[note: I was feeling very powerless and dejected about the state of emergency planning in Tofino when I wrote this post. My aim with this article was to at least provide Tofino locals with the information that I believed that they must have in order to adequately prepare for this big earthquake+tsunami event… which will come, we just cannot say when. I moved away from Tofino less than a year later, in large part because of the issues I’ve written below. This article has been slightly revised from the original 2010 version]
Sometimes I wish I didn’t know the things I know (see references listed at the bottom of this article).
But even if I didn’t have a PhD in Structural Geology (study of movements in the Earth’s crust, e.g. faults), and even if I hadn’t read most every scientific paper published about the earthquake and tsunami risk here on the West Coast, I think I’d be asking someone who did know. This is life-and-death stuff.
This subject is even more relevant now, with a new geological study published last month, saying that the likelihood of the big earthquake+tsunami coming within the next 50 years is nearly 4 times higher than previously thought. I sold my house on Chestermans based on the old data – now the odds have gone from 10% to 37% that it will happen within most people’s life-times. (See: http://www.globaltvedmonton.com/world./Pacific+Northwest+faces+higher+risk+more+frequent+earthquakes+Study/3070694/story.html)
So I don’t get how people can be so apathetic about this. Is it because we don’t get the constant magnitude 5 and 6 temblors in between the occasional big one, like they do in California and Chile and Japan, to remind us that this is real? Is it because people don’t like to think of bad stuff; or believe that if they ignore it, it will go away? Is it because people have seen too much disaster on TV, that they just cannot fathom that it can and will also happen to us?
I honestly don’t get it. But, in spite of that, I have been fighting for over three years to get Tofino to take responsibility by (a) providing relevant information to residents and tourists and (b) coming up with an emergency preparedness plan that will actually help save lives – unlike the current plan which endangers hundreds or even thousands of people by directing them into the inundation zone rather than away from it!
But guys, I’ve been trying to advocate for our community – and now I give up. Even if I prepare personally (stocking up on food and supplies), if the rest of my community is not fully prepared, I will be affected by the shortages.
So I’ve revised my personal plan. After it hits, I’m getting out of here. I’m riding my bike, hiking it through the sections where the highway is caved into Kennedy Lake, through to Port Alberni. And if there is not enough help there, I’ll continue through to Nanaimo or Victoria, to whatever place is big enough that the international aid is actually getting through.
And I feel bad about this. I am not the kind of person who believes in ditching their community, in leaving them in a time of disaster that was anticipated and could have been prepared for. But there’s only so much of a solo effort one can do before you actually have to focus on yourself and earning your living and all that, and stop getting all stressed out about things that you can’t seem to influence.
So I at least want to leave you with some information. I still care about you all, and I definitely don’t want you all to starve out here. Maybe some day someone will start to take this seriously, and this info will be of use.
So here are a few things that I think are important to know for you to make your own personal plan. And, at the bottom of this post are links to the articles I have written and the various media interviews I have done trying to get someone, anyone, in our village to get off their butts and actually do something useful about this.
1. You should have a plan for both types of events. One is our own earthquake (very strong and damaging, lots of buildings down, trees across the road, many people badly injured) followed by a major tsunami about 15 minutes later. The other is a tsunami from elsewhere, in which case we would presumably have several hours warning* and the roads would actually be driveable.
(*Oops, well we would have warning if the tsunami sirens promised to us in 2005, 2008, spring 2010, and now for fall 2010, were here. It’s getting a bit hard to believe our municipal government’s promises – but everyone just keeps letting them get away with these false promises).
And, if you’re wondering, the reason we don’t have them is because, two years running, our municipal representatives wrote requests for federal funding for tsunami sirens where the funding criteria said clearly that these grants were not eligible to fund emergency warning systems such as sirens. They “chuckled” when they found out they were turned down the second year for the exact same reason as the first year).
