B.C. Government Continues to Fund Seismic Upgrades for High-Risk Schools

Students across the province participated in the Great British Columbia "ShakeOut" Thursday morning, October 16th, in preparation of the “great quake” that is expected to hit the West Coast sometime over the next 100 years. As students are practicing safety procedures in the event of a quake, the B.C. government is continuing to make schools safer for everyone.

Photo Credit: Emergency Prep B.C. Twitter

Since 2001, as part of the seismic mitigation program, $2.2 billion has been spent or committed to seismically upgrade 213 high-risk schools. As of September 2014, 143 schools have been upgraded, 10 schools are currently under construction, seven schools are moving toward construction, and an additional 53 schools have been supported to proceed. In order to address the remaining 126 high-risk schools in the province, it is estimated to cost a further $600 million.

“The safety of students and staff has always been our key focus and it is clear that our award-winning seismic mitigation program is helping us to achieve our goals,” said Peter Fassbender, Minister of Education. “In fact, B.C. is a leading jurisdiction on seismic research and seismic safety with experts from around the world coming here to learn from our work.”

Photo Credit: Emergency Prep B.C. Twitter

The Ministry of Education continues to work closely with the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of B.C. and the University of British Columbia's department of civil engineering to ensure the latest seismic assessment procedures are used. Following the outlined procedures will help to identify which schools are most at risk during an earthquake and how to best retrofit those schools.

Experts look at a number of factors including, location of school, local soil characteristics, earthquake types, building configurations, and earthquake intensity. The Seismic Retrofit Guidelines developed for the Ministry by these experts has received a number of awards from the engineering community, both provincially and nationally.

Photo Credit: ShakeOut Participant Twitter