The Hallowe’en Story
In 1983, shortly after arriving in Vancouver, I was invited to a Hallowe’en party. Having spent all of my growing years in South Africa, this was a tradition that was new to me. I was not exactly sure what this would entail, or what I should wear for the occasion.
Since it was going to be a costume party, I decided to wear a mask. But when I visited the local party store, I found that I had left it much too late, and all they had left was a mask of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had recently gained notoriety by capturing US hostages in Iran.
And so, girded up in flowing robes, and completely hidden under the formidable mask of the Ayatollah, I made what I imagined was a suitably menacing entrance at the party. Since all that could be seen through the mask were a few holes in strategic places, I was confident of my ability to remain incognito.
Imagine my surprise therefore, when within a short time of arriving, I was greeted by a vivacious young lady whom I had never seen before, who came up to me and said: “I know you“. She then proceeded to regale me with what I still regard as the most amazing story I have ever heard.
The Hallowe’en Story
The story that she told related to an incident that had occurred to her on the night of Monday, October 23, 1978. At that time, she was living on the thirteenth floor of an apartment building, in a gated community overlooking the Capilano River in West Vancouver.
The incident began shortly after 11:30 pm. The lady, whom I shall refer to as Elise in order to protect her identity, was in the habit of watching the “Johnny Carson Show”. On this particular night, she found that there was nothing that particularly interested her, so she switched off the TV and walked across to the window.
As she gazed out of the dining room window facing toward the East, the sky suddenly appeared to light up, and the stars seemed to shine with unusual brightness. Astonished at this unexpected sight, she phoned a friend and asked her to look out at the night sky.
Her friend was not interested, however, as she had just retired to bed. She told Elise to forget about the sky, and go to bed herself. But returning to the dining room window, Elise was struck by the fact that she could see the texture of the plaster on the outside of the building with incredible clarity.
Then, as she looked out towards the horizon, she saw a series of small clouds begin to drift across the sky, coming from the West. As she continued watching, these clouds began to take shape into recognisable objects. And as she recognised them, so they dissolved and moved off to the East.
The first cloud formed the object of a dove, closely followed by a serpent. Then came an upturned hand, followed by a racing car. Elise said she noticed that the driver’s hair was flowing in the wind. Finally, there came the image of a lamb followed by two little lambs.
As Elise was trying to make sense of it all, she became aware of a voice within herself. The voice spoke in clear English, saying: “You are protected by the hand of God, and driven by the lamb“.
The voice then told Elise to look at the sky and memorise the positions of the stars. When she found it difficult to remember the positions of them all, the voice told her to write them down. So she got a pen and paper and marked down the positions of the visible stars in the northern sky.
Vancouver in Turmoil
The voice then told her to look towards the downtown area of Vancouver. As she did so, a warm, red, misty glow settled over the city. The voice then directed her to look closely at a series of “markers” which now appeared. Elise was told that these “markers” outlined “safety zones”.
Without warning, Elise found herself floating high above the entire Lower Mainland area of Vancouver. As she looked out towards the sea, she became aware of two enormous masses of rock beneath the ocean that were pushing against one another with unbelievable pressure.
Suddenly these two masses of rock split, and she saw a crack in the ocean floor that seemed to curve towards the city of Vancouver. It was then that she saw the entire region being convulsed by a gigantic earthquake. Violent winds sprang up that tore the roofs off buildings.
Elise could see the Lions Gate Bridge shaking and then collapsing completely. In the downtown area, she could see tall buildings begin to crumble under the forces unleashed by the earthquake. She could also hear the cries of people caught up in the mayhem.
It was then that the voice inside her said: “You have twenty minutes to escape to safety“. And as she looked towards the West, she could see gigantic Tsunami waves pounding the cliffs of the University of British Columbia at Point Grey.
These waves then swept around the cliffs, engulfing the low lying suburbs that flanked the city. In particular, Elise noticed automobiles being swept along the rooftops of houses in Kitsilano, extending down to False Creek and surrounding areas.
Looking down, Elise said that she could see no sign of Stanley Park. Further afield, the suburbs of Richmond, Tsawwassen, and low lying areas of Delta, White Rock and Surrey were swamped by the towering waves. The international airport of YVR was nowhere to be seen.
On the North Shore, large swathes of commercial and residential buildings all along the shore were swept away, including the North end of the Second Narrows (Ironworkers Memorial) bridge, meaning that the North Shore was entirely cut off from the rest of the Lower Mainland.
In addition, Elise could see rocks tumbling down the North Shore mountains, as landslides demolished those house that had been built higher up on the mountain slopes.
Further up Howe Sound, the highway from West Vancouver to Garibaldi Highlands had been buried by rock falls and ravaged by landslides, while the communities of Squamish and Horseshoe Bay were drowned by the all-engulfing Tsunami.
And everywhere, the damage caused by the waves was compounded by the battering ram effect of all the automobiles, boats and other debris that were being swept along by this horrifying tide of destruction.
Follow up
Elise continued to talk to me about the events of that night. We must have made a bizarre sight. A young woman standing together with the “Ayatollah Khomeini” in the middle of the dance floor, engrossed in deep conversation for the better part of two hours.
I should mention that her story was not limited to the earthquake and Tsunami. As she went on to explain, the events of that night continued to unfold for several hours, and even led to her going outside the apartment building with her baby in her arms. But that is a story for another time.
Another thing that Elise pointed out was that throughout these ghastly scenes of chaos and destruction, she felt an overwhelming sense of inner calm. It was as if she was watching a video of some catastrophic event involving places that she knew well, yet felt strangely unaffected by it all.
