The Problem
Because Utah was late to adopt building codes, many current school buildings are URMs (unreinforced masonry) that are likely to collapse in the event of a large earthquake. 119 schools attended by over 70,000 students currently fall in this category. Recently, many wealthier districts have rebuilt their older schools, replacing them with new state-of-the-art buildings; thus, the majority of schools that remain unsafe are in lower-income areas without the taxbase to pay for retrofits and rebuilds alone.
