People in Old Massett will evacuate to Hill Avenue in New Town, Tlaga G̱awtlass, for the next tsunami warning or major emergency.
True to its name, the Hill Avenue area is much higher than the minimum elevation recommended to escape a tsunami.
Teri Kish, emergency management coordinator for Old Massett Village Council (OMVC), said the council chose to evacuate to Hill Avenue last year instead of continuing to use the gathering site by the 10-kilometre mark on Highway 16.
“It’s too far,” Kish said of the Highway 16 site, which remains the designated evacuation site for people in Masset and Tow Hill. The highway site is another 8.5 km past New Town, and it can be a nerve-wracking drive, she said — much of it runs alongside Masset Sound before going up a steep hill.
OMVC plans to talk with the Village of Masset about possibly having everyone from Masset and Tow Hill evacuate to New Town.
Kish said the need for a better site was clear during the tsunami warning on January 23, 2018.
“The last one we had was terrifying,” she said.
That warning arrived just before 2 a.m. on a night when the highway was icy with freezing rain. Kish said some cars slipped into the ditch, and down at the Highway 16 gathering site, the OMVC’s school bus got bogged in mud.
Unlike the highway site, New Town site has streetlights, more shelter options, and a better layout for hundreds of parked cars. OMVC now has a trailer of emergency supplies in the area and plans to build a large public building in New Town that will double as a post-disaster shelter.
For both the New Town and Highway 16 evacuation sites, Kish said a key thing to consider is establishing a reliable backup route in case the Delkatla Inlet bridge gets flooded, damaged, or blocked.
A 2022 report that modelled tsunami run-up and storm surge for several Haida Gwaii villages shows that the low-lying Delkatla area, which includes the Masset marina, is especially vulnerable to flooding during tsunami — the Japanese word for “harbour wave.”
“When it happens, it will be messy,” Kish said, pointing to a low-lying red zone around Delkatla that includes a large section of highway and the bridge leaving town.
“All the boats, all the moorings — all that is going to come and hit this bridge,” she said.
Kish said planning work is underway to establish a more reliable backup route on the backroads that connect Loop Road in Old Massett with the Masset Cemetery Road and Highway 16.
“It will have to be built up,” she said, pointing out some low-lying areas on the backup route.
Another change that will help emergency planning is the new gym planned for the high ground behind Chief Matthews School. Kish said it is designed to double as a post-disaster shelter, with enough equipment, food and water to supply the village for 72 hours.
Anyone in Old Massett last Monday who was not wearing earmuffs or hard of hearing could hear loud and clear that the village’s four new tsunami siren towers are working fine. The sirens are tested every Tuesday night with a friendly Big Ben chime, but last Monday, they wailed for 2.5 minutes in a full test of the actual tsunami warning sound.
Three of the 60-foot, eight-speaker towers are spread across Old Massett at the seawall, Kwiiyaans Community Hall and capital works building. The fourth stands by the north entrance to New Town.
“They’re built so that you’ll be able to hear them all over,” said Kish, noting that the four towers, which cost about $500,000 to buy and install, have back-up power, deep cement foundations and are loud enough to be heard in a 150 km/h windstorm.
Kish said anyone interested in volunteering at the OMVC emergency operations centre can join a training session planned for this fall, and future sessions will be held for support-services volunteers.
Kish said she is glad Old Massett and Masset will be working together on emergency planning for the north end. Both councils and staff were already keen to do it. Still, Kish welcomed a recent update of B.C.’s emergency planning legislation that requires municipalities neighbouring and First Nations to work together on emergency plans.
“It’s always been separate, and it’s stupid,” she said. “The province has apparently heard First Nations communities and realized they need to work with them.”