Parking Map: Downtown San Leandro

View Parking Spaces in Downtown San Leandro, CA in a larger map

(Haiti quake: Survivors struggle while awaiting aid); an obvious, but much-needed Bay Area reminder on what to consider before an earthquake

The Haitian presidential palace stands in ruins on Tuesday in Port-au-Prince after a huge earthquake measuring 7.0 rocked the impoverished Caribbean nation of Haiti, toppling buildings and causing widespread damage and panic.

Photo: Lisandro Suero / AFP/Getty Images

Over the next few days (or weeks), and given that I am a life-long resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, I will be devoting a lot of my posts to earthquake / infrastructure related issues. Given the amount of earthquakes which have taken place recently (a 6.5 Earthquake recently hit near Eureka, California, causing some moderate damages, and a 4.0 Earthquake hit around the Milpitas, CA area), I feel it's important to research, as well as educate readers about issues related to earthquakes/infrastructure to inspire change, whether it be small or big scale changes.

With this article, Survivors struggle while awaiting aid, I want to analyze and compare what Bay Area residents need to be concerned about; while my analysis will be very obvious here, a lot of the factors of earthquake preparation are often ignored: earthquake preparation should be based on what will take place, such as damaged public utilities, lack of aid, etc., and I will highlight those problems.

Based on the article by the Associated Press, (source:  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/01/12/international/i141733S04.DTL ) Port Au Prince seems to be in a very apocalyptic and chaotic state.

More urban planning / transportation engineering articles/videos

Some videos showing you urban planning / transportation engineering related facts.

This is a video of the Key System, a streetcar system which was spread throughout the East Bay during the first half of the 20th century. This was quickly dismantled as General Motors, Standard Oil, and Firestone Tire popularized the bus and quickly soon, the automobile. (I still need to finish this before school starts):

Why I study civil engineering: video

Being an [Asian-American] engineer while maintaining a OUT-of-THE ordinary image? A STORY TO CONSIDER!!

Face it, this nation needs engineers.

Face it, Asian-Americans need a better image in the media other than the "nerdy, passive, desexualized, submissive, kung-fu fighting people," and need to step up to the plate in terms of the political identity and the entertainment world to tell people that we are regular people part of the American fabric with our own stories to tell.

Face it, engineers need a better image in the media so we can have more life-changing moments in our world.

What about the Asian-American engineer?

UCLA goes Green

La Kretz Hall, UCLA's first federally certified green building, built in 2005.

When I'm trying to pick the college I want to attend (hopefully Cal), I try to learn as much about the college as I can. One of the things that amazes me is the extent that UCLA is doing to promote environmental sustainability. As an aspiring civil engineer, I can't wait to learn about how to build buildings that are under clean, energy-efficent, environmentally friendly standards, and UCLA has done that. 

Some of the facts about La Kretz Hall are astounding. The building was built out of 80% recycled steel and its carpets are made out of recycled water bottles. The eco-friendly paint in the building does not send out as much harmful chemcials as ordinary paint does. Wow!

Plus, UCLA students can expect to see in their cafeterias biodegradable plastic (usually corn/potato starch, if I remember right) forks and other organic utensils. 

One major thing UCLA does is maintain energy efficiency. I'll just quote what it does from UCLA's Magazine. UCLA uses a co-generational plant which powers 70% of the campus. Here's what it does:

"We generate energy with a pair of gas turbines, which you would call a jet engine," Johnson explains. "We burn gas in the jet engines, producing a stream of hot gas that drives a turbine that spins an electric generator, producing electricity."

The blazing heat doesn't go to waste. A heat-recovery steam generator uses the 1,000-degree jet-engine exhaust to generate steam, some of which is used to generate electricity. It doesn't end there. Part of the steam is sent across campus for heating, cooking and sterilization; the rest powers high-capacity water chillers making cold water for air conditioning. On top of it all, the co-gen's electricity is cheaper and more efficiently produced than what UCLA could buy.

Now, that's energy efficient!

For more detailed information, check here. There's also a very, well scripted video summing up UCLA's actions to promote environemntal sustainabilty below: