Sandra Eisert received the Atrium Award for Graphic Design while working at the "San Jose Mercury News". At the "San Jose Mercury News" Eisert helped cover the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The staff won the Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting next year, citing "detailed coverage of the October 17, 1989, Bay Area earthquake and its aftermath." In 1990, Eisert was one of three judges who selected entries in a national exhibition of Women in Photojournalism that was taken on a national tour by the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), a professional society of still and video photojournalists. In 1991, Eisert received
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake was built on was filled marshland, and half was somewhat more stable alluvium. Because of new highway structure design guidelines—the requirement of ductile construction elements—instituted following the 1971 San Fernando earthquake, a limited degree of earthquake reinforcement was retrofitted to the Cypress Viaduct in 1977. The added elements were longitudinal restraints at transverse expansion joints in the box girder spans, but no studies were made of possible failure modes specific to the Cypress Viaduct. When the earthquake hit, the shaking was amplified on the former marshland, and soil liquefaction occurred. During the earthquake, the freeway buckled and twisted before the