Earthquake Raises Questions About Response

 COMMUNICATION FAILURE?
Or Lack of Plan?

BC's First Notice One Hour After US Warning!

Nothing On Local Radio About Tsumani Warning

Nothing On Emergency Alert From City Of Nanaimo

Shirley Bond Holds Tele-conference 3 Hours After Event

Emergency Manager Contacts Council 4 Hours After Event

Hawaii Kicks Into High Gear While We Twiddle Our Thumbs

Nobody In BC Seemed To Have Any Idea What Was Going On

There are some serious questions needing to be answered following the 7.7 earthquake and ensuing tsunami warnings and an apparent failure of the communications network to respond.

From television reports today, even residents as close as Prince Rupert had no idea what was going on. The CBC did not start broadcasting about the event until after 10:00 pm which was nearly 2 hours after the event. Shirley Bond who is supposed to be the provincial big wig in such an event held a tele-conference at 11:00 pm, nearly 3 hours after the event.

What If This Had Been A Large Tsunami?

While residents of Hawaii were moving their boats out to open water, and people were being evacuated, here in Nanaimo there was not so much as a peep about what was going on. There also seems some serious lack of credibility when you hear from officials you 'think' are supposed to be responsible in such an event.

A spokeswoman for the emergency centre in Victoria was being quizzed by the CBC's news anchor on Sunday night about response times, and she just looked like the proverbial deer in the headlights, when asked why our notices were nearly one hour later than the Americans. She did mumbe something about the number of emails and tweets they had sent out though.

There is nothing about the way this situation was handled that demonstrates our emergency program folk are really very well prepared to respond to anything other than scheduled exercises and drills.

The following quote is taken from a Times Colonist article:

Esquimalt Coun. Dave Hodgins criticized the provincial system, saying it lacks the resources to achieve its mandate, which is to protect public safety during emergencies.

Hodgins is the province’s former fire commissioner and helped design the emergency management system in 2006-07. He said the system needs the capacity to quickly respond to emergencies and support front-line emergency crews immediately. 

“They’re not there, it’s just smoke and mirrors,” Hodgins said. “There is no system,” he said. “They can write about it and talk about it and do different things to promote it, but in reality, they’re just not there.”