[ed. June 2011 – sorry, these Westcoaster links in previous 2 paragraphs are now defunct. JW]
2. The tsunami will be a series of waves coming in over a period of about 12 hours. So, in the case of our own big earthquake, if you live (or happen to be in) in the inundation zone, your emergency plan should involve getting yourself – and a minimum of possessions, e.g. warm clothes, a water bottle, and a granola bar – up to high ground within 15 minutes (or as quickly as possible) and staying up there for at least 12 hours. It is more important to go up there with nothing, and spend a chilly and hungry 12 hours, than to delay your flight by finding stuff to take with you.
3. Emergency plans and emergency kits should be specific to the event (two scenarios listed in Point 1 above) and to whether you live within the inundation zone or above it. I’ve written lots about this in my other articles.
4. Probably 10 m above the high tide mark is high enough – but better if you can get higher, just in case. In my view, the current evacuation instructions will put people into unecessary danger. Have a look at the official evacuation route map: TsunamiTofinoMapBroch (2.2 Mb pdf). The areas in white are above the 15 m mark; the areas in yellow are likely to be inundated by tsunami waves. The arrows telling people where to go direct people INTO these inundation zones! If you think you can get to where the arrows tell you to go before the first tsunami wave is supposed to hit, then great, feel free to try it out. But, in the case of our own earthquake, where the roads will be damaged and you only have 15 minutes to get to safe ground, I suggest you run to the nearest white area. I suggest that you memorize now where these are, so you won’t have to be looking for this map at that moment.
5. The emergency kits they outline are ridiculous, and make no distinction between the two types of events or whether you live within the inundation zone or not. (People who live up high don’t need a grab’n’go kit – they just need long-term survival supplies. And people who live down low don’t need much in their kit, just enough to survive 12 hours. It’s more important that you can run fast with it, than that it has everything under the sun – such as the listed crowbar). I’ve written lots about this elsewhere too. (I also sold my house on Chestermans and bought “on the rock” in town for good reason).
6. Different from the “grab’n’go kit” is the issue of long-term survival. Provincial recommendation suggest you have 3 days of food and water stockpiled. OK, you know what Highway 4 looks like – it’s caving into Kennedy Lake even without any earthquake. That highway is going to be out for weeks, if not months. Boats and planes are not going to be focussing on delivering aid to Tofino – the area of damage will be so extensive that they will focus on larger population centres: Vancouver, Victoria, Seattle, Portland, Nanaimo, Port Alberni, etc. etc. etc. Tofino will get little or no outside help for weeks or months. So you figure out how much food you should have put away. And what about your neighbours? If they don’t stockpile, too – are you going to compromise your own security by sharing, or are you going to defend your food and watch them starve? Tough questions, eh? I’m tired of trying to get people to talk about them – that’s why I’ve changed my plan and will be riding my bike out of here.
7. Speaking of food, what if it happens in summer? Who is supposed to stockpile the food for the 10,000-20,000 tourists in town? No one’s talkin’ about it…
8. Oh, then what if it happens in winter? Remember Haiti? With all of the damage to houses and all of the aftershocks, people were afraid to go back into their homes, and slept on the streets instead. That’s not so great on a Caribbean island – even worse in Tofino winter: cold, wet, dark.
OK, I am just putting it out there. I think everyone should have the right to accurate information, so they can make their own decisions.
But I give up now, I’ve been trying to get somee discussion and action on this for over three years. You guys are on your own with what you want to do with it. Like I said, I’ll be out of here.
