After last week’s strong earthquake in the Haida Gwaii a former Commander of the Kitsilano Coast Guard base is, again, warning the federal government against shutting the facility down.
Fred Moxey says Kits base would be one of the only structures in the area to survive if the “big one” ever strikes Vancouver.
“Kitsilano was rebuilt in 1991 after a fire destroyed it. The station has been built to withstand the highest earthquake that we would expect here on the West coast and the pilings are right down in the solid bedrock.”
Moxey says the Richmond Sea Island base where Coast Guard assets would be consolidated is not built to withstand an earthquake and sits in an area with a number of concerns, including liquefaction, in the aftermath of a big quake.
He says Coast Guard hovercrafts and other craft would end up out of action if they were in dock at Sea Island base when a quake struck unlike Kits base.
“They would be available to communicate to the rescue centre in Victoria and also through to the city of Vancouver as to the navigable water ways, bridges would probably be compromised, and they would also be doing search and rescue, they would be perhaps fire-fighting”
Moxey says replacement assets like an inshore rescue boat and volunteer Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue staff would be unable to fight fires and would likely have a hard time even getting crews to various bases after a serious earthquake
He says Kits base isn’t just manned around the clock but staff are highly trained for situations like emergency response.
“We have trained in the past where we have set up a portable hospital in tents in Vanier Park with physicians and nurses and EHS also the parking lot there we have in the past and trained for securing that area so that we can use it as a helicopter pad for bringing or taking away injured citizens.”
When contacted the Coast Guard said there were some buildings at Sea Island base that are also built up to code.
They also said there is no guarantees any building will survive an earthquake.
A University of British Columbia expert on Earthquakes, liquefaction, and the Fraser river delta admits Richmond may not be ideal when it comes to surviving an earthquake intact.
Professor Peter Byrne says the liquefaction danger comes from the ground Richmond is built on.
“The crust of clay material about three metres thick thats fairly stiff and won’t liquify. Underneath that you have loose sand to a depth of ten metres or more that will liquify in the event of a large earthquake and so the concern then is this material from about three metres to ten metres that it would liquify.”
Byrne says if an earthquake strikes directly under the city then all bets are off.
He compares it to the 1995 Kobe, Japan earthquake that killed over 5000 people noting the Fraser river delta shares similar characteristics.
“Flooding would be a concern and cracking of the dikes would be a concern.”
He says the ground underneath Kobe liquified and caused massive problems.
“And that caused all their water, sewer, power lines to break and so they had to evacuate 30-thousand people out of there just because they had no water, no sewer, no power, that is very much like the condition for the Fraser Delta.”
But if the “big one” ever strikes in Richmond he doesn’t anticipate the death toll to be similar to Kobe, but the aftermath of the quake will bring mammoth challenges to Richmond.
“I don’t think it would kill that many people basically BC Hydro can’t provide the power and bascially you can’t provide the water there so you would have to evacuate the Fraser delta probably have to get 300-thousand people out of there because they wouldn’t have the supplies they need so it would be the greatest evacuation since Dunkirk.”
In 1940 during World War II Allied forces evacuated over 300,000 soldiers from the French port in about a week ahead of an invading German army.
When asked where the safest place to be in Vancouver during an Earthquake for people or emergency responders Byrne said the peninsula of Vancouver towards UBC.
The Federal NDP say the latest concerns over earthquake response is just another example of the poor though put into closing Kits base and moving the resources to Richmond.
West Coast Fisheries critic Finn Donnelly says it is clear the federal government didn’t consult anyone before making the move including stakeholders, the city of Vancouver, experts, or even Seismologists.
“I think the government had very little of any scientific input on the impacts of an earthquake or on the strategic location of buildings that would withstand any kind of earthquakes or tsunamis that could hit the Fraser.”
Donnelly says the city of Vancouver and its port, the country’s largest, will be left without any Coast Guard resources in the aftermath of a serious earthquake if Kits base is closed and the Coast Guard is consolidated at Richmond’s Sea Island base.
In an email the Ministry of Fisheries and Oceans says emergency response is purely a local matter and the federal government only assists when asked to do so.
The email also states emergency response to any disaster or incident is much larger than any one agency.
The ministry adds with the closing of Kits Coast Guard base there will be no danger to safety or impact in dealing with emergencies like earthquakes.
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