Every time I visit Tofino or Ucluelet, I tend to become super-sensitive to any instances of the ground shaking, no matter how small the movement is.
I figure that if I’m unfortunate enough to be on the Island’s west coast when the “Big One” hits, I want to be one of the first ones flying towards the high hills on the highway back to Port Alberni as the anticipated tsunami crashes over the Tofino-Ucluelet peninsula, taking everything in its path.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the west coast.
It’s a spectacularly beautiful place of mostly untouched natural beauty where one can tune into the splendour of the Pacific Ocean and its fantastic, and virtually empty, beaches.
But it’s also just about 200 kilometres east of the Cascadia subduction zone that stretches from Northern Vancouver Island to northern California.
The pressure has been building up on the tectonic plates in the zone for more than 300 years, and it’s expected to give way again at anytime.
It seems that a huge rock plate sliding in from the Pacific is exerting so much pressure on the west coast of North America, it is warping Vancouver Island, tilting it higher and squeezing it a few centimetres eastward every year.
One day soon, maybe even today, the strain will be released in an instant and parts of the west coast will suddenly sink more than a metre and jump 10 to 15 metres to the west.
The earthquake, which is anticipated to be in the catastrophic 9.0 range on the Richter scale, will result in widespread damage and mayhem all over the Pacific northwest.
But it’s the large tsunami that would follow that would be the final coup de grace on the Island’s west coast, particularly on the low-lying Tofino-Ucluelet peninsula.
Many people on the east side of the Island, including in the Cowichan Valley, believe that if we can survive the earthquake, we wouldn’t have much to worry about in regards to a tsunami because of our geographical location.
After all, there’s more than 400 kilometres of land between us and the west coast.
But a report released by BC Hydro and the Geographical Survey of Canada in 2003 that envisions a towering wave the size of a six-storey building rising up out of the Strait of Georgia and rolling west, slamming into the Gulf Islands and the east coast of Vancouver Island within mere minutes after a major earthquake, is cause for alarm for us east coasters.
Apparently, between 17 million and 20 million tonnes of sediment build up at the mouth of the Fraser River in the Strait of Georgia every year.
The study concluded that it’s possible that a major earthquake in the region could see a significant underwater landslide of the ever-accumulating sediment that could cause huge tsunami waves that would quickly come our way.
That would play havoc with shoreline communities in this area, and the water could, theoretically, reach much higher in a worse-case scenario.
There are other experts that have since concluded that such an event is highly unlikely, but haven’t dismissed it outright.
The fact is that we live in a highly seismically active area.
There have been five small to medium earthquakes on or near Vancouver Island in the last 30 days alone; including a 4.8 magnitude one near Port Hardy on June 10 and a 4.3 shaker near Campbell River on June 19.
There’s no doubt a major one will eventually hit — it’s only a matter of time — but we can do our part to be as prepared for it as we can be, even if it also involves a large tsunami unexpectedly hitting this area.
There’s no shortage of instructions and advice from emergency coordinators on how to get through such an event that are easily available for those who look ahead.
If we look after ourselves, we should be able to face any challenges.