Items referred to in this article:
Info about the character and magnitude of our expected earthquake and tsunami events (PDF, originally published in The Westcoaster and the Westerly newspaper, April 2007)
A critique of Tofino’s emergency plan (PDF, originally published in The Westcoaster and the Westerly newspaper, April 2007):
Further thoughts on Tofino’s emergency planning, and what we can learn from Haiti (pub. January 2010):
https://tofinoresidents.wordpress.com/2010/01/26/earthquake-anniversary/
My interview on CBC’s The National TV news (broadcast June 1 2010, click on the “Tofino” clip):
http://www.cbc.ca/thenational/indepthanalysis/story/2010/06/01/national-bcearthquakes.html
My interview on CBC Radio’s On the Island (broadcast June 21 2010):
http://jwindh.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/bcontheisland_2010063e2b14.mp3
Tofino Residents 
30 comments
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July 6, 2010 at 10:58 pm
judi
Hi Jacqueline,
I just wanted to let you know that I for one appreciate the work you have done to make this little town of ours more aware of what needs to be done in case of an earthquake/ tsunami event.
I was wondering if you have any idea what we could expect with a shift in plates 100 miles off our coast. Do you know if we would get sustained shaking or would it be just one large shift? People seem to know now that if the shaking continues for 2 or 3 minutes they should head to high ground but I am curious if there would be just a huge crash and then a great wave appearing within minutes.
Cheers, Judi
July 6, 2010 at 11:15 pm
Jacqueline Windh
Hi Judi –
Thanks, that’s good to hear. I sure would appreciate it if other people spoke out publicly, too.
I think mayor+council see it just as me speaking out – I think they just think I am some angry shit-disturber – and that they don’t realize that there are other people in Tofino who would like more info and action as well.
Anyway, to answer your question:
Our fault is on an angle. Where it hits the earth’s surface (at the bottom of the ocean) is 75 km straight off the coast. But you have to remember it is a plane, not a line. It is not vertical. It angles downwards fairly shallowly, at something like 35 degrees, so it is actually only 25 km down straight below us. That’s pretty close!
When it breaks, it will set off a bunch of vibrations that will travel through the rock – just like if you drop a pebble in a pond it will send out a few waves, not just one wave. If you are a leaf floating in that pond, you might have the waves pass under you for maybe 3 or 5 seconds.
When our fault breaks, the waves spread out in pretty much the same way, except for they are way way bigger. Each wave is one “shake”. Each shake will be about 8 or 10 feet across (I can’t even imagine that!) and the shaking will last for 2 or 3 minutes. (This is why I worry about our evacuation routes, and our planners’ assumptions that people will be able to drive on the roads).
The tsunami wave that follows is caused by the movement in the ocean floor where the fault hits the surface. The W side of the fault will drop down by several metres, and that movement of the rocky sea-bottom is what generates the wave. It will likely take about 15 minutes for that tsunami wave to travel the 75 km (from where the fault cuts the seafloor to where we are at shore). It might take a little longer if the epicentre is more off of southern Washington or Oregon. (If the earthquake is way down there, our shaking won’t be as strong up here, but beware: even if the shaking is weak, if the quake lasts 2 minutes it is a BIG one – expect a tsunami! Whereas if the shaking is weak and the quake only lasts 30 seconds, I wouldn’t worry about a tsunami).
Hope that answers your questions!
Thanks again,
Jackie
July 8, 2010 at 10:21 am
Thor Tandy
It is currently estimated that the shaking will last for 5 minutes … everything has to kinda re-align downward a meter or so and westward 4m or so … it’ll feel like an eternity. It could be a series of bumps, but might be one bit slip. Chile was 2 min with a 2m tsunami. We will get a 6m tsunami and topography will determine height at any particular location. If it’s a M9.5 you won’t be going anywhere for the first 5 minutes … you’ll be wondering where the hell the ground is off to … so you’ll have maybe 10 minutes to go a-running somewhere. So enjoy …
Maybe invest in some scuba gear and a surf board, assuming you won’t be brained by either the surf board or all the other detritus coming along for the ride …
Jackie’s right. Go test how long it’ll take to get to the white areas … and that’s on a good day!! On the actual day, if you are not practiced, the War of the Worlds scenario will look like a school outing.
