Hospitals stand on shaky future

When the 1994 Northridge earthquake damaged 11 nearby hospitals, California legislators issued an ultimatum to hospital owners statewide: Fix your highest-risk buildings by New Year's Day 2008 or the state will shut them down. The law might have brought a burst of new construction to the Southland and a wealth of tough-walled hospitals designed to survive a major rupture on the southern San Andreas Fault, the most dangerous fault in the state. That never happened. Today, nearly four years after the initial deadline passed, more than 30 buildings at 9 San Gabriel Valley and Whittier area hospitals are rated at a "significant" risk of collapsing and posing a danger to the public after a strong earthquake, according to regulators' reports and records obtained under the state's Public Records Act.