The widespread use of structural shotcrete actually began long before the first appli-cation was made. Its rise was politically motivated and its continued development dictated by the occurrence of earthquakes. Responding to a school fire in the 1920s, the Los Angeles School Board directed that all future school buildings be constructed of masonry. However, masonry of the day was not reinforced, and several hundreds of these buildings were destroyed or damaged in the great Long Beach earthquake of 1933. Fortunately, the quake occurred in the early morning hours when the schools were unoccupied; had it been during the day, hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries would have likely resulted.