Either way, be afraid, very afraid … you might come up with with a brilliant idea :^)
September 28, 2010 at 4:34 pm
Erin
Wow….I care! I really do! Those are great questions, and the “what if’s” are one day going to be “why didn’t we anticipate this”.
Inundation Zones, how it currently is handed out to community members and guests visiting our Pacific Rim, has surely not been looked into properly. I have little to no knowledge on geology, effects ect, but have wondered many many times why (especially in Tofino) people would be directed to attempt driving to a “safe zone”, when you are absolutely right, there will be no driving about it, “when” we get the big one. At that almost ALL of Tofino is the inundation zone…all around Pacific Rim Park….the village except higher up in the village, when congestion occur with everyone trying to get out at once…no one will be going anywhere and that’s a scary thought when there are MILES between Combers and the village. What about the “stops along the way” which are safe…IE Radar Hill, up in behind the garbage dump…places which are safe?
I hope our municipalities will make this a priority to discuss and make changes, and get a warning system in place, in the meantime we are going to work on our own different plans for different scenarios, and work on starting emergency packs for all the rentals which the guests staying with us will have access too.
Thanks so much for getting the word out there, you will likely save lives by the information you have provided!!
May 19, 2011 at 6:17 pm
Claudia
Thank you so much for putting this information together — this is very helpful!!
May 19, 2011 at 8:10 pm
Jacqueline Windh
Thank you so much Claudia, it means a lot to me that you appreciate it. It’s been a lot of work on my part, and I am very dismayed by the lack of response by my community about this – to the point that I am moving away from Tofino. We cannot prevent the earthquake/tsunami event – but if we got off out butts and worked together on planning, we sure could save a lot of lives. Look at Japan – 2 months in now, and still a lot of people suffering.
But I do know that at least some individuals have been able to work on their personal preparedness thanks to the information I have provided, so I am glad of that at least.
May 19, 2011 at 8:54 pm
Claudia
Before I forget, I should mention that the Westcoaster links no longer work. I guess they decided not to leave an archive for posterity, which is a pity.
I’ve only lived here just over a year, but during that time there have been three tsunami alerts (Chile, NZ, Japan) and I’ve been really taken aback by how everyone seems to be completely oblivious to the danger. There are no sirens, no official personel directing traffic, no people heading for higher ground, nothing.
During the last one, I headed for town around 6:40am. After sitting in my car until the Common Loaf opened, I went there for breakfast. Next to me were a couple of tourists who hadn’t heard about the quake in Japan or the tsunami alert for Tofino. The tsunami was predicted to hit around 7am; if it had hit us hard, these tourists — and lots of locals — would’ve been swept away by the water.
It’s a shame that you’re moving away, but I understand your reasons. (My stay is temporary, so I was always planning to leave sooner than later. This situation means I have less regrets about doing so.)
All that aside, thanks again for all the valuable information!
May 19, 2011 at 9:16 pm
Jacqueline Windh
Yup, exactly. Instead of having info out there that will actually save lives, we have nothing. Except for our mayor babbling on Global TV about how the locals “should” know where to go (Should??? Thanks to who???) but that “the visitors….I think they’ll be running around like crazy.” Oh gee, now that’s good promo for a community that lives off of tourism, thanks John. But as usual, no one in this community says anything. (In case you missed his brilliance, you can listen to him at: http://www.globaltvbc.com/video/index.html?releasePID=puz_QEZNiKcrTaCIzOLAXtFF3h_fv8fZ – around 4:15). Also, at 3:20 in the same clip, you can see a video simulation of the tsunami wave hitting Chestermans – it runs pretty fast, so you have to stop it, rewind, and replay a few times to truly absorb the “impact” of it… but think Japan. We all saw those videos.
