On March 27, 1964, a giant wave — or tsunami — was generated by North America’s strongest earthquake of the century. It swept down Canada’s West Coast from the Gulf of Alaska, devastating the Vancouver Island community of Port Alberni. Despite an elaborate tsunami warning system now in place, Pacific Coast residents did not take the threat of giant waves seriously.

In the pubs of Prince Rupert there is a drink called a tsunami — you order it and it never comes. This mythical beverage is the concoction of a few facetious locals who in the past have been warned to head for high ground and wait for a tidal wave that never comes. And while it may raise a chuckle around a barroom table, it is actually a mockery of a complex system to warn Pacific Coast communities of imminent danger from tsunamis (pronounced soo-nah-mees). The Japanese, who have suffered severely from tsunamis, gave the name to the terrifying waves that follow earthquakes. The waves, while commonly referred to as tidal waves are not, in fact, tidal.

Since Canada became a part of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Network in the late 1960’s, only two official tsunami warnings have been issued, but no significant waves materialized.

When the first official warning came on May 7, 1986, after a massive earthquake in the Aleutian Islands, the mood on the beaches of Prince Rupert, British Columbia’s most northerly coastal city, was “festive”, according to RCMP reports. Hundreds of curious spectators, some equipped with cases of beer, flocked to the seashore to watch the wave. When another warning was issued on November 30, 1987, curiosity again prevailed over common sense, and people ensconced themselves at seaside vantage points to await the wave that never came.

The foolhardy reaction stems from inexperience. Most coast B.C. communities escaped the ravages of the wave of March 27, 1964, and have few reminders of that tsunami and earthquake, even though it killed more than 100 people in Alaska and then swept down the Canadian coast to wipe out hopes and businesses in Port Alberni in central Vancouver Island. But the people of Port Alberni, who fled their houses at midnight, vividly recall the terrified cries of their children as they floundered through frigid sea water rising around their necks.

“I think Port Alberni is the only place that takes them (tsunamis) very seriously,” says Claude Dalley, manager of plans and operations for B.C.’s Provincial Emergency Program. “Every time we have a province-wide tsunami exercise, the citizens always practise their plan, religiously. Most other communities don’t do much.”

This disregard for potential disaster if worrisome to Dalley and other emergency officials, particularly since a 1988 report to the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans pinpoints 185 locations on Canada’s West Coast that could be submerged by tsunamis at any time. Tiny villages and native settlements like Winter Harbour, Zeballos, Kincolith or Port Edward, or the lowlands of cities such as Prince Rupert (population 16,000) or Port Alberni (population 19,000) — all are threatened by the very sea that makes them such appealing places to live. While some communities have emergency plans that are tested by practice drills, most have room for improvement. There are no plans to deal with tsunamis at more than half these sites.

The most likely cause of a tsunami on Canada’s Pacific Coast would be underwater earthquake off the coast of Alaska. Western Canada lies within an earthquake-prone zone that girdles the entire Pacific Ocean. About 80 percent of the earth’s seismic energy is released in the region, and it is here that some of the world’s most disastrous earthquakes occur. Enormous land masses, known as tectonic plates, cover the earth’s crust. These masses are in constant motion, grinding against or slipping under and over each other, or spreading apart. In British Columbia, about 500 measurable earthquakes occur each year along the fault lines, or boundaries, between the plates. Off the coast these massive plates move four or five centimetres a year, causing great stresses as they rub against one another. Each time some of that stress is relieved, an earthquake occurs.

If a large mass of rock along one of those underwater faults suddenly drops or rises, the water above moves with the seabed. An underwater quake of about 7.0 on the Richter scale could create a series of waves — waves that can travel across the Pacific Ocean at speeds up to 900 kilometres an hour. Since their crests may be hundreds of kilometers apart, they are hardly noticeably in deep offshore waters. But as they approach shallow coastlines, wave velocity diminishes and height increases. Some rise 90 metres before ending their long journey on an unfortunate shore.

In May 1960, an earthquake with a Richter force of 8.3 produced a tsunami that killed 2,000 people in Chile, destroying or damaging every coastal town over a distance of 900 kilometres. The wave then traveled another 10,000 kilometres to Hawaii and killed 61 people at Hilo, continued a further 5,000 kilometres to drown 100 in Japan and then claimed 20 more lives in the Philippines.

An earthquake’s magnitude and epicenter, the contours of the fault line and local topography all have a bearing on the size and direction of a tsunami. Places at the heads of inlets, such as Port Alberni, are among the higher-risk areas. Inlets create a funnel effect, squeezing the moving wave between steep, narrow sides, causing the water to rise much higher than in the open sea. The waves inundate lowlands at the inlet head, then rebound back to sea.

The image of an enormous wall of water crashing over houses and shops in a beachfront village is more a creation of Hollywood moviemakers than nature. While a single wave like this does occur sometimes, most tsunamis are characterized by rapid and extreme rises and drops in the level of the sea. The sea may suddenly fall far below a normal low tide, stranding boats at moorings, exposing an expanse of seabed that has always been submerged. Then, 10 or 20 minutes later, it could rise several metres above the highest high tide, lifting docks over pilings, snapping boats from their berths, and pouring into the streets of coast towns and villages.

The destructive Port Alberni tsunami was generated by North America’s strongest earthquake of this century. It struck on Good Friday, with its epicenter 1,300 kilometres north of Prince Rupert off Anchorage, Alaska, and measured 8.5 on the Richter scale. The energy released was estimated to equal the detonation of 32 million tones of TNT, or 2,000 atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. A section of the ocean floor rose 15 metres and the resulting tsunami raced down the Canadian coast at speeds of up to 750 kilometres and hour.

While there were noticeably peculiarities in tidal activity along most of the coast, the southwest coast of Vancouver Island bore the brunt of the tsunami. Eighteen of the 20 houses in Hot Springs Cove, near what is now Pacific Rim National Park, were torn from their foundations. Basements flooded and gardens washed away at Bamfield on Barkley Sound, before the waves traveled 40 kilometres up Alberni Inlet to spill onto the streets of downtown Port Alberni. Miraculously, no one was killed in Canada, but the tsunami continued down the coast to California where 11 people were drowned at Crescent City, 2,500 kilometres from the earthquake’s epicenter.

For many of Port Alberni’s citizens, that night remains an unforgettable horror. “The sound was like huge construction machines churning up the road,” recalls May Lueke. Fishing boats were ripped from their moorings. Uprooted homes were washed a kilometer or more up the Somass River at the head of Alberni Inlet. Piled logs and lumber became water-borne projectiles, and hydro poles snapped like matchsticks, with the ensuing darkness adding to the chaos.

Some residents simply opened their doors and let the ocean flow through. Others, unable to open doors against the pressure of water, smashed windows and hauled their children into the flooded streets. Many spent the night huddled on the upper floors of a washed-out hotel, dreading the dawn that would reveal their losses. One woman took her children up to the attic as their home was swept into a field. A rescue worker, checking homes in a rowboat, shone his flashlight on a baby, asleep on a drifting mattress. On the day before Easter, townspeople began retrieving possessions from knee-deep muck in their kitchens and living rooms.

Among the first to realize that something was amiss that March night in 1964 was a watchman on the docks. He contacted harbour master Capt. Don Brooks. “The first wave that came in was not the highest. It was about seven feet above what we would normally have figured at that time,” says Brooks. “It then drained out, and as it did the water in the fishermen’s harbour, where I was standing at that time, drained to the point where the boats sat on the bottom.

“Within two hours the water flooded back and at that time crested about 12 feet higher than normal,” Brooks continued. “The first wave certainly brought an amount of water into town that indicated trouble was on the way. But it was the second wave that flooded in and really did the damage.”

Merna Semple, another Alberni resident, was having coffee with friends when a neighbour called to warn of the wave. “We could see it coming across an intersection about half a block away,” she explains in a provincial government film called Tsunami. “So we went upstairs and got our four children and came back down. By this time the second wave was coming. We opened the back door and the front door and just let the wave go through the house. That was the only thing that saved the house from getting moved around on the foundation.”

Damage to homes, businesses and industrial sites amount to nearly $5 million, a figure that would be closer to $30 million today. Wrecked boats and cars were scattered about the streets, docks and gangways lay in crumpled heaps, and saltwater puddles were left stranded far above the shore. Sixty-nine homes were heavily damaged, and those beyond repair were bulldozed into a pile and set fire to by the army.

It is little wonder Port Alberni takes the threat of tsunamis seriously. A 1986 report on the development of an emergency plan for the city concludes: “That no lives were lost during the 1964 event should be ascribed more to good luck than good planning. The tsunami hazard is serious and the potential for a catastrophe is real.”

The key to the emergency plan is a warning system — a siren that is tested regularly enough to become firmly ingrained in the public’s mind. With an alert from the established international tsunami warning network, there may be several hours for emergency to go door-to-door. In 1964, with no warning system, the waves struck Port Alberni 4½ hours after the Alaskan earthquake.

Canada now is one of the 23 Pacific Rim countries tied into the Pacific Tsunami Warning Network. Headquarters were established in Hawaii in 1948, and the Alaska Tsunami Warning Centre opened in 1967 at Palmer Observatory, north of Anchorage. Today, with dozens of seismic stations around the Pacific, tsunami-generating earthquakes can be verified and all countries informed within 20 minutes. Earthquakes registering more than 6.7 on the Richter scale are examined, and if a quake of more than 7.0 occurs in Alaska, a warning message is issued. Earthquakes over 7.5 anywhere else in the Pacific also warrant a warning.

Once the magnitude and epicenter of an earthquake is determined, the times it would take a tsunami to arrive at various locations can be estimated. All places within six hours of the epicenter are warned, and communities within three hours may be readied for evacuation. Reports from Alaska are updated at least every half-hour.

Canada receives its warnings from Alaska through American and Canadian military communications. The Provincial Emergency Preparedness Canada, and opening phone lines to advisers at the federal Institute of Ocean Sciences near Victoria. Amateur radio operators may be called into PEP’s Victoria headquarters to help maintain contact with emergency officials in coastal communities. PEP’s staff of 29 relies on about 6,400 volunteers who assist with a variety of emergencies throughout British Columbia.

Because not all major earthquakes generate tsunamis, authorities rely on gauges along the coast for confirmation of the waves. Willie Rapatz, regional tidal superintendent for the federal Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans, explains that gauges in the Queen Charlotte Islands and on Vancouver Island transmit data every minute to a computer at the Institute of Ocean Sciences. These gauges not only confirm a tsunami but also indicate its magnitude. “If a gauge stops functioning at the time a tsunami is expected, then I really worry,” says Rapatz. “It’s a good indication the tsunami has washed it away.”

Although there was no warning system at Port Alberni in 1964, there was a tidal gauge. But the first wave lifted the recording float right over the top of the gauge, rendering it useless. Water marks on the inside of the gauge house, however, indicate the sea rose nearly four metres higher than the tide should have been at the time.

If a tsunami originating in Alaska heads south, Canada relies on Alaska’s tsunami gauges for information. Washington, Oregon and California, in turn, rely on Canada’s equipment. In the past decade Alaska has issued eight tsunami warnings; only two in Canada were passed on to the public. Both were withdrawn when no major tsunamis developed, but not before some evacuations had taken place. Some shore workers grumbled at losing work time, and in one instance, at Tahis on western Vancouver Island, 350 school children were sent home. On March 7, 1988, an earthquake with a Richter force of 7.2 jolted an area near the Alaska-B.C. border, but because no significant tsunami occurred, no official warning was sent out. A false alarm, however, somehow got out through unauthorized channels and once again, public confidence in the warning network suffered.

Even with the elaborate international warning system and efforts to educate the public, people still refuse to appreciate the threat of tsunamis. Ten hours of warnings preceded the 1960 tsunami that killed 61 in Hawaii. Surveys indicated 95 percent of the townspeople had heard the warning siren, but only 41 percent bothered to evacuate. At Crescent City, Calif., in 1964, most of the 11 victims had returned to the beach after the first wave, unaware a second wave was approaching. That tsunami didn’t reach San Francisco, a disappointment to the 10,000 waiting on the beaches to see it!

“If people wan to take their lives into their hands there’s nothing we can do about it,” PEP’s Claude Dalley says. “We can’t legally force them to evacuate. All we can do is recommend they go to high ground, but still there are going to be those who want to go and see the wave.” One of these days, they may see more than they bargained on.