Roles and Responsibilities

In a post-disaster situation, three levels of evaluation take place:

• Rapid evaluations are a quick safety review of the building, and comprise 95% of the SAP workload in earthquake disasters (Percentages in flood and windstorm disasters vary by situation.)
  
  
• Detailed evaluations are more thorough assessments of a building’s structure. About 5% of the post-earthquake building evaluations are detailed; all infrastructure evaluations are detailed.
  
  
• Engineering evaluations are comprehensive assessments performed by professional engineers and architects at the request of the facility’s owner. This evaluation is not part of the Safety Assessment Program.

Throughout the safety assessment process, everyone participating in the response effort has clearly defined roles and responsibilities in completing safety evaluations. Let’s look the types of responders and what they do in an emergency response. Responders include:

SAP Evaluators - Perform safety assessments of potentially damaged facilities.

SAP Coordinators - Coordinate activities of SAP Evaluators.

Local Government - Prepare for, request, and support local SAP response to disasters.