California offers $3K grants to retrofit homes for earthquakes. Here's what to know

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- When your house starts shaking from an earthquake, you want to be sure it's secure. Unfortunately, it can slide right off its foundation.

"Pre-1980 house may have this vulnerability. The pre-1940 house does have this vulnerability," warns Janiele Maffei of the California Earthquake Authority.

In Southern California, there's tens of thousands of homes that are not built to withstand a major quake. They were built on a foundation but not actually secured to that foundation. In severe shaking it can shift the entire house.

"The house as a body kind of slides off," Maffei said. "But when it comes down and it hits that ground, you know, it's also got that shaking beforehand, a lot of damage can be done to that house, not just to the foundation but to the superstructure."

To avoid this, California is offering a simple solution that could save your home. It's called the Earthquake Brace + Bolt program. It does exactly that - brace and bolt your home to the foundation.

"There's a lot of houses that don't have enough bolts or not bolted at all," contractor Greg Sylvis said.

One home in Burbank is like any other from the outside but go deep under the house and you can see brackets that bolt the foundation to the underside of the building.

"There's these metal brackets that are put on the side of the foundation that connect. There's a board on top of the foundation... It connects that board together with the foundation," Sylvis said. "You do the perimeter of the house to the foundation. It's done on the interior perimeter, so you have to crawl underneath the house, and there's no damage done to the outside."

The Earthquake Brace + Bolt program now has money through the Federal Emergency Management Agency to offer grants to homeowners to cover the cost for retrofitting.

"These are not loans. These are grants. We provide up to $3,000 through our Earthquake Brace + Bolt program," Maffei said. "It's about a 5,200 statewide average for the retrofit, more expensive if you've got a little bit more complication. It can be less... Just extremely easy for a contractor to do. You're going to get a permit. All the work needs to be done with a permit."

You can apply for the program from now until March 26. Officials stress it's not first come, first serve. They're going to analyze all the applicants and then there will be a random selection of people who qualify.