Mayor of Port Alberni, B.C., Mike Ruttan was a teenager when a tsunami hit his municipality in March 1964. This year, from June 7–10, his municipality will be the central point of a full-scale major earthquake and tsunami response exercise, the first-ever provincially led earthquake exercise.
The Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District in conjunction with the province will test the BC Immediate Response Plan, adopted in July 2015, developed in the aftermath of the General Auditor’s report indicating that the province wasn’t prepared for a catastrophic earthquake.
“On a personal basis, I am aware of what could happen. As a mayor, I am happy to contribute in any way I can to prepare our community for such event,” said Mike Ruttan, who will play a coordination role in the emergency exercise.
In case of a catastrophic earthquake, Emergency Management BC IRP plan seeks to coordinate the immediate response of all ministries and local authorities to respond adequately and help the recovery as well as saving human lives. Emergency Management BC assigns tasks to accomplish to all ministries following an earthquake.
“We took all ministries responsibility tasks and built an exercise testing the key aspect of those tasks and directives,” said Lyle Herod, Training and Exercise Coordinator at Emergency Management BC. “The best way of testing a plan like that is to exercise it and determine which part works and what part needs improvement.”
The Exercise Costal Response will be colossal. More than 600 people are expected in Port Alberni for a live-play exercise. The ground won’t shake, but simulated damages will be visible. Herod explained that constructed damage sites will be built using beams, concrete slabs and simulation of broken buildings. All this “to create challenges to our first responders who will need to work their way through to find casualties and transfer them to the emergency services.”
The Heavy Urban Search and Rescue team from Vancouver, as well as the police, ambulance, military and fire department, will be involved in the simulation. The Red Cross will implement a mass shelter. Some citizens are going to take part as actors.
Meanwhile, some officials in Vancouver, Victoria and Nanaimo will take part to a scenario where they would have to respond to critical infrastructure damages, to problems of communication and have to deal with administrative duties.
Documents obtained through the British Columbia Freedom of Information Act stated that Exercise Costal Response 2016 “represent the first step toward a series of exercise events to prepare the province for a large-scale earthquake disaster response.”
Herod recognized that the province starts with a relatively small simulation compared to the one that will take place in Washington State at the same time. He said that the province is working to perform those full-scale exercises every two years. For this first practice, the province invests nearly $1 million.
The next exercise might be in Victoria area as the province would learn from this experience. The province would also like to test the plan in the Interior BC. “We hope to see this exercise routine will help enhance the planning in number of diverse communities.”
John Clague, professor in the Earth Science Department at Simon Fraser University and researcher on Natural Hazard, is skeptical. “I don’t think it’s enough, it’s a small step. It’s an exercise, it can’t replicate the reality. The impact of a catastrophic earthquake is so large that exercise can’t replicate the full range of effects we could experience.”
Citizen will notice activity around them, but Ruttan assures that Port Alberni won’t shut down during the exercise. The municipal council promotes preparedness on an individual basis at every council meeting.
Those pages are from Emergency Management British Columbia. The information coming from those pages is all about the Exercise Costal Response, and what is the IRP. The information was useful as there is a new element, is that the province want to test the IRP on a constant basis, every two years, all around the province.
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