Thanks for the reminder about those dead Westcoaster links. They’ve archived the pieces. Here are the new ones – I’ll update them in the original post right now:
http://www.westcoaster.ca/news/archives/2119-Earthquake-Tsunami-Advice-Not-Appropriate-Local-Scientist.html
http://www.westcoaster.ca/news/archives/2162-What-You-Need-When-Emergency-Strikes.html
FYI, my parting info (partly rant) to the community, along with live links to all of the info that I have published and all of the interviews I have done for radio and TV, is listed in this post on Ralph Tielman’s blog:
http://tofinonews.blogspot.com/2011/03/guest-editorial-by-jacqueline-windh_18.html
(As you may have noticed, I gave up on this blog over a year ago. As it says in the header, it was meant to be a venue “for people who care about community” but it ended up being a solo effort).
May 23, 2011 at 10:33 pm
Jacqueline Windh
Oh – I am very sorry, it looks like the Westcoaster has taken down even their old archived posts. So none of those links works right now. I don’t know if I even have copies of those old articles on file. If I do, I will republish them.
May 24, 2011 at 3:19 pm
Claudia
If you do have copies of the old articles, I would love to see them! Thanks again for all your help.
May 24, 2011 at 3:22 pm
Jacqueline Windh
Woohoo –
I looked and found them right away! Will format and post them when I have time (probably over the weekend).
May 24, 2011 at 3:33 pm
Claudia
Awesome, I look forward to reading them!
June 15, 2011 at 12:39 am
Jacqueline Windh
Hello Claudia and everyone –
I’ve uploaded the texts of those old 2007 articles – so the links in this post (above) and the Jan 26 2010 post now go to the following pdfs, saved from the original text files I submitted (these articles were originally published in both the Westcoaster and the Westerly in April 2007):
Click to access earthquake_tsunami_critique_1.pdf
Click to access earthquake_tsunami_critique_2.pdf
Sorry the formatting is not great – hope you can still cut and paste the links if you want to follow them up.
Cheers, Jackie
June 15, 2011 at 3:48 pm
Claudia
I downloaded both PDFs, many thanks for all the info — it’s all very helpful!
January 5, 2013 at 12:40 pm
maggs
your plan sucks and it will stop at port. any tsunami would flood and potentially take out the orange bridge and river road.. then you’d just be stuck in the middle of nowhere but have fun with that.
January 5, 2013 at 12:51 pm
Jacqueline Windh
Umm, thanks for your kind and thoughtful words, Maggs. Gotta love the internet.
So that was my plan 2 1/2 years ago, when I still lived in Tofino. And yes, the idea was to stop at Port – unless things were really bad there. It was a better plan than starving in Tofino with all the people who wouldn’t be able to leave. Yes, I agree that the bridge at River Road would probably be out (I’m pretty sure the other one will be fine, though) – but I think that once I made it that far, to the Somass River, someone would help me (and others around Sproat Lake) into town. If worst came to worst, I could swim the Somass River. All of that better than starving (or fighting neighbours for food) for weeks, if not months, in Tofino.
But, like I said, that was 2 1/2 years ago. A year after writing that, I moved to Port Alberni. Emergency options for anyone in Tofino, whether you decide to stay or try to leave, pretty much suck. So here I am, east side of town, way high up. Sure, I’ll still feel the quake here – but I won’t be hit or cut off by the tsunami.
January 5, 2013 at 8:58 pm
danielle
i find it interesting that you just wrote this today and i just found this today with I and my boyfriend planning on spending the summer in tofino once again… hard to know what to do, with such a big love for the island, seems like with all the earthquakes now happening it will be sooner then later, do you know if because there are more earthquakes that it means the big one is next?
January 5, 2013 at 11:17 pm
Jacqueline Windh
Hi Danielle –
There is no way of knowing. Earthquake prediction is a very inexact science. Geologists can calculate probabilities of one coming, but they cannot predict when. In some fault zones, lots of little quakes could mean a big one is coming. In other fault zones, lots of earthquakes means that the energy is being released by those small quakes, so a big one is less likely. We don’t have enough info here (because our big ones are so far apart, 500 years on average) to know how this fault zone works.
But what we DO know is that a big one is DEFINITELY coming. The chances of it coming this summer, while you are there, is very small. But it still could happen. I don’t think that people should live in fear (if you are THAT fearful of earthquakes, you simply should not go). But I think you should just go with the knowledge that it could happen, and what to do if it does. So you are not problem-solving at the moment that the ground starts shaking, so you already have a plan on the very small chance (like less than 1% that it would happen this summer) that it does.
Sorry I can’t be more exact. But I think you are doing the right thing, to ask these questions. People should not live in fear – but they should live with full knowledge of what could happen, and what they should do on the small chance it does. Like I have said to many people, there is a very very small chance that it will come in any one particular year. But if (when) it does, it will be very very bad. So it is good to know what to do.
Best wishes,
Jackie
May 28, 2013 at 11:49 am
Paul T. Mitchell
I am interested in the current state of emergency planning in Tofino. I teach a planning course at Canadian Forces College where we use Hurricane Katrina as a case study. I always ask at the end “could this happen here?” and discuss the earthquake/tsunami threat to the West coast. The blog post is now three years old – how have things changed?
May 28, 2013 at 12:19 pm
Jacqueline Windh
Hi Paul –
Thanks for your interest.
I can’t fully answer your question – I moved away from Tofino two years ago, in part because the so-called “emergency plan” actually puts people in MORE danger than if people did not follow it, and in part because I was so frustrated with a municipal government system that was defensive and even antagonistic, and had no interest in actually coming up with a better plan.
Since then, Tofino has got a new mayor, Josie Osborne. She is a really wonderful and intelligent and good-hearted person, and I am hoping that emergency planning will be one of the things that she focusses on.
So I am not up on what things have changed. I know that two tsunami sirens have been installed – I don’t think they were installed in very logical locations. They are at the far ends of inhabited areas, at the far north end of Chestermans Beach and the south end of Cox Bay – as if whoever chose the sites thought they need to be installed at the edges of the tsunami zone (one of them was actually taken out by storm waves while under construction!) rather than in an area where they are likely to survive storms/tsunamis, and where their sounds will actually reach a maximum number of residents. By being at the extreme ends of the inhabited zone, and right on the shoreline, most of each siren’s radius of coverage is uninhabited rainforest, and people on the inlet side (only a few hundred m behind Chestermans Beach, and in the most dangerous part of the tsunami inundation zone) likely will not hear them. I think a lot of Tofino’s problem is that the emergency planning has been done by people who are well-meaning, but who have little or o specialist knowledge.
I understand that the Tofino Hospital has independently undertaken many measures to make their place and their supplies more resilient to disaster – I don’t know the details of what they did, but I understand that they won some award for their good emergency planning.
Other than that, I do not think much has been done. I am not sure if the evac routes have been changed (one of my many concerns is that the evac instructions had people moving INTO the tsunami zone, to get to distant “safe” areas when there are safe areas within a few hundred m of most homes). I do not think that those nearer safe zones have been identified and indicated to the public. I don’t think there is any realistic planning for how many potential deaths will occur, not just in Tofino, but up the whole coast (OR, WA and BC) after the magnitude 9 quake-plus-tsunami. I don’t remember off the top of my head, but it seems to me that official estimates are that something like several hundred people could die… but if you compare that to how many people died from the very similar-magnitude Japan event, that would seem to me an underestimate. In a bad case in Tofino (mid-summer quake then tsunami 15-30 minutes later, and enough quake damage that people cannot drive out of the tsunami zone – with 10,000 or more tourists in town) I think that many thousands of people could possibly die in Tofino alone. Hopefully not – but I think it is a possible scenario.
