VANCOUVER—If a catastrophic earthquake hits Metro Vancouver, water will instantly become a precious resource — and a Star investigation has found many people will have to fend for themselves.

The Star assessed the plans of the 11 largest municipalities across Metro Vancouver as well as the provincial and federal governments. The analysis shows their emergency water bottle supplies and filtration devices will provide, best-case scenario, a fifth or less of the region’s total need.

The region is long overdue for a disaster that could shatter its underground network of pipes and put pumping stations out of commission. Research cited by the City of Vancouver says there’s a one-in-four chance of a devastating earthquake within the next 50 years.

So far, preparation has largely focused on immediate survival, like B.C.’s program to upgrade schools so they don’t collapse. That’s starting to change, but, at this point, no one the Star spoke with is willing to say they are fully prepared for the aftermath.

“The understanding of risk ... has tended to focus on the impact to buildings and people,” said Murray Journeay, a research scientist with the federal government who oversaw a seismic survey in the District of North Vancouver in 2015. “What many of us have been arguing at this point is we have to understand the cascading risks, like impacts to critical infrastructure.”

Only North Vancouver District has conducted a detailed study on the impacts of a big quake. Supposing a magnitude-7.3 earthquake near the Earth’s surface just off the coast — a calamity, but not the worst possible — the municipality predicts as many as 840 of its buildings will sustain irreparable damage, up to total collapse.

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More than 4,000 people will be left homeless for a month or longer, and the number of dead and critically injured will range from dozens to hundreds. Half the city will be cut off from potable water as older, brittle pipes in the city’s western portions break in nearly 100 places.

The worst shaking would last for just seconds but would shift the ground as much as a metre sideways, the study showed. In the aftermath, when you turn on your faucet, the water that comes out could be contaminated by soil, fuel or sewage. It’s equally possible no water will come out at all.

Three years ago, the B.C. government determined up to a million residents in Metro Vancouver alone would be left without access to drinking water following a crippling earthquake. Each resident, it said, would need 15 litres per day — the standard the Star used in its calculations.

Emergency co-ordinators, with an eye to basic survival, demand far less: a minimum of four litres per day, per person. That’s two litres to drink and two litres for hygiene.

Even that will be a challenge to meet based on current plans.

Government authorities advise residents to always have a three-day supply of water and food on hand at all times. Experience from previous disasters, however, shows that many won’t.

New Westminster fire chief Tim Armstrong witnessed this in the suburbs of New Orleans in 2005, when he and a heavy-duty relief team arrived two days after Hurricane Katrina struck. The local population was completely unprepared.

“There was no organization there at all. People were basically a lot of low-income families in that area and really, other than the provisions they had, the whole infrastructure, the power supply, was gone,” Armstrong said. “Most of them were up in their attics without food and water.”

Filtration makes up the lion’s share of the completed plans; it’s considered more efficient to filter contaminated water on site than to ship in clean water from other areas. This dirty supply could come from the ordinary network of pipes, assuming there’s still pressure, or from rivers, irrigation canals, duck ponds and even swimming pools. But, according to the Star’s tally, the combined equipment of all major municipal governments are unlikely to filter more than 586,000 litres per day. That’s not even 4 per cent of the expected need.

Vancouver City Hall, for example, has eight filtration devices to purify contaminated water, a project underway to install earthquake-resistant piping within one kilometre of any point in the city, along with a 600-strong volunteer corps and designated community supply distribution sites. Two underground aquifers used to supply golf courses with irrigation could be adapted as a backup water source.

And yet, “not everybody is going to have the (minimum) four litres per day, per person,” said Daniel Stevens, director of emergency management with the city. “That is the key message.”

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Local authorities can, in theory, jury-rig solutions to tap into reservoirs and intact pipes, but those plans haven’t been finalized or quantified. Plus, for the most part, city halls remain unco-ordinated in their approach to the distribution of supplies, despite ongoing efforts to create a regional emergency water plan.

Meanwhile, additional supplies sourced by the provincial government will take time to arrive — and B.C. hasn’t signed any formal agreements to have bulk water brought in.

“There’s options,” said Tim Walshaw, supply chain business architect with Emergency Management B.C., the provincial government’s disaster co-ordination centre.

“You’ve got large water bottlers such as Nestle Waters. You also have anybody who can produce soda pop or beer for human consumption can convert into bottled water. It’s relatively easy to do, they’re licensed, it’s potable, it’s safe, it can be transported.”

Walshaw the government hasn’t inked any deals because it’s waiting to find out “what arrangements the local governments have gotten into.”

“We’re trying to do something that’s never been done before, and that’s looking at disaster preparedness from a supply chain model,” he said.

In the meantime, the province’s current priority is determining what resources its capital, Victoria, needs before assessing what resources need to be brought into Metro Vancouver. That region is the seat of B.C. government, the thinking goes, with strategic importance to the rest of the province.

“We’ve got something that, to my mind, allows me to say that no one is going to die of thirst, but there is work ahead,” Walshaw said.

The Canadian Armed Forces said it could potentially provide as many as 21 portable water purifiers through its disaster response unit, with a combined maximum filtration capacity of 2.2 million litres per day — about one-seventh of what Metro Vancouver will require. Though the military refused to say how much, it could filter more water via purifiers on board 14 naval ships based on the west coast.

However, much of the equipment is not ready to be deployed in B.C, as the military’s water purifiers are normally reserved for international disasters. The Canadian navy’s west-coast presence is not always in dock. Plus, it will be a challenge to take the water purified on ships and transport it inland.

“We will provide what we can,” said Maj. Dave Baldwin, an Air Force officer and liaison with the Joint Task Force Pacific. “It’s almost impossible to say how many of a particular air (plane), how many of a particular ship” will be available.

Even if all of the resources from the municipal, provincial and federal governments are brought to bear, the toughest challenge will be in the early days, before external help arrives and before local responders have a chance to reorganize.

“Nobody believes these things will happen until it’s their town or city. It’s so far away,” said Kristopher Mercer, a Good Samaritan who convoyed bottled water to evacuees during Alberta’s Fort McMurray wildfire in 2016.

“They think this isn’t going to affect us, there will be grocery stores and the government will take care of us. But really, there’s no help whatsoever.”

The only help, he said, will come from neighbours, from those who have prepared or are otherwise able to help.

“It’s going to be people helping people,” said Mercer. “The government wants to assist, but they have no idea how.”

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