Bond Backs Government Quake Response
Sunday, October 28, 2012 @ 2:51 PM
Prince George, B.C. – Emergency Management Minister Shirley Bond says the provincial government continues to gather information on the effects of the big earthquake that rattled the B.C. coast Saturday night. “The best news is there have been no reports of injuries and minimal damage.”
Bond says “it was a very significant seismic occurrence. The fact of the matter is it was the location, it was more than one hundred kilometers away from communities and obviously the geographic location of the event allowed for this to have a very low risk factor associated with it. The same is true of the aftershocks we’re experiencing.”
Bond says the government is still trying to determine how many people were evacuated from their homes in coastal communities. “Obviously these are very remote communities and we are working at looking at how many people were evacuated. There were a number of communities that did have some movement of people, not all of them that received a tsunami warning but where there were emergency plans that required evacuation at low-lying levels some evacuation did take place. People are still in the midst of responding.” However she says most emergency operations centres have shut down. Bond says aftershocks continue to take place, with more than 40 reported so far including one measuring 6.4, 136 kilometres south of Masset. She says there is no way to predict how many there will be.
The minister says the tsunami advisory for the province was lifted at about 10:20 Sunday morning. “But as importantly is that there have been no reports of unusual waves since about 11 o’clock last (Saturday) night.” B.C. Ferries indicated that no docks had sustained any damage.” B.C. Hydro has been assessing its situation on a continuing basis.
Bond also says the local emergency plans of various communities worked well. “The plans that local authorities had in place last night worked very effectively and we’re going to continue to gather the information about the direct impacts.”
During a teleconference Saturday night government officials were asked about people in the quake zone not being able to find information about what was going on and what they were to do. Emergency Management officials say the information is available in a timely manner at Emergency Info BC. Bond was asked how people are supposed to know to go there. “We spend countless amounts of energy attempting to have British Columbians be aware of that. We send out public service advisories, we talk about it, in fact we just went through one of the largest earthquake drills in British Columbia’s history where 600-thousand people participated.”
Bond says the government has other ways of getting information out. “We do our very best using a wide variety of media to actually get out the good news that there is help for you and here’s where the information can be found.” She says over the course of a five-hour period Saturday night “we gained over 65-hundred new followers to Emergency Info BC.” However it was pointed out that, in the case of this quake, many of the people affected are in remote locations and don’t have things like computers, cell phones or Twitter accounts. Bond says “it’s certainly not the only way to go and it’s not what we rely on either. We have to rely on emergency plans that are in place in the local communities and many of these communities would have tsunami warning systems that would start sounding alarms physically so that people can actually hear them in their communities. It’s not about Twitter only, it’s about looking at a wide number of sophisticated ways that plans are put in place. Local authorities who are the first line of defence when these things occur have emergency plans in place, that is how to notify their residents, how to move them from low-lying lands, that’s exactly what happened last (Saturday) night.”
Bond responds to criticism that people couldn’t get immediate information. “While I can understand that people want information as quickly as possible, and that is critical, we also need to make sure that information is accurate. And so it is a balancing act between speed and accuracy, and what matters to me is when British Columbians get information, it’s accurate and it’s done as quickly as possible.” Bond also says “we have an exceptional team of professionals in British Columbia that are on standby 24 hours a day to make sure that if something occurs in British Columbia we’re aware of it. So we should be clear here, as soon as the government knew that there was a situation in this province that opened the provincial Emergency Co-ordination Centre. We had a provincial emergency response operations centre up and running in Victoria, in Prince George and in Terrace. That was done within a matter of a very short period of time.”
Bond explains why she could not be reached for information Saturday night. “My job during an emergency is to receive initial briefings that are strategic and yes, I did not return immediate media calls because I was actually being briefed on the magnitude of the public safety concerns for this province. That’s my first job.” Bond says her job is to make sure first responders have all the information they need to make the decisions about how to protect people.”
Comments
âMy job during an emergency is to receive initial briefings that are strategic and yes, I did not return immediate media calls because I was actually being briefed on the magnitude of the public safety concerns for this province.”
Exactly. The Minister’s job isn’t to respond to every phone call from every fire-truck-chasing radio station and ‘media outlet’. The Minister’s job is to find out what’s going on, react accordingly and show leadership at a time of potential emergency.
The think the Minister’s response in this case was entirely appropriate.
Considering what happened in the Indian Ocean 2004 I`d have to say we still have it pretty good here.,at least we are able to receive tsunami warnings.
Our own tsunami ought to get a lot of that pile of garbage from Japan moving at the speed of an Express Post envelope.
The problem Bond has is her record..she has hurt every ministry she has been in, she has moved up the political ladder for some reason..it isn’t because she is good at her job….people are tired of her.. She represents her party and not her constituents. Best part is she is done this election…be interesting to see where she ends up after she gets sent packing.. Will see who hires her and with that we will see who she has been pandering to.
Funny Pval, I don’t know Bond or Bell personally, but I think they’ve done more for the interior and the north than anyone in the NDP has ever done. Glad they’re here.
She is related to Gordon Campbell P Val.
Exactly my sentiments, Slim2229 …… P Val is just spouting off and has provided no substance to his/her rantings. It almost seems like it is a personal thing.
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Back to the emergency preparedness in place in remote communities.
For instance, in Tofino there are sirens in place at several locations. When I was there at a time when there was a quake off the California coast, those responsible for beach patrol advised those on the beach of what was happening and requested we leave the beach soon in case a tsunami was headed our way.
The main problem I see is that the ability to predict tsunami propagation, size and travel direction is very primitive. Saturday night CNN was predicting a tsunami could hit Hawaii. The reporting sounded very credible with animations explaining how a tsunami travels. They could not have been farther off the mark though.
From the horse’s mouth, as they say. The mayor of Tofino … a place which should know more than most along the North Coast.
http://www.globaltvbc.com/tofino+mayor+says+district+made+decision+to+activate+tsunami+sirens/6442742661/story.html
http://tofinophotography.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/20111025-img_3221-2.jpg
One of the sirens on the beach in Tofino
Wasnt there a Liberal Party Convention on Saturday night. Maybe thats why they were a little hard to get a hold of.
I was in Port McNeill and was advised of the earthquake by a call from someone in Prince George, who phoned to see if I was OK.
We did feel the Motel shake, and the lamp swung back and and fourth which was our first indication that something was wrong.
It was not easy finding any information . The local radio station continued to play music. (Probably taped). We were able to get some info from the Weather Network, and from the CBC later in the evening.
One thing was quite clear. It seemed that no one anywhere really knew what the hell was going on.
I think that it would be fair to say, that if all levels of Government spent a little less time on trying to get re-elected, and spreading BS all over the Province, and a little more time on all the trouble we face, from high taxes, to rotting infrastructre, to emergency services, doctor shortages, etc; we would be much better off.
Give us a bloody break from politicing, and get to work.
And in case there is a power outage along with a disaster, we should all learn smoke signals.
Hey Gus…you agree with slim do you.. And what did he say…” I think they have done more..blah blah blah.. But his comment has no substance either..funny how w hat he said was fine…lol
Shouldn’t it be about time you cut and pasted someone else’s opinion.. :-)
Maybe having some emergency phone numbers in your phone might be an idea.
Areas directly affected seemed to be handling things fine.
Get a grip people, it was a non-event. This story is longer lasting than the earthquake and tsunami ! And still some of you are able to make this into a political issue ! You can’t fight nature !
“The main problem I see is that the ability to predict tsunami propagation, size and travel direction is very primitive. Saturday night CNN was predicting a tsunami could hit Hawaii. The reporting sounded very credible with animations explaining how a tsunami travels. They could not have been farther off the mark though.”
Exactly. The USGS originally reported the quake was a 5.8 (according to this site). The point is, especially in the early stages, information is hard to come by. I suspect most people criticisng the government are those with personal axes to grind.
Hey P Val … you avoided the implied question that this is a personal thing with you.
I was watching CNN and they had all sorts of horror stories about Hawaii being on alert, as if they did not have enough going on with Sandy on the east coast.
Wish they would have reported about the coast of Washington and Oregon, etc.
News happens where there are news people on duty. If you are a little hamlet, or a little known town, it is like everything else, you won’t make it on the news and you have to take care of yourself – wildfires, blizzards, earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes, it really does not matter. The big cheeses in urban america get the attention.
http://www.emd.wa.gov/hazards/prog_ahab.shtml
That is the State of Washington’s All-Hazard Alert Broadcast (AHAB) Siren system. Tofino has a some of those sirens located on beaches. I do not know whether other areas in BC have them.
I think it is time BC citzens and Canadians all over the country are made aware of how well we compare to the USA, for example, with respect to emergency measures in natural disaster situations.
Then again, watching Katrina and many tornados and hurricanes and LA wildfires, it appears that the USA is not quite as good at preparedness and post disaster response either …. In fact, maybe we are just as good or better …..
Hurricane Katrina,It took them 5 days to get water to the convention center during the aftermath of said hurricane..it took less than that for them to get to Haiti.
Sup with that???
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