Waiting for the tsunami: its big waves are loved by surfers – but this Canadian town is braced for disaster

How do you plan for an event whose timing is unknown? For residents of Tofino on Vancouver Island the threat is distant but signs of preparedness are everywhere

J

ustin Goss was in the shower when he first heard the piercing wail of a nearby tsunami early-warning siren. Still dripping wet, he threw on clothes, grabbed his dog and rushed to the truck. The pair made it 3 metres and no further.

“The whole parking lot across the street was jammed up. It was complete gridlock within three minutes,” he says. “I thought, ‘Oh shit, this is not good.’”

In the downtown core of Tofino, a town on Vancouver Island, there are no warning sirens. But word quickly spread that people were fleeing the beaches. Panicked parents rushed to pick up their children from day camps. Restaurants in the Canadian holiday haven emptied.