Unreinforced Masonry Building Survey Program
As Washington State’s central repository for historic structure data, the Dept. of Archaeology and Historic Preservation (DAHP) has made a policy-level commitment to identify and record unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings. In partnership with the State’s multiagency URM Workgroup (comprised of representatives from Washington State Agencies including Military Department (MIL), Emergency Management Division (EMD), Commerce (COM), Natural Resources (DNR), Enterprise Services (DES), Washington Technology Solutions (WaTech), the Office of Financial Management (OFM), Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), the Office of the Insurance Commissioner (OIC), and other stakeholders), DAHP has worked to create enterprise-level policy, construct a customer friendly user portal, form interagency URM data sharing partnerships, and generate an educational series for URM surveyors. Through the efforts of DAHP and the multiagency URM Workgroup, agencies and the public can access unique data on each URM building, assess risk for strategic planning, and get connected to seismic mitigation resources in future efforts. The data from the surveys is housed in WISAARD.
2022 Unreinforced Masonry Building Pilot Survey
Building on previous efforts to address URM building risks, a multiagency URM workgroup was formed in 2022 with the goal of developing a statewide URM building database and user portal. Outreach led to a partnership with the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation and the Washington State Main Street Program on data collection for URM buildings at the community level. The Downtown Everett Association (DEA), a Washington Main Street Community, was selected to host the pilot event. On the day of the event, thirty volunteers were provided with training by The Washington Emergency Management Division and DAHP staff on identifying URM buildings and using the Survey123 app created by DAHP. Volunteers were provided packets containing details about their assigned buildings before heading into the field for a “sample building survey” where an EMD trainer pointed out features to look for when surveying suspected URM buildings. All information gathered by volunteers was followed by data validation by technical staff.
2024 FEMA Grant Awarded for Unreinforced Masonry Survey Portal Project
In 2024, FEMA awarded DAHP a $124,500 disaster mitigation grant for the Unreinforced Masonry Portal Project. The funds are being used to construct an innovative web-based data collection tool for surveying Washington State’s URM buildings. This user-friendly, field-ready survey tool will be used by a variety of internal and external stakeholders.
