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BC is not ready for a catastrophic earthquake: Auditor General

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – A major audit by BC’s Auditor General has found we are not ready in this province for a catastrophic earthquake.

The audit found that Emergency Management BC (EMBC), the organization tasked with preparing government’s response to such an event, is not adequately prepared.

The audit also found that neither the province nor EMBC has made preparing for a massive earthquake a priority.

Source: http://www.news1130.com/2014/03/25/bc-is-not-ready-for-a-catastrophic-earthquake-ag/

Opinion: B.C. started with schools and now must prepare other structures

Province needs to ensure all public buildings are earthquake ready – Ann English

British Columbians who live on the south coast can marvel at how lucky we are to call this place home. However, B.C.’s engineers and geoscientists understand — perhaps more acutely than most — that our extraordinary natural beauty is paired with the ever-present danger of a significant earthquake. And that makes living in paradise just a little more complicated.

The question is not if a significant earthquake will hit B.C. (since 1872, nine earthquakes greater than magnitude 6 have shaken our region, most recently near Haida Gwaii in 2012.), but when. The only question is when our luck runs out and such an earthquake occurs in a much more populated area. As the 6.3-magnitude earthquake that shook Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2011 demonstrated, when such an earthquake hits, significant damage ensues.

Given the inevitability of a damaging earthquake on B.C.’s south coast, our first responsibility is to protect the most vulnerable among us from harm. That’s why the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia welcomes the consultation and public education campaign on earthquake preparedness and response recently announced by the B.C. government.

APEGBC already has deep experience in this area, as a result of our work with the B.C. government and the University of British Columbia to address seismic upgrades at B.C. schools. The B.C. School Seismic Mitigation Program is a tremendous success story; so much so, that the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Israeli government now look at it as a planning model. And it’s being extended to include B.C.’s post-secondary institutions.

What makes the program work? The science and engineering may be complicated, but the principle is quite simple: Partnership. The B.C. seismic schools program brings planners, engineers and government together to apply the best science, the best technology, and the best practices from around the world to the task of organizing our effort to make sure our children are as safe as they can be when an earthquake hits.

For example, APEGBC and UBC have developed assessment tools to determine how schools in different seismic zones will withstand different kinds of earthquakes. In addition, APEGBC has developed cutting-edge guidelines for engineers to follow when planning seismic upgrades to ensure the work is done to the best technical standard. And critical research data from around the world has been brought together in one place to assist in engineering assessments and designs.

The bottom line: because of the mitigation program, B.C. has a smart science-based approach to protect our children in an earthquake, allowing government to efficiently target resources where they’re most needed.

Protecting B.C.’s schools from a significant earthquake is only one part of a much larger emergency preparedness plan. The Christchurch earthquake damaged more than 10,000 homes, destroyed 7,500 more, and resulted in the demolition of 1,400 buildings. The total loss: more than $30 billion, or ten per cent of New Zealand’s GDP. That was in a city the size of Victoria. Imagine the economic impact if a similar sized earthquake hit Metro Vancouver.

To meet this challenge, APEGBC will recommend as part of the consultation process that the B.C. government apply the school seismic mitigation model to all public buildings and critical economic infrastructure. Adopting the application of common risk evaluation guidelines will allow all levels of government and the private sector to better organize and target limited resources. In addition, APEGBC recommends that the core operations of government be included in this evaluation. If an earthquake was to hit Lower Vancouver Island while the legislature was in session, for example, the damage to B.C.’s Parliament buildings could have severe consequences on the operation of government in an emergency.

A significant and damaging earthquake will hit B.C.’s south coast. How we plan for it and respond is up to us. In partnership with B.C.’s provincial government and leaders in the scientific community, B.C.’s engineers and geoscientists have helped B.C. lead the way protecting our children in their schools. Working together, we can use that experience to better protect us all.

Ann English is CEO and registrar at the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of BC.

Source: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Opinion+started+with+schools+must+prepare+other+structures/9655842/story.html

Cobourg, Ont., feels mild earthquake

A minor earthquake caused some light rumbling under Lake Ontario east of Toronto late Wednesday, the U.S. Geological Survey says.

The quake, which had preliminary magnitude of 2.9, happened just before midnight. The epicentre was 40 kilometres southwest of Cobourg, Ont., and 57 kilometres northeast of Lockport, N.Y.

A map on the agency’s website shows the epicentre in the middle of the lake. The agency says it was about five kilometres deep.

The U.S. Geological Survey posts reports on its website from people who report feeling an earthquake. As of 8:20 a.m. Thursday, six people reported feeling the quake — three in upstate New York and three in Ontario.

The three Ontario reports came from Cobourg, Waterford and Port Hope.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/cobourg-ont-feels-mild-earthquake-1.2535312

Vancouver would shake more than previously thought during earthquake: studies

The authors say people driving in vehicles would notice the shaking and suggest it could damage even well-constructed buildings.

New research is shaking the entire notion of what could happen to Metro Vancouver during an earthquake, indicating the area would rock harder and longer from a quake than would other areas given the shape and composition of the ground on which it rests.

Two studies published Monday in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America show that seismic waves would be amplified as they pass through the Georgia Basin, the deposit of softer sedimentary rock that lies partly beneath Metro Vancouver. The findings have officials assessing the earthquake readiness of infrastructure throughout the region.

That amplification could make the ground shake three to four times harder that it would in a different region.

The researchers ran eight separate scenarios and found that a major quake near Metro Vancouver would most likely register a seven on the Modified Mercalli scale, which measures earthquake intensity on a scale of 1 to 12. The damage to well-designed buildings in the area would be negligible in an earthquake of that intensity, while older structures would be hit hard, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

But a different region standing on solid ground would experience an earthquake of the same magnitude as just five on the scale, meaning dishes and windows could break and pendulum clocks may stop.

“The shaking in (Metro) Vancouver would be greater because of the presence of the Georgia Basin, especially when the earthquake occurred to the south or southwest,” says lead author Sheri Molnar, with the University of B.C.’s civil engineering department.

She said the waves would spread outward from the earthquake and would have to cross the deep southeast portion of the basin before hitting Vancouver. That would tend to cause the greatest increase in motion.

The Georgia Basin is shaped like an elongated bowl and lies beneath the Georgia Strait, encompassing southwestern B.C., the eastern half of Vancouver Island and northwestern Washington state. It is one in a series of basins along the Pacific coast of North America, and is filled with layers of silt, sand and glacial deposits. The effects of an earthquake on a basin in Canada had not been studied until now.

Molnar compared the Georgia Basin to gelatin surrounded by a hard block of cheese.

“We’re bringing the earthquake up through the cheese, and then it’s suddenly hitting the Jell-O mould and starting to slosh around and bounce around within that Jell-O.”

British Columbia sits on what’s known as the Cascadia subduction zone, where earthquakes tend to occur either within the Juan de Fuca plate or the overriding North America plate. Big subduction earthquakes, like the one that struck Japan in 2011, also occur in the Juan de Fuca plate.

Molnar’s studies examined the potential impact of deep earthquakes, with a magnitude of 6.8, that occur 40 to 50 kilometres beneath the surface, as well as shallow earthquakes of the same magnitude.

Molnar and her colleagues used computers to look at the impact on tall buildings or long structures. Using three-dimensional simulations of different scenarios, the team found that both deep and shallow earthquakes led to greater shaking if the seismic energy moved through the Georgia Basin.

Scientific research had already suggested that softer ground would create worse shaking than bedrock during an earthquake, said Greg Smith, a director of IT and emergency management at Metro Vancouver, who said he did not yet have a chance to see the study.

“We have done work based on ground types and shaking,” said Smith, who added that his team was now working on maintaining communications between municipalities in the event of a quake.

But Natural Resources Canada researcher John Cassidy, who supervised Molnar’s study, said the work shows the basin could also influence the duration of rippling felt above.

“Essentially what the basin is doing is producing stronger shaking and producing longer-duration shaking,” said Cassidy. “Instead of perhaps feeling strong shaking for 10 seconds, you might feel strong shaking for 20 or 30 seconds.”

Cassidy says the model showed that the area beneath the Georgia Strait shook the most.

When earthquake waves hit the southeast part of the Georgia Basin before reaching Metro Vancouver, southwestern areas such as Delta, Ladner and Richmond experienced tremors three or four times what they would be if the Georgia Basin were not there.

However, if the waves hit the northwestern or northeastern part of the basin, they took a different path and either did not affect the Vancouver area or did not cause a significant increase in motion. Cassidy said the findings will help seismologists determine where to place more instruments to record future earthquakes. He also said the findings can be used to upgrade codes for buildings, bridges and other infrastructure to make them more structurally sound.

“The best defence against earthquakes is through good, modern building codes,” he said. “If somebody is planning to put cables in the sea floor or any sort of infrastructure on the sea floor, this is really important information.”

The duration effect is important, said Graham Taylor, a member of the seismic peer review committee of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of B.C., who helped developed the seismic retrofit guidelines for B.C. schools. He said buildings are pushed to their limits when the shaking keeps going.

“It’s good research,” he said, adding it will be considered when the Ministry of Education produces the next version of the guidelines. “This is going to just more keenly focus the need … on looking at the duration effect even more.”

But he said the guidelines are already designed for very strong earthquakes and the new research doesn’t mean newly retrofitted schools are now out of date or the guidelines should go out the window.

For Patti Bacchus, the head of the Vancouver school board, the studies underscored the importance of getting work started on the nearly 50 schools she said are cited as being high risk of structural damage in an earthquake.

“We have to make this a priority,” she said. “I can’t think of a more important job to get done.”

She applauded the province for promising money for upgrades, but said thousands of students would still be at risk until the work was done.

Frank Huber, a Metro Vancouver manager of water projects, said he couldn’t comment directly on the newly released study, but added that the region was still a decade or two away from completing its necessary infrastructure upgrades.

“We’re partway there, but not 100 per cent,” said Huber, who noted the area’s major dams were already seismically upgraded, but work remained on pipes under the Burrard Inlet that carry water from the North Shore.

He said the Greater Vancouver Water District now has about half of its pumping stations and reservoirs able to resist a major earthquake, but the rest are not yet ready.

Source: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Vancouver+would+shake+more+than+previously+thought+during+earthquake+studies/9409158/story.html

A look at British Columbia’s biggest earthquakes

British Columbia has a history as Canada’s hub of seismic activity, with fully half of the country’s top 10 temblors taking place in that province. Here are the five most significant earthquakes to hit the area:

1700: When a quake believed to have a magnitude of nine rolled through B.C.’s Cascadia Subduction Zone, the technology didn’t exist to document it thoroughly. But the tsunami generated by the temblor was chronicled in Japan, placing the exact date on Jan. 26. First Nations folklore suggests the tsunami destroyed an entire village on Vancouver Island’s Pachena Bay, leaving no survivors.

1946: Chaos reigned on Vancouver Island when a 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck on Jun. 23, killing two people. There were reports of extensive property damage as chimneys toppled and building facades crumbled. The quake also triggered landslides across the central part of the island.

1949: On Aug. 22, Canada registered its largest earthquake since Confederation when a magnitude 8.1 tremor struck along the Queen Charlotte Fault (Canada’s closest equivalent to the infamous San Andreas Fault in California). Although the quake was felt as far north as the Yukon, the sparse population of the affected area meant there were no casualties.

1970: The Queen Charlotte Fault struck again on Jun. 24, causing a magnitude 7.4 quake to hit the offshore Haida Gwaii region. Once again there were no fatalities.

2012: When a 7.7-magnitude temblor rolled through the Haida Gwaii region on Oct. 27, it was felt across most of north-central B.C. including Prince Rupert and Quesnel. The earthquake triggered tsunami warnings and serious social media chatter, but resulted in little property damage and no known fatalities.

Source: Earthquakes Canada

Source: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/look+British+Columbias+biggest+earthquakes/9409135/story.html

It’s high time Victoria heeds seismic wake-up call on legislature building

Governments from Washington to California have shelled out to protect their seats of government. The B.C. government should too.

When a magnitude-6.8 earthquake rumbled through Washington state a dozen years ago, it loosened pillars, separated plaster and cracked the 87-metre-high dome at the venerable capitol building in Olympia.

The damage could have been worse. The capitol building, home to the state legislature, had been roiled by quakes in 1949 and again in 1965, which prompted significant structural upgrades.

Still, the third quake in a little over 50 years compelled the state to redouble efforts to preserve what was widely regarded as one of its most historic buildings, as well as one of the most beautiful.

Over the four years following the Nisqually quake of February 2001, the state shelled out $120 million (U.S.) on a combined seismic upgrade and renovation of the capitol, putting a building that opened in 1928 on track for a second century.

Neighbouring Oregon has experienced first-hand the seismic vulnerability of its own state house in Salem. Twenty years ago, a 5.6-magnitude quake cracked the dome, shifting the statue of a pioneer on top of the capitol and forcing closure of the rotunda until $4 million worth of repairs were completed two years later.

To mark this year’s 75th anniversary of the capitol, the state has launched a more ambitious renovation and retrofit. The $300-million project will ensure the graceful art deco structure is able to withstand a magnitude-7.0 quake.

Los Angeles spent $300 million to retrofit its city hall following the 6.7-magnitude Northridge quake in the 1990s. The 32-storey structure, made famous in television shows and movies from Dragnet to the Bad News Bears, is now engineered to withstand an 8.2-magnitude shaker, not unthinkable in Southern California.

Oakland, California considered abandoning its city hall after the structure sustained major damage in the 6.9-magnitude Loma Prieta quake of 1989. Instead, the city spent $85 million on a retrofit that “floated” the Beaux-Arts style building on rubber bearings allowing it to shift as much as 50 centimetres from side to side during a seismic event.

Some 280 “base isolators” were key to a recent renovation and seismic retrofit of the state house in Salt Lake City, Utah, that readied the structure to withstand a 7.3-magnitude quake. Price tag: $260 million.

Each of the aforementioned jurisdictions recognized the inevitable: sooner or later, in a geologically active region like the one we share with them, a major earthquake will inflict serious damage or perhaps even collapse on the structure that is the seat of government. They also faced up to the not-inconsiderable cost of preserving a heritage building that was as old as it was irreplaceable.

But here in B.C., both government and Opposition have balked at addressing the no-less-real threat to the more than-100-year-old provincial legislature building.

“When every last elementary school in B.C. has been seismically upgraded, then we can attend to this building,” as New Democrat John Horgan put it just the other day, and he was speaking for members on both sides of the house.

The occasion was a report to the all-party legislative assembly management committee on the imminent need to spend $6 million rectifying a shift in the dome of the legislature. Part of a projected $70 million worth of repair and maintenance that ought to be done sooner than later. Both preludes to a full-blown seismic retrofit, estimated at a quarter of a billion dollars, maybe more.

Real money to be sure, and one can readily understand why cautious politicians would hesitate to spend it on making their workplace safer for themselves, as many would see it.

But the value of “the ledge,” as it is known colloquially in the capital, is not as an occasional (lately very occasional) debating chamber for politicians. Nor is it simply a matter of preserving any old building. Though the adjacent armoury building, where my office is located, is even older, I wouldn’t waste $1 preserving it because it is as ugly as it is ready to fall down in a stiff wind.

The legislature building merits special treatment for historical as well as architectural reasons. Its unique status is validated by the almost 90,000 people who visit every year, including — ahem — the many children who attend some 350 special school tours.

The province is spending hundreds of millions of dollars seismically retrofitting bridges, hydroelectric dams, transmission lines, all manner of public buildings, and even a sports stadium. Our most irreplaceable heritage structure deserves a place on the priority list as well.

The last government to fully recognize the importance of the place was the one headed by Dave Barrett. His 1972-75 New Democratic Party government launched the first extensive restoration of the legislature, committing $40 million at a time when the annual provincial budget for museums, art galleries and libraries was $4 million.

Forty years later, a similarly inspired exercise is no less overdue, albeit on a schedule that might well be spread over a decade or two for the full-blown restoration and retrofit.

Ideally, it would start with the appointment of an independent panel, endorsed by all parties but separated from any bad feelings about today’s crop of politicians, and dedicated to coming up with a plan for saving what is surely the finest building in B.C.

Source: http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/Vaughn+Palmer+high+time+Victoria+heeds+seismic+wake/9238504/story.html

Old buildings, coastal areas most vulnerable to major earthquake in B.C.

Older structures and low-lying coastal areas would be most at risk if a powerful earthquake were to strike southwestern B.C., according to seismologist John Cassidy of Natural Resources Canada.

“You would see the greatest effects along the west coast of Vancouver Island,” said Cassidy—both the strongest shaking and the highest tsunami waves. “In Victoria and Vancouver, you would see damage mainly to older buildings—brick buildings, for example, that haven’t been retrofit.”

Newer, earthquake-resistant buildings would be less likely to collapse, although falling glass would be a likely hazard in inner-city areas.

To estimate the impacts of a massive quake, Cassidy and his colleagues use a set of models based on evidence from past seismic events in northwestern North America, and the effects of recent disasters of similar magnitude that have occurred elsewhere—including northern Japan, Chile, and Sumatra, Indonesia.

The models suggest that shaking would last three to five minutes, and would be followed by a tsunami—which, like the seismic waves, would diminish in intensity the further it travelled from its point of origin, Cassidy explained.

“The wave essentially loses energy as it propagates through the Strait of Juan de Fuca, around the Salish Sea and into Vancouver.”

The wave would be three to four metres high in Victoria Harbour, and roughly half that height in Vancouver, the models project.

Southwestern B.C. lies near the edge of a subduction zone, where the the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate is being submerged beneath the larger North American plate. Over time, stress and compression build within the rocky crust, until the energy is suddenly released—causing the land to shudder. Geological records and Indigenous oral histories indicate that subduction earthquakes near 9.0 on the Richter scale occur in our region at intervals of between 250 and 850 years. The most recent of these cataclysms struck just over three centuries ago.

“We have this ocean plate that’s being pushed toward us at about four to five centimetres a year,” roughly the pace at which our fingernails grow, said Cassidy. “But over 100 years—over a lifetime—that represents four to five metres of movement.”

Three different types of earthquakes affect southwestern B.C., said Cassidy: the megathrust subduction earthquake discussed above; the crustal earthquake; and the deep earthquake. The latter two tend to be less intense, but are more frequent. Events like the 7.8-magnitude tremors near Haida Gwaii in late October 2012, that sparked a tsunami warning, can also pose substantial dangers.

Various levels of government have acknowledged these risks. Canada’s National Building Code requires that structures conform to a high standard of earthquake resistance, and seismologists at Natural Resources Canada have created maps of communities based on seismic dangers. The provinces each have emergency response plans, and the federal government’s Department of Aboriginal Affairs has a protocol for emergency response on First Nation reserves. The City of Vancouver, like many other municipalities, has recently updated its earthquake preparedness plan.

Emergency planning specialist Gordon Redmond believes that, while those measures are all laudable, officials and civilians alike would be better served by a more comprehensive approach to risk mitigation and response—both in terms of public safety and financial cost.

“It’s great to see that [governments] are taking these threats seriously, and that they’re looking at programs and strategies to address them,” said Redmond. However, “it would be more cost-effective if they would look at a basket of hazards” and consolidate them into a single risk assessment, he added. The price tag of natural disasters in B.C.—including fires, floods, landslides and wind storms—is rising, and according to Redmond’s calculations, cost an average of $184,000 per day from 2007-2012.

“If we did a systematic analysis of all of our hazards, we could actually determine what they are, how far they are away from us, how soon they will get here, how long they will last. And we can map out what areas of our built environment would be in harm’s way.”

As Redmond noted, a major seismic event in Vancouver could entail a cascade of problems: the collapse of buildings and other structures; the rupture of oil and gas pipelines, or water and sewage pipes; the failure of power lines, roads and bridges; the release of hazardous materials; the liquefaction of alluvial soils in the Fraser River delta; and the spread of fires through areas inaccessible to firefighters, particularly if transportation infrastructure is compromised. Finally, the potential for a tsunami is real and grave.

The aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that struck the Tohoku region of Japan illustrates Redmond’s point. The initial earthquake damaged buildings and infrastructure, including the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, and liquefied soft soils near the shore. And although sea walls encircle approximately 40 per cent of the Japanese coast line, some over 10 metres in height, the structures offered little respite from the wave, in part because the earthquake had caused the land to subside. Despite a sophisticated tsunami warning system, rigorous building codes, and world-class standards of earthquake preparedness and response, more than 19,000 perished, and over 300,000 were displaced from their homes.

“In Japan, the buildings did very well during the earthquake; it was the tsunami that caused most of the devastation, and that tsunami was larger than what they were expecting in that part of Japan,” noted Cassidy.

“When the subduction earthquake occurs off our coast, we know that parts of Vancouver Island will subside, perhaps a half metre, perhaps one or two metres,” he added—a potentiality that governments and regulators need also take into account.

Redmond recommends mapping as many threats to communities as possible, adjusting land use patterns, and taking advantage of natural geographic features to help avert potential tragedies. But another significant hurdle, he said, is dealing with various levels of government. Elected officials and staff preside over different jurisdictions, and convincing parliamentarians to plan for events more than four years down the road is sometimes a challenge.

In B.C., for example, the province has domain over Crown lands, municipalities preside over zoning, and the federal government bears responsibility for First Nations.

“Imagine: You have all these jurisdictions, with their own bureaucracies, but you only have one fire. And the fire doesn’t read your plans.”

Although tsunamis and damage to buildings and infrastructure may accompany a massive quake, the majority of injuries related to seismic events, Redmond observed, owe to a less sensational cause: falling debris in the home, workplace, and school.

For individuals and families, Redmond has simple recommendations: avoid placing heavy items on high shelves, and keep two weeks worth of food and provisions on hand, including a flashlight and replacement batteries.

“Pretend you’re going on a long camping trip,” he said.

Source: http://www.vancouverobserver.com/city/old-buildings-coastal-areas-most-vulnerable-major-earthquake-bc