For decades, parents, teachers, students and education advocates have been urging the BC government to hasten the glacial pace of the school seismic upgrade program.
Geologists have repeatedly warned that it’s only a question of when, not if, it will be BC’s turn to suffer a moderate to severe earthquake. Engineers have warned that many of the province’s 100-year old schools, in coastal communities from Vancouver and Victoria to Prince Rupert, are constructed of unreinforced masonry that is prone to catastrophic structural failure in even a modest shake.
The alarming truth is that for too many BC communities, the local public school may be the most dangerous place to be in an earthquake.
After strong lobbying from parents, Premier Gordon Campbell committed in 2004 to an accelerated program that would see some 800 unsafe BC schools replaced or retrofitted within 10-15 years. But in the years since that announcement, provincial capital funding committed to school projects has actually declined.
Almost halfway through the Premier’s timeframe, fewer than 100 schools have been completed, and many of those were smaller, low-priority projects that were advanced ahead of high-priority schools after complaints about the lack of progress. Most of the big expensive and complex school projects remain untouched.
In March 2011, as British Columbians opened their hearts and wallets to help the overseas victims of yet another unspeakable equarthquake tragedy, questions arose again about when it would be BC’s turn and what we were doing or failing to do to ensure that our own children and communities would be reasonably safe.
News reports
CityCaucus.com: Safety a priority over heritage
Mike Klassen
17 March 2011
Do Vancouverites need to sacrifice heritage for seismic safety? In light of the recent earthquake disasters in Japan and Christchurch, New Zealand I’m increasingly convinced the answer is yes.
Just look what happened in Christchurch’s heritage neighbourhoods and what’s left of its beloved cathedral. The rubble in the streets there foreshadowed what would happen in our historic Chinatown and Downtown Eastside neighbourhoods. Many, if not most of those SRO hotels would crumble during a significant earth tremor.
In fact, in the last shaker nearby to us – in Seattle back in 2001 – it was the old brick structures that fared the worst.
Besides those old hotels, the most urgent area of concern is the many aging schools in Vancouver. Read more
Vancouver Observer: Earthquake could be tragic for BC students
March 14, 2011
Leah Golob
“Where school upgrades stand today, if we were to have a serious earthquake it could potentially be tragic,” Patty Bacchus, Chairperson of the Vancouver Board of Education said today. “The province needs to step up with its funding to complete the school upgrades by 2020,” she added. Read more
Georgia Straight: Hundreds of BC schools still waiting for seismic upgrades
March 11, 2011
Jessica Werb
Whenever a major earthquake, like the 8.9 magnitude quake that struck Japan at 2:30 p.m. local time March 11, hits somewhere around the globe, attention inevitably shifts to how Vancouver might fare in a similar disaster. And the ugly truth is this: should the lower mainland face a major seismic event during school hours, the results could be utterly devastating.
Over two years ago, I penned a story about the slow progress made by the B.C. Ministry of Education in its seismic mitigation program for schools across the province, and specifically in Vancouver. Back in 2005, the ministry vowed to upgrade more than 700 schools within the next 15 years, with 80 high-priority schools completed by 2008. By that date, however, only 13 high-priority schools had been upgraded.
The issue was of enough concern that, in December 2008, the auditor general of B.C. concluded in a report that “the ministry has not yet finalized a program delivery model, nor has it integrated the ministry’s risk management activities for the program into a comprehensive plan covering both internal and external risks.”
So where do we stand now? According to the ministry’s latest progress report, as of January 19, 2011, only 90 seismic projects out of 700 have been completed. Read more
Links
1989 Transit Bridge Engineering Group report: Executive summary of the report, which found 30% of Vancouver school buildings at high risk and another 15% as moderate seismic risk. The majority of at-risk schools remain untouched, some 22 years later.
BC Ministry of Education: Seismic Mitigation Program: Updates/status of efforts to seismically upgrade BC’s public schools
Vancouver School Board: Seismic Information: Updates/status of efforts to bring Vancouver’s public schools up to modern seismic standards
High risk schools in Metro Vancouver: Map showing distribution of seismically unsafe schools in Metro Vancouver school districts (based on the 2004 risk analysis)
Families for school Seismic Safety: Website of the BC parent group that lobbied for an accelerated school seismic upgrading program in 2004.
Natural Resources Canada: Background on earthquakes in Western Canada
BC Auditor General’s 2008 report on School Seismic Safety, which raised concerns about the slow pace of BC’s school seismic upgrading program
Canada.com — Vancouver Sun database shows many schools awaiting seismic repairs: 2008 report and database on the seismic status of BC’s public schools
Canadian Consulting Engineer.com: 2006 report on making BC schools safe
Civil Engineering News at UBC, Winter 2006: Seismic safety of schools in BC–A top priority
Capital Investment in BC’s Public Schools - A BC Education Coalition Reality Check
