Advising Public of Quake and Possible Tsunami a Colossal Screw Up
Monday, October 29, 2012 @ 3:45 AM
Sometime early this week the province had better sit down and come up with a plan to notify people who are affected by an earthquake, because the efforts Saturday night in advising the public of what was going on would score 2 out of 100.
We at 250 News received a call from a reader in Vanderhoof just after 8:05 pm. They told us they were in the midst of an earthquake and people on her street were all standing outside wondering what to do. That was followed by a call from Quesnel, then Terrace, Prince Rupert and McBride and Prince George.
By putting the pieces together, we were able to guess that the center seemed to be around Prince Rupert by the way the severity of the earthquake was being described and so we contacted the RCMP in Prince Rupert. The message there was short and to the point and for that we thank them. "The information about the quake is coming from WC.AT.WC. Have to run we are in an emergency here trying to get people evacuated."
Our first story appeared at 8:20pm. after we had contacted the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center and learned that the earthquake was a 7.7 and was located, according to them, about 30 miles south of Sandspit on Haida Gwaii. We then began to piece together damage reports and the fear of a Tsunami. At 8:27pm reporter Don Hawkins contacted a PR type in the minister of justice’s office and they did not know that an earthquake had even taken place. He was looking to speak to Minister Bond or someone who could hand out information about the earthquake and possible consequences. Hawkins wanted to talk to the minister, I took the position that all I really cared about was the safety of the people affected; We quite frankly didn’t give a damn what the minister had to say.
We then began putting out as much information to people in Haida Gwaii because it seemed to be the area where the most people were affected. We were receiving intercepted radio messages about evacuating some of the low lying areas of Prince Rupert , Masset and Sandspit and how people in boats were trying to get the message out to those who could be become seriously impacted should a Tsunami hit.
We were pumping out information to have people get to high ground in Rupert and Masset, while at the same time fielding calls from around the province of the effects.
People like Rob Vallee and Rob Eby in Prince Rupert were a tremendous hand in keeping us up to date on what was going on in that area.
Now if the so called Emergency Office was up and running in Prince George, Terrace and Victoira, we sure as hell weren’t hearing from them. We were all over the story and I suppose, in hind sight, that is good, but our only interest was in trying to ensure that people were out of harm’s way from any after effects.
If the so called emergency office was up to speed, who did they call? All of the radio stations for the most part throughout the entire north are on Auto pilot for Saturday evenings. Most newspaper types are not working and so you would think we should have been happy to have the scoop. That however is not our first job, which is to inform the people and thereby hopefully save some lives if we can lend a hand.
We went to Emergency INFO BC and it said they are open "Monday through Friday between 8:30 and 4:30 unless there is a level 2 or 3 provincial emergency", whatever that means. There are 16,000 followers on the EMergency Info B.C. twitter account, that’s up 500 from Saturday and by the way, for the province’s information, there are over 4 million of us in this province.
The Americans didn’t have a problem getting the information out to the public, but then unless I am wrong, they live in another country.
The province might want to get one of those bells like they used to have at small shops that rings when you walk in. When an earthquake hits the bell starts to ring and then someone gets up from watching Saturday Night Live and pulls a switch which sends a message down the line to inform them that an emergency is under way and what it is. It is a novel approach and it sure beats the hell out of one of the Cabinet Ministers phoning all the mayors in the affected areas to tell them an earthquake hit about an hour ago and they had better do something about it. That "hour" as we saw in Japan, is just 50 minutes too late.
So quit making excuses Province , come clean , it was a colossal screw up and you better fix it because unless to can convince God or whoever is responsible for these acts of nature to have them occur only during the week day between 8:30 and 5pm you have a problem.
I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion.
Comments
http://www.globaltvbc.com/tofino+mayor+says+district+made+decision+to+activate+tsunami+sirens/6442742661/story.html
I think it is worthwhile reading this above account from a mayor of Tofino, a coastal community that actually has signs, sirens, and a plan for tsunami preparedness, and it sounds like they activated it.
Tofino was put on alert by NOAA, a US government organization. If we do not have such an organization, then perhaps it would be in order for the feds to start looking at some self reliance in such emergency preparedness and research organizations instead of wating money on stealth fighters that are of no use for anything.
Besides, should we not be asking what PG Council did during all this time? Who cares about Rupert, Tofino, Victoria, etc.
We need to be able take care of our own. THAT is the whole idea!!!
http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov
A site for those who wish to protect themselves and watch for earthquakes in the Pacific as well as potential for tsunamis.
You can also go to the part of the site which provides information of how to protect your community.
At time of this posting, the latest earthquakes were close to Sandspit at 1541 PDT OCT 28 2012 with a magnitude of 4.7
http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/events/PAAQ/2012/10/28/mcmkd5/1/SEUS71/SEUS71.txt
And one close to Monterey at 2125 PDT OCT 28 2012 with a magnitude of 4.1
http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/events/PAAQ/2012/10/29/mcn0a3/1/SEUS71/SEUS71.txt
Speaking og natural disasters, does anyone care about our Nechako River icing and winter flooding problem? …. How about the devastation of the forest industry due to the mountain pine beetle ….
Instead of helping us take care of those kind of things, they are worried about damage to docks from large waves ….
Us plateau dwellers are just not on anyone’s radar screens.
I saw on the CBC last night that Prince Rupert used to have a Tsunami Warning System, but it was dismantled years ago by the Gov’t. They weren’t specific which level of Gov’t took it down.
Yes, it seems to me that the government could have done a better job, and that independent people and independent media (e.g., Facebook, O250) were much more helpful in getting the word out fast. Sometimes beurocracy is just dead weight. Let’s hope the government learned something and will get it right.
They really screwed it up,no question!
What is hilaroius is listening to Shirley Bond try and downplay all the things they didn’t do!
The truth is just not in these clowns…what a good little puppet Bond is!
All they are really doing is making themselves look even worse than we already know they are!
Admit the screw-up instead of campaining!
Seems to me the Government was caught off guard by the Quake, much the same as they were not prepared for the Vancouver riot.
As I said before, its time for these various levels of Government to grow up, and start to look at the real problems facing this Country, and get away from the BS politics and propaganda that we get every day. If the Liberals spent one tenth of the time they spend on campaigning on actual problems, we could make some headway.
As far as the Nechako ice flooding goes, anyone who cares to can go down to the mouth of the Nechako river now that we have low water, and you will see, without a doubt that this river has silted (especially on the South side) over the years to a point that it has a huge effect on ice build up and flooding. Now is the time to look at it, and do something about it, however you will not see a politician anywhere in the area.
A huge dredging program funded by the Fed, Prov, and City, would solve the winter ice, flooding problem for years to come.
Im willing to bet that the politicians will do nothing except sit on their butts and wait for the next flood.
Ben,
I usually agree with you however here is how emerency management is suppost to be done.. Its not the governments job to assume Incident Commander when an emergency happens.
It is up to the local municipality/government to have incident command measures in place that are to be co-ordinated by local emergency services ie) Fire department,Police,Search & Rescue ect. The government and Provincial Emergency Progaram kicks in when these local services need aditional help/services. They act on reports from the incident response which explains the lag time it took for government to do a public response.
The reason early warning and incident command is initatied at the local level is becasue it is the primary source of information.(First Response.)You dont want mixed information and orders coming from the top down.. Especially from a government agency which has not yet had all the facts presented.
Can there be inprovements to the government advisory system. The answer is Yes however there is no perfect model for this and when it comes to emergency management sadly alot rests on past lessons learned. Sepetmber 11th was a huge step in emergency management systems and the screw ups at ground zero were a result of top down government management.
Im not trying to defend the governments actions or lack of actions here however what most people dont know is that there is a specific chain of command when it comes to emergecy managament and that chain of command was developed by first responders who have the front line experince. Therefore if the govt was in deed acting in their place in the chain of comand public mud slinging is not warrented. Opinion250 did a great job of coverage.
“however you will not see a politician anywhere in the area.”
I hope not!!!! They know squat!!!
What politicians have to do is to make sure the people whose jobs it is to monitor conditions (looking at low water conditions is part of that) and set up maintenance as well as emergency preparedness are doing their job as expected.
So, since tonight is a Council meeting, I would expect the question to be asked …. how is our preparedness for ALL emergencies going.
Seems to me they have been spending millions on eartquake proofing buoldings in the province but appear to not even have a bell that would ring if there is an eatbnqake.
Cheers
Ben,I was born and raised in Prince Rupert and have been everywhere on the west coast.
In the seventies there was a landslide on the Terrace/Rupert highway and shut us out for over 2 weeks grocery stores were running out of supplies and eventually supplies were barged in from Kitimat…There was no panic and no riots and I don’t remember any fatalities,and this was in the middle of winter.I`v also been through a couple of tsunami warnings on the west coast and all emergency response teams done a very good job.
We faired very well,even with out O250 thank you.
I`m not defending government response either but unless all the necessary data is collected and the proper direction of emergency response is directed there is no need for mass hysteria.
We need to get over the idea that the government should be watching out for us 24/7/365.
Level 2 or 3 event range from moderate to major event,2 or more event sites,Major scheduled event or regional disaster,multiple agencies involved.limited to extensive evacuations,minimal resource/support to full required.
That and some staffing requirements.
“We need to get over the idea that the government should be watching out for us 24/7/365.”
I agree …. given that thought, here are a few suggestions for the core services review which would save us some money:
1. remove all traffic lights and use the simple right of way rule
2. remove all street lights – cars have headlights and people can use flashlights
3. forget about plowing streets, buy vehicles appropriate for the conditions
4. forget about help during floods – monitor the rivers yourself and move out when you feel you have to
5. police protection? Why? Protect yourself, carry a gun and use it when necessary.
6. fire protection? why? fight you own fires and help your neighbour if you don’t want your building to catch fire from his.
After we finish with the city core services review and get rid of all the excess spending we can move to see where the province can save money and then the feds …..
By the time that is finished, we will have enough to buy a PAC or two and sit down and enjoy ourselves.
Reminds me of the old western towns when the streets were dirt and every town had an “opera house”.
;-)
That’s awesome gus.
The British solution to fix the problem is to eliminate all these inefficient provincial governments all together and let the federal government take charge, like in Britain.
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