Degenkolb Engineers is working with the City and County of Honolulu on improving the tsunami safety along the coast of Oahu by developing a Tsunami Ready structural evaluation program. This leverages the recently-published national standard ASCE 7-16, which includes provisions for tsunami loads and effects on building structures, by developing an evaluation criteria to screen and evaluate buildings which may be viable for tsunami vertical evacuation.  The evaluation procedures are developed similar to ASCE 41-13 – Seismic Evaluation and Retrofit of Existing Buildings to take advantage of the familiarity of an existing evaluation procedure.

Degenkolb has developed both a checklist-based screening and a detailed evaluation procedure to determine which existing buildings may be used for tsunami vertical evacuation purposes. Although this procedure focuses on the typical construction on Oahu, it can also be expanded to other tsunami-prone regions of the world.