RELEVANT
FOCUSED
READY

Major Earthquakes and
The Renovation and Expansion of the Royal BC Museum
Albert Meesters

Introduction

Discussion

The Royal British Columbia Museum, in Victoria BC, could face
considerable consequences in the event of any severe seismic activity
due to its proximal location above the Devil’s Mountain Fault. Drawing
on recent and historical earthquake data, the research investigated a
collection of information on the nature of museums experiencing
damage due to seismic disasters. The results of these findings were
applied towards the current difficulties facing the renovation and
expansion of the Royal BC Museum; exploring what kinds of
emergency planning measures can be put in place to help save lives
and prevent the destruction of BC’s history and cultural heritage.

The prevalent themes throughout the research focused on awareness,
planning and training. By identifying a major earthquake as a threat to
the new museum towers, RBC Museum staff, designers and planners
will need to determine the level of risk they are willing to accept when
it comes to display and storage of collections. Podany (2009) suggests
that when museums are determining the degree of risk, they should
apply a simple formula of: Acceptable Risk equals Tolerable Loss;
which means that, the less risk the museum wants to take, the more
the plan has to take into account the rare occurrence of a major
seismic event, such as the eruption of the Devil’s Mountain Fault.
While planning for a large devastating event means more effort for
museum staff, the higher level of mitigation effort helps ensure that
the museum collections are at less risk of damage over a longer
period of time, and are protected from large scale events and more
common occurrences too (Podany, 2009). The literature also showed
that advanced techniques for earthquake resistance, such as Base
Isolation and Energy Dissipation devices can be built into buildings
with a goal of reducing the earthquake-generated forces acting upon
it. RBC Museum planners could also adopt a three-prong mitigation
plan for the protection of their collections, such as: (1) lowering an
object’s center of gravity by adding weight, such as placing sand bags
inside objects, attaching objects to heavy bases, and adding lead
bricks or weights to the inside bottoms of pedestals or cases; (2)
restraining objects by firmly securing them to the floor, pedestals,
shelves, walls, and/or supporting mounts, and (3) use of base isolation
methods. Additionally, the use of digitization technologies to help
record, save and protect collections and archives is highly
recommended, and offers the possibilities of secondary revenues
from researchers. All of this being made more effective through some
levels of emergency management training for museum curators and
staff.

Background
In December of 2012, The RBC Museum, in downtown Victoria BC,
announced they would be expanding the museum to include two new
12 and 14 story towers on a part of the 2.7-hectare museum property.
In June of 2015, Natural Resources Canada released an official study
detailing a previously unknown fault line, Devil’s Mountain Fault, in
the bedrock below the Strait of Juan de Fuca, running straight through
the city of Victoria. This fault is capable of producing potentially
devastating shallow thrust earthquakes. In light of this recent
earthquake data, how can museum staff, designers and planners
utilize research from other areas that suffer similar types of seismic
activity, in order to plan for, prepare, mitigate and respond to this
threat as they move forward to build the new towers? The research
examined some of the projected effects from the eruption of the
Devil’s Mountain Fault, and examined planning, preparation and
mitigation measures that can be utilized in order to save lives and
prevent the destruction of BC’s history if an earthquake should occur.

Methods
Research into this paper utilized secondary sources in order to provide
insight towards earthquakes and museums, and listed sources such as
thesis papers, documents, reports, policies, so as to analyze and
support the problem statement and conclusion.

Results/Findings
The research shows that an assessment of the seismic stability of the
future RBC Museum towers is required and that the type of seismic
ground motion at a building site will depend on a number of factors,
including: (a) distance from the rupture zone, (b) magnitude and
depth of the earthquake, and (c) the soil conditions of the building
site (SEABC, 2017). The majority of the literature reviewed maintained
that to maximize effectiveness, museum workers must have a general
knowledge of how given types of objects, assemblages of objects and
exhibition furnishings and fixtures, as well as collections held in
storage will respond to earthquake forces (Erturk, 2012). Perhaps one
of the key findings from the research was a consensus that museum
curators and specialists should receive some formal emergency
management training that allows them to utilize their specific
knowledge and expertise in areas that can help plan for and prevent
exhibit damage, as well as response, recovery and removal of artifacts
in conjunction with official emergency management response teams,
after a major event (Hunter, 2017). These observations benefit RBC
Museum staff and planners by demonstrating how leading staff being
equipped with some level of emergency management training could
not only assist with planning, prevention and mitigation efforts for the
new towers, but also provide additional resources that understand
the processes of working with emergency response teams when it
comes to re-entering the museum after a major earthquake and
salvaging artifacts.

Image: Government of Canada

Bachelor of Emergency Security Management

Conclusions or Recommendations
The final recommended application from this research is that RBC
Museum staff, designers and planners need to review and understand
the threat posed by Devil’s Mountain Fault and how shallow thrust
earthquakes could impact building designs and exhibit displays, and
how to reduce these risks through proper planning and mitigation
measures that take into account new technologies such as Base
Isolation and Energy Dissipation devices. Additionally, the museum
should ensure that museum curators and specialists should receive
some formal emergency management training that allows them to
utilize their specific knowledge and expertise in areas that can help
plan for and prevent exhibit damage, as well as response, recovery
and removal of artifacts in conjunction with official emergency
management response teams, after a major event.

References
Erturk, N. (2004). Earthquake preparedness and cultural heritage
losses: the case study of Istanbul museums. In Proceedings from the
International Symposium of Cultural Heritage Disaster Preparedness
and Response (pp. 243-48).
Hunter, J. (2017). International Council of Museums. Guidelines for
disaster in museums. (pp. 1-26).
Podany, J. (2009). Seismic Damage Mitigation for Museum Collections:
Three decades of seismic mitigation at the J. Paul Getty Museum. (pp.
1-32).
Structural Engineers Association of BC. (2017). British Columbia
Earthquake Fact Sheet. (pp.1-12).

Image: Government of British Columbia

Justice Institute of British Columbia