VANCOUVER – Residents of the “most vulnerable city in Canada” aren’t prepared for earthquakes the size of those that have hit Japan and New Zealand recently, Vancouver city council said Tuesday.
And while the city has spent more than $100 million over the last 20 years upgrading buildings, water lines and bridges to withstand a major temblor, it still needs to do much more.
With images of the tsunami-devastated northern Japanese coast still fresh in their minds, Vancouver council on Tuesday ordered a series of reports – to be done as quickly as possible – on how to capitalize on the lessons coming out of Christchurch, New Zealand, and Sendai, Japan.
From lists of which civic buildings, schools and bridges are most at risk of failure to the status of the city’s natural gas lines and power systems to a revised public education program to teach residents how to survive the big one, council said they need to know and do more.
Mayor Gregor Robertson called Vancouver “the most vulnerable city in Canada” and said it needs to “obviously ramp up our efforts to ensure the people understand the next steps in the event of a disaster.”
Coun. Suzanne Anton said: “I think there is a lot of public awareness issues that need to be dealt with yet.
“The one really interesting thing that has come out of that terrible tragedy in Japan is finding out just how well-prepared they are. Practice, practice, practice, they really seem to know what to do.”
Japanese residents may have earthquake preparedness in their DNA, but Vancouverites do not. After the Sendai earthquake, free emergency preparedness orientation classes in Vancouver that at one point were in danger of cancellation due to lack of interest suddenly became full, council was told.
“I would say this is a wake-up call to the residents of Vancouver,” said deputy city manager Sadhu Johnston, who gave council a comprehensive review of the city’s emergency preparedness efforts to date.
Johnston, who came recently from Chicago, said he hadn’t really heard the public “talk about earthquakes before Christchurch. Now they’re talking about it.”
But how to capitalize on that awareness is still a problem, he said. Vancouver is consulting with San Francisco on how it continues to keep public education alive following the disastrous 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake that levelled large parts of the city.
Council was given an extensive briefing by its city engineer, fire chief and other staff about Vancouver’s efforts to prepare for temblor of more than 6.0 on the Richter Scale.
Last week’s Sendai earthquake was magnitude 9.0, while last month’s Christchurch quake measured 6.3.
Scientists don’t believe Vancouver is at a great risk of a tsunami because it is sheltered by Vancouver Island, said Kevin Wallinger, the city’s director of emergency management. At best, modelling shows sea levels would rise gradually by up to 1.6 metres. But the west coast of Vancouver Island would be at major risk of a tsunami if an earthquake were to occur along the Juan de Fuca plate.
Most of Vancouver’s major bridges have been seismically upgraded to prevent decks falling, but that won’t mean they will still be safe, city engineer Peter Judd said.
“We want them to not fall and kill people,” he said later. “If they survive then we would assess whether they can be used for access by emergency service.” Since the 1990s, the city has also built a $54-million separated fire suppression water line fed by two saltwater pumping stations that cover 90 per cent of the downtown core and large areas of Fairview Slopes, where buildings largely aren’t sprinklered.
Judd said the city has protocols to shut down major reservoirs in the event of an earthquake because many of the city’s water lines would break and fail, and it’s likely the major connections from the North Shore watersheds would break under Burrard Inlet.
The reservoirs, along with new wells being built on city golf courses, would form the backbone of fire suppression and emergency water service to hospitals and other key installations, he said.
The fire department has also invested strongly in its Heavy Urban Search and Rescue team, which includes 99 people, just over half of them firefighters, Fire Chief John McKearney said. This year, the team attracted 36 new members and is the only nationally certified urban rescue team in Canada.
But many councillors are not convinced the city, region and province have done enough.
Coun. David Cadman noted Vancouver International Airport is built on delta land that would liquefy in an earthquake. The city’s schools also aren’t up to seismic code, meaning many children could die or be hurt if a temblor the size of the Sendai earthquake were to hit in the afternoon, as it did in Japan. The heritage art deco city hall and its east annex would likely crumble in a major event, facilities manager Garrick Bradshaw acknowledged under questioning.
But it is the state of public awareness that most worries the city. Many people don’t have a basic survival kit that would allow them to live without government assistance for the first 72 hours, Johnston said.
Many also haven’t made arrangements with their families on where to meet in a disaster. Anton said she’s also worried that many of the city’s private homes aren’t properly bolted to their foundations. And she wanted to know how the city would deal with the 40,000 people who work downtown but live elsewhere.
She suggested the city’s sanitation department send out annual cards, similar to its garbage pickup calendar, that homeowners can use to update their family contact information, status of emergency kits and even the last date they changed their emergency water supplies.
Johnston said he hasn’t been given a deadline for reporting back to council but expects it to be within months.
jefflee@vancouversun.com
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