When I asked her later about the “safety zones” she mentioned, Elise said that the “markers” that she saw started from the Grain Elevators located on the South side of Vancouver harbour, close to the Second Narrows bridge, and extended back as far as Burnaby Mountain to the East.
I also asked if she could recall any details about the weather or time of year at the time of the earthquake. She said that it seemed to be a fine, sunny day, with blue skies and a few clouds. In fact she said that it seemed to her similar to a crisp day in the Fall (Autumn).
There was one other thing that puzzled her. When the events of that night were finally over, Elise said that she was left with the memory of two numbers. They were one and four. The strange thing was that whenever she looked at her watch in the weeks that followed, the hands frequently pointed to the numbers one and four.
Elise told me later that she had never previously discussed the events of that night with anyone, until she met me at the Hallowe’en party. Yet as soon as she saw me, for some inexplicable reason, she felt that she could talk to me about this, and that I would understand.
From my own point of view, no sooner had Elise finished telling me her story, when I realised the significance of the pattern of stars that she had been told to write down, and why they might possibly be a vital clue in predicting when these events might occur.
While there have been numerous people throughout history who have had visionary experiences of future disasters, the problem has always been that these visions never come with a date, so that those who might be affected by these events could be warned in advance.
This case, however, was different, because Elise got to write down the star pattern. I also knew that I might possibly be the only person in Vancouver who could solve the riddle of the stars, because I had recently joined the staff of the Vancouver Museums and Planetarium Association.
The Planetarium
Several weeks later, with the kind help of Jim, the Assistant Director, I was able to arrange for Elise to visit the Planetarium to see if she could recognise the stars that she had seen from her apartment window on the night of her experience. There was just Elise, Jim and myself present.
What made this test so realistic for her was that the skyline projected by the Vancouver Planetarium is an exact replica of what can actually be seen around the city, and includes all of the North Shore mountains. So Elise could easily orientate herself towards the North.
At first she had difficulty picking out the different constellations, as so many stars were visible on the dome of the Planetarium. But after Jim reduced the luminosity, she was able to see the major constellations as they appeared in the Northern sky.
I then asked Jim if he would rotate the projector and display the stars as they would appear on a night by night basis. I also asked Elise to tell us to stop the projector as soon as she felt there was an exact match with what she remembered seeing on the night of her experience.
There was hardly a sound for the next ten minutes or so as the stars on the dome continued to rotate.
Then Elise suddenly shouted “Stop!”. When I asked her if she was sure, she said she was positive. The key indicator for her were the positions of the Big Dipper and the constellation of Orion, together with a bright star located slightly above a “C” moon, as she called it.
We were then able to establish that the “C” moon she was referring to was a Waning Crescent moon, and that the bright star was the planet Jupiter. When I asked Jim the date when this alignment had occurred, I was surprised to learn that it had already happened.
I had been expecting to find that the star pattern that Elise had been asked to write down, referred to a date sometime in the future, and that this would be the date that the earthquake and Tsunami would occur. Instead, it turned out to the exact day on which Elise had her strange experience, on October 23, 1978.
I then asked Jim if he could tell us when this same star pattern would come around again. To my further surprise, I learned that because it takes the planet Jupiter 12 years to orbit around the sun, this particular alignment would not happen again for another twelve years, in October 1990.
Well this date came and went, and nothing alarming happened. Neither did anything out of the ordinary occur when the next anniversary came around in October, 2002. I recently contacted the Planetarium, and asked if they could tell me when the next anniversary is due. They said it was due on:
Friday 17 October 2014
The Subduction Zone
As Elise was telling me about the scenes of destruction that she had witnessed on that night, I had no doubt in my mind that she was describing the predictable events that would follow the next rupture of the Cascadia Fault, as outlined in my previous Blog post.
Seismologists have for years been warning that the entire Pacific Northwest is in danger of calamitous destruction when the next mega-thrust earthquake occurs along the Cascadia Subduction Zone. They warn that it could measure 9.0 or more on the Richter scale.
How much damage this would cause to the coastal region of Southwest British Columbia is open to question, simply because there has never been an earthquake of that magnitude within the recorded history of the region. But that does not mean that one cannot estimate the potential damage.
In an article published in BCBusiness in August, 2013, author Steve Burgess wrote:
“The Cascadia fault—also known in more paranoid circles as the Cascadia Subduction Zone—runs offshore from somewhere near the top of Vancouver Island to northern California. Over the past five millennia it has ruptured with terrifying frequency. It will certainly rupture again, but this time with a string of 21st-century cities—high-rising, dense-with-people, globally interdependent regional capitals—stacked squarely in its impact zone.
“The human and economic devastation of the coming West Coast earthquake is unimaginable. Whether it’s the magnitude-9 Big One that strikes first, or smaller—but equally deadly—temblors, recovery will take years, not weeks. Almost half of small businesses will fail. Hundreds of thousands of British Columbians will leave and never return.” (View source)
As Burgess pointed out, a study conducted by the Oregon Seismic Safety Policy Advisory Commission concluded that some 10,000 people would be killed, and damage amounting to $32 billion would occur in an area ranging from Vancouver Island all the way down the coast to Northern California.
Some of the shrewdest analysts of the probable damage that might be incurred are the Actuaries of Insurance Companies, since they are the ones who are on the hook for covering most of this loss. These actuaries have therefore compiled maps of areas that are most at risk.
In Canada, the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction has an actuarial map that