advising on approaches to incorporate communities' cultural needs.

The CEA supported the mass-media launch of Protecting Your Family From Earthquakes with media-buys from Bay-Area ethnic publications, as recommended by community members, the Asian Pacific Fund, New American Media, the Red Cross, and PG&E's Consumer Outreach Department, all of whom have extensive knowledge of outreach campaigns to non-English-speaking audiences.

Southern California Edition

Southern California Edition
(Spanish)

Putting Down Roots Cover

Putting Down Roots Cover

Request Hardcopy

Request Hardcopy

Living On Shaky Ground

San Francisco Bay Region

Living On Shaky Ground

Putting Down Roots Cover

(Spanish)

San Francisco Bay Region
(Asian languages)

 Spanish Handbook Cover  Asian Handbook Cover

View Handbook as PDF

View Handbook as PDF

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