Every October, millions of people around the world take part in the Great ShakeOut earthquake drill, practicing the lifesaving steps of Drop, Cover, and Hold On. Here in Seattle, the message hits close to home because when the ground shakes, one of the biggest dangers isn’t the earthquake itself, but what can fall during it.
For our city, that means falling bricks and parapets from unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings, the beautiful but vulnerable brick structures that define many of Seattle’s neighborhoods. These buildings represent the city’s history, but without seismic strengthening, they also represent some of our greatest risks.
In preparation for this year’s ShakeOut, SDCI helped to launch a new statewide public outreach effort: Fix the Bricks. The campaign includes coordinated social media messaging, a fact sheet, and a new retrofit call-to-action video encouraging Washingtonians to support URM seismic retrofits before the next earthquake strikes. SDCI shared this video at the Office of Emergency Management’s ShakeOut Day event, to an audience that included the Mayor’s Office, King County Regional Housing Authority, and many other city, county, and state, representatives.
The Fix the Bricks campaign is a collaborative effort led by local governments and supported by partners including the AIA Washington Council, the Structural Engineers Association of Washington (SEAW), the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers, Historic South Downtown, and other organizations united around a shared goal: passing House Bill 1810.
HB 1810, introduced in the 2025 legislative session, would improve the economic viability of URM retrofits by developing feasible financial incentives, like tax credits, for building owners. These incentives would support adaptive reuse of existing structures, preserve affordable housing, protect historic structures, and reduce future earthquake deaths, damages, and economic downtime.
Equally important, HB 1810 would also complete Washington State’s URM inventory, a crucial data gap that’s prevented coordinated action for decades. Current estimates suggest there could be as many as 33,000 unreinforced masonry buildings statewide, with most jurisdictions unaware of their vulnerability.
The urgency for a state-led solution has grown even stronger in recent months. With the federal elimination of FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) grant program, local jurisdictions have lost a major funding source for mitigation planning and retrofit programs.
Additionally, the FEMA Review Council recently emphasized that future disaster mitigation should be led at the state level and Congress has not yet reauthorized the National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program (NEHRP). This program funds seismic resilience efforts through the United States Geologic Survey (USGS), FEMA, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the National Science Foundation (NSF). These federal funding challenges further underscore the need for Washington to establish its own framework for seismic resilience.
During the upcoming legislative session, we will mark both the 25th anniversary of the 2001 Nisqually Earthquake and the 15th anniversary of the devastating 2011 Christchurch, New Zealand Earthquake, reminding us what’s at stake. In Christchurch, hundreds of URM buildings collapsed, resulting in tragic loss of life and years of rebuilding. Seattle has the knowledge, and now, through Fix the Bricks and HB 1810, the momentum to prevent that outcome here.
Seismic retrofits don’t just make our city safer—they also support Seattle’s climate goals. Strengthening existing URM buildings preserves the embodied carbon already invested in those structures and prevents the pollution, contamination, and landfill debris that follow widespread demolition. After the Christchurch earthquake, cleanup and reconstruction created massive waste streams and prolonged environmental impacts. Retrofitting our buildings before disaster strikes helps protect our neighborhoods, our economy, and our planet.
The City of Seattle supports HB 1810. #FixtheBricks