Abstract
This paper presents damage distribution of buildings in the cities of Watsonville and Santa Cruz near the epicenter of the Loma Prieta Earthquake of October 17, 1989, and clarifies relationships among damage levels, damage amount and structural properties of buildings based on a building-by-building survey. It is found that, (1) in Watsonville, old wooden houses, built before 1945, with cripple walls were most damaged; (2) in Santa Cruz, brick masonry structures suffered relatively high damage because of the old unreinforced construction; and (3) damage levels designated in the post-earthquake inspection are highly related to damage amount in terms of monetary loss.