I also think that the planning has really only focussed on the tsunami itself – not enough on the very huge quake that will precede it (it will be one of the biggest quakes ever recorded on our planet) and how the damage/injuries resulting from that quake will have a big influence in people’s ability to evacuate. And it needs to focus on the months after the quake… look at how hard it was to get aid into Haiti or Japan, for weeks or months after, and the months or years of providing food and water and shelter after the quake. The road to Tofino will be cut off in many places, and it will take months if not years to rebuild it. What if there are 20,000 tourists in town when the quake hits (or even just 1000)? Official plans ask residents to have between 3 and 7 days of food stockpiled… to my knowledge, no one has talked about who is to stock emergency food for the visitors. There will be 1000 km of coast, and lots of big cities requiring aid… Tofino will probably not be very high up on the list. It will essentially become an island, and I think that things could get very nasty for the survivors there in the weeks and months following the quake, as they struggle to do whatever they must do to feed their kids and themselves.
So… I would say to check with the new mayor and the village of Tofino to find out what has been done since I wrote that post. A few things have changed, but I don’t think that a lot has changed. I sure as hell would not want to live there… other than that I am an endurance athlete and ultrarunner, and if I did live there my personal plan would be to know where to go to survive the 12 or so hours that the tsunami waves are hitting (run up the nearest hill) and then get out: hike/run/bike overland out to Port Alberni (approx 135 km, probably some sections of the road entirely landslided out). But many people are probably not in a condition that they could do that.
I think that there is the potential for very terrible loss of life here. And I think that much of it is preventable – but people are refusing to look at it. In Italy, they prosecuted seismologists AFTER an earthquake for failing to predict the risk of it happening. I would like to be able to prosecute government officials for failing to do their jobs with adequate care BEFORE people die, and prevent that tragedy, rather than wait until all those people die, and then analyse what could have been done. We already know what is going to happen, and what needs to be done.
May 29, 2013 at 9:45 am
Paul T. Mitchell
Thanks for the detailed answer: as many of the issues you raise were the subject of our classroom conversation (with regards to emergency planning in the Katrina case) I have shared your comments with our students.
May 29, 2013 at 10:05 am
Jacqueline Windh
I am glad you are looking at this and discussing this in your classroom. I think a lot of the problem in situations like this is that it could be REALLY bad. And people don’t want to think of such bad things. So they don’t.
But by not thinking about it, and not coming up with the best possible plan, many people are going to pay with their lives… needlessly. But I think that many people just naturally have that tendency… the “I don’t want to think about that possibility” tendency. I don’t get it, I don’t think that way. But obviously many do, in spite of the obvious consequences.
April 2, 2014 at 4:03 am
raincoaster
Reblogged this on raincoaster and commented:
Well, this is a chipper document to read while the west coast is on tsunami alert because of the big earthquake in Chile. An internationally known structural geologist says to Tofino “You’re all gonna die. (Whatever).” If the well-wishes weren’t bad enough, the excruciating punctuation adds the perfect fingers-on-a-chalkboard note.
January 7, 2015 at 11:55 pm
Louise
Hi,
Thank you for this article, I have only just read it now many years later, but still find it helpful. I live in ucluelet however, at about 20m elevation, and although I’ve probably gone over our various kits a million times I have never been at ease about what might happen down our end of things. Any thoughts?
Thanks
Louise
January 8, 2015 at 12:25 am
Jacqueline Windh
Hi Louise –
My biggest advice is to remember that you need two different plans, and therefore two different kits.
One is for the moment the earthquake hits. Have plans for how to get out of the places that you frequent (e.g. home, work) and get to high ground, out of tsunami range. You may have as little as 15 minutes to do that. So have a plan and know where you will run to (you may not be able to drive). If you have a “grab’n’go” kit for that, great – but don’t waste valuable time looking for it. Really you probably just need a space blanket, a granola bar, and a bottle of water – you only need to survive 12 or so hours while the tsunami waves come in – and you can probably survive that long with NOTHING – even in winter.
