City of Vancouver hires seismic manager

New position part of push to retrofit private buildings

The City of Vancouver has hired a seismic manager, nine months after it first said it would, to establish a plan to reduce the earthquake risk to privately owned buildings.

The person hired for the position — officially called project lead of seismic mitigation for high-risk buildings — is Micah Hilt, previously an urban planner with the City of San Francisco.

Hilt, who helped develop a mandatory retrofit program for woodframe buildings at risk in earthquakes for San Francisco, started work in Vancouver this month.

The city’s decision to hire a dedicated seismic manager followed an investigation by The Vancouver Sun and Province newspapers published last year that revealed the city had failed to create a plan to reduce the seismic hazard of the city’s older private buildings, numbering in the thousands, despite identifying a need to do so more than two decades ago.

The city first developed a plan more than 20 years ago because scientific knowledge was increasing about the risks of an earthquake, including of the so-called Big One, a slippage of tectonic plates off the coast of Vancouver Island. Scientists peg the probability of a major quake in a populated area in B.C. at 30 per cent within the next 50 years.

Hilt has been hired for a twoyear term, said Paul Mochrie, the deputy city manager, who oversees the emergency management department.

The first order of business is to get a better understanding of soil conditions and to determine which buildings don’t meet modern seismic standards.

The city will also create a technical committee, first promised six years ago, to advise it how to reduce the risk of private buildings collapsing or being badly damaged in an earthquake.

Hilt’s job will also include reviewing how other jurisdictions have reduced seismic risk in private buildings.

“That’s a big benefit of attracting Micah here — his expertise,” Mochrie said.

California — unlike B.C., Washington state and Oregon — has a decades-long history of tackling seismic risk in buildings, including using tax and fee incentives and requiring mandatory seismic retrofits. However, Mochrie cautioned he does not believe municipalities have the financial capacity to make huge incentives for seismic retrofits and that other levels of government would need to play a role.

Scientists peg the probability of a major quake in a populated area in B.C. at 30 per cent within the next 50 years.