For the inaugural event of our newly launched Stahl Speaker Series, Stahl extended invitations to a select few of our many valued partners in the healthcare industry for our latest seminar – Ridgecrest: A Hospital Survival Story. The goal of this series is to educate professionals through sharing current and trending developments.
Independence Day 2019 brought the first of two earthquakes to the desert community of Ridgecrest, CA. This set off a contingent of scientists and others anxious to study the 6.4 and 7.1 magnitude tremors, among the largest to hit California since the Northridge event in 1994 that led to the Alfred E. Alquist Hospital Facilities Seismic Safety Act amendment under Senate Bill 1953. In October, we hosted Martin B. Hudson, Ph.D., G.E. who had been among those who rushed to the desert with hopes of confirming hypotheses and gathering new information on California seismology. He shared his findings via photos, charts, maps, graphs, and conversations with city officials and area residents, along with a report on how Ridgecrest Regional Hospital rode out the tremors. This led to a discussion among those in attendance, including Hussain Bhatia of OSHPD’s Seismic Compliance Unit, on how our current seismic codes performed and what changes may be in store under future code cycles given the new information. Earthquakes of this size do not occur often but when they do they’re certainly impactful, both to the community they hit and eventually to the rest of us as we modify seismic codes in an attempt to not only survive but keep our health centers operational.