Then you need your longer-term survival kit. When the big one finally comes, it’s also going to affect all of the big cities – Seattle, Victoria, Vancouver etc… so I wouldn’t count that Tofino and Ukee and Bamfield will be very high on the “get help” list. Official recommendations are to have something like 3 days of food and water. I would suggest WAY more than that. The road will probably be out at very least at Kennedy Lake (it’s already falling into the lake even without an earthquake!) as well as at the Somass Bridge (Port Alberni), so you won’t be getting out – and food may not be coming in either. Possibly for weeks, or even months.
I don’t think you need to store water in Ukee and Tofino, there’s lots around – just have purification tablets or drops or something. Have a camp stove with lots of fuel. And have weeks of food – if not months – but it doesn’t all have to be in a specific emergency kit. Cans in your pantry count too, and flour and stuff like thatif they are in cannisters, not bags. (Dried beans etc. too – but they will use a lot of your fuel). Home-canned jars of salmon, fruit, etc. are great if you can store them in a way that they won’t break during the quake (a challenge for me, too – boxes on the floor?)
Hope that helps!
Jackie
October 8, 2015 at 11:22 am
Don Peterson
Hi Jackie,
I’m visiting for a couple of months, and just now finished reading about the Cascadia subduction zone in the NewYorker :
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one
Thanks for your efforts,
Don Peterson
October 8, 2015 at 11:52 am
Jacqueline Windh
Cool, thanks for the appreciation, Don.
Yes, that is a great article (other than she calls faults “fault lines” – which drives me up the wall! They are planes, not lines – the word “fault” is correct!).
Couldn’t help but feel, as I read it, though, that it really says what I said 5 years ago – and got so much grief from so many people in Tofino over. Well, now they have an out-of-town source for the info, so it must be true…
Enjoy Tofino! And make sure you know where to run to, just in case!
April 19, 2016 at 11:30 am
Jay
I’m heading to Tofino for a couple of days next week… now I’m a bit nervous! I’ve never been in the area before, I have no idea where I’d go, where the high ground is, anything like that. Is there any way to make it back to the East side of Vancouver Island in the aftermath of a tsunami?
April 19, 2016 at 11:40 am
Jacqueline Windh
Not likely.
If it’s “just” a tsunami (in other words, from a quake far away like Japan) the road may be washed out in places lke Chestermans Beach and around Long Beach. Who knows for how long – I’d guess maybe a few days?
But if it’s “our” earthquake, the road will be likely out in so many other places, with trees down all over and landslides in the steep parts such as along Kennedy Lake. My guess is that it might take months to repair the road in that case (keeping in mind that there will be damage over large parts of the province – they’ll allocate resources according to priority).
I’d say don’t worry too much. Statistically speaking, it is SUCH a slim chance of happening while you are there. But go armed with knowledge. From wherever you are staying or hanging out, have in mind where you would get to ON FOOT to if a big earthquake hits. Ideally some place that you can get to in 15 minutes or so. If it’s a big quake, go directly there and stay there for at least 12 hours, until all the tsunami waves have passed. (The main townsite of Tofino, Campbell St and above, is probably high enough. The School and the Community Hall at the top of 1st definitely are. If you are staying out by the beach, scout out the hills and have a plan).
Like I said, it is extremely unlikely to happen. If you are so worried about it that it is just going to ruin your vacation, then just don’t go. I’d say just go, and have fun, but have a plan in the back of your mind wherever you are.
April 26, 2016 at 10:10 am
Don Peterson
Pulitzer Prize Winner
KATHRYN SCHULZ
Kathryn Schulz joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in 2015. In 2016, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing and a National Magazine Award for “The Really Big One,” her story on the seismic risk in the Pacific Northwest. Previously, she was the book critic for New York, the editor of the environmental magazine Grist, and a reporter and editor at the Santiago Times. She was a 2004 recipient of the Pew Fellowship in International Journalism and has reported from Central and South America, Japan, and the Middle East. She is the author of “Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error” (2010).