A literary look-see inside shuttered Pasadena Central Library pasadenastarnews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from pasadenastarnews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
URM buildings have been widely recognized as a hazard to life safety due to their potential to collapse during an earthquake, Derderian said.
Although Pasadena passed an ordinance in 1993 mandating that all URM buildings be retrofitted, vacated or demolished, no record has been found as to why the Central Library was not identified and addressed as a URM building, Derderian said. Additionally, the results of the review provided to the city indicate that Central Library does not meet current seismic standards recommended by the American Society of Civil Engineers, she added. Therefore, given our present state of knowledge, the building is unsafe to occupy.