In the event of a tsunami-inducing earthquake in the Georgia Strait, the City of Richmond wont need to wait an hour for a call from the province before it issues an evacuation warning.
The B.C. government has been criticized by several communities in the wake of Saturday nights 7.7 magnitude shaker the biggest in Canada for 60 years off Haida Gwaii in the provinces North Coast.
Some places, such as communities in Haida Gwaii and Tofino, waited nearly an hour before official tsunami alerts were issued by the provinces Emergency Management B.C., which is responsible for issuing warnings during emergencies.
Minor tidal surges had long since passed by the time many communities had received the alert.
We rely on provincial and federal information, as well as local intelligence and we have designated people that deal with actually putting out a notice, said City of Richmond spokesman Ted Townsend.
The province is usually on top of these things, but we can take a look at our own situation and we certainly dont need to wait on everyone else; much like the way Tofino dealt with the situation on Saturday.
As news of the massive earthquake broke, 800 kilometres away in Richmond, the city was fielding a number of concerns from locals via its Facebook page, with people questioning why Richmond wasnt springing into action.
There was a tsunami warning sent out for the North Coast and other parts of the B.C. coast, but not for this area, explained Townsend.
We did get a fair bit of Facebook traffic right after the earthquake from people wondering if they were at any risk and asking if we were sending out a warning.
But it wasnt at the point where we felt it necessary to put something out; although we were monitoring the situation throughout the evening.
A lot of people were getting confused about the difference between a tsunami warning and an advisory, said Townsend, noting an advisory just tells people to be careful around water. There wasnt even an advisory issued for our area, he added.
Richmond is still working on formulating its own emergency preparedness notification, something thats been in the pipeline for many years.
Its taken us a lot longer than expected; it was approved by council a number of years ago, but we ran into a number of privacy issues, said Townsend, explaining it will be a phone-based system of mass call-outs in an emergency.
So if we have an area that needs evacuated, we would be able to do that with speed. Were getting closer and it might not be too much longer.
In any event, as far as the city is concerned, Richmond, with its unique soil being prone to
liquifaction, has more to worry about from the earthquake itself than the subsequent tsunami.
Theres not been a significant tsunami event on the Fraser River Delta for more than 4,000 years; the main reason being were sheltered by Vancouver Island, said Townsend.
Most of the predictions are that the water would rise to about half a metre and our dykes are a minimum of one metre. A tsunami is way down there in terms of a threat to Richmond.
But if we were to experience a major earthquake, obviously we would have major problems.
As it happens, the city is in the process of running community workshops to prepare people for the very eventuality of a major disaster, such as an earthquake.
The damage here would be severe, so people should expect to be on their own for at least three days, added Townsend.
Food, water and candles are a given, but we increasingly live in a cashless society and people should not expect to have access to ATMs after such an event a debit card will be of no use.
Details of the earthquake preparedness workshops are on the citys website at www.richmond.ca.
The city does have its own, extensive emergency preparedness plan, a planning session for which was held just last week.
Everyone involved got together...we went through a number of scenarios and looked at some of the challenges we might face, said Townsend.
The B.C. government and Emergency Management B.C. both said they were happy with their response, but acknowledged they should look for faster ways to get the information out.
Such was the remote location of Saturdays earthquake, no damage or serious injuries were reported. But officials say the event is a reminder that the entire coast is prone to earthquakes and is overdue for a big one.
