A Decade of Path Stewardship
Marking BPWA’s 10th Anniversary &
Guest Speaker, Katherine Stillwell:
“The Hayward Fault: Living on the Edge,”
Berkeley Path Wanderers Association will celebrate its 10th anniversary at its Annual Meeting on Thursday, September 18, at the Berkeley Hillside Club. BPWA will also pay tribute to retiring City Council member Betty Olds, 87, one of the staunchest supporters of Berkeley’s path system. The program will begin at 7 p.m.
Our keynote speaker this year is earthquake expert Katherine Stillwell. Her talk will focus on another local milestone: the 140th anniversary of the last major rupture on the Hayward Fault. This anniversary is noteworthy because 140 years is the average interval between the last five large earthquakes on the fault, meaning it could rupture again at any time. In her illustrated talk, “The Hayward Fault: Living on the Edge,”. Ms. Stillwell will highlight the history of the fault, trace its 50-mile path through the East Bay, and explain the likely consequences of another large quake. Such a disaster, she notes, could cause triple the financial loss and affect six times as many people as Hurricane Katrina.
Ms. Stillwell will include a hands-on demonstration of how earthquake stress builds-up within the earth as well as specific tips on how people can best prepare themselves, their houses, and their communities to survive and recover from a big tremblor.
“Many of us have retrofitted our houses and stocked emergency food and water, but there’s much more that we need to do,” says Ms. Stillwell, a structural engineer and Berkeley resident who lives at the bottom of South Crossways path. She specializes in designing new buildings and retrofitting older ones to withstand the forces of major earthquake. She also serves on the boards of the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California and the Northern California chapter of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, which leads the Hayward Fault Initiative to reduce the region's seismic risk.
BPWA began ten years ago when four public-spirited women who loved to walk began discussing how to preserve Berkeley’s pedestrian pathways. In response to their flyer seeking other path devotees, 55 people turned out for a meeting on May 20, 1998. A decade later, BPWA is a well-respected community presence with 550 household members. The group has sold nearly 22,000 copies of its popular path map, Berkeley’s Pathways. It was the first map to show the entire path network, including about 40 city-owned rights of way that were set aside for paths that were never completed. BPWA volunteers ¾ working closely with local officials, Boy Scouts, and civic organizations.
From the earliest days of BPWA, Councilperson Olds has supported the organization and its efforts to finish the missing paths. This year The East Bay Express named Olds “Best Politician in the East Bay.” The paper dubbed Olds “The Queen of Common Sense.”
BPWA’s annual meeting is free and open to the public.
Refreshments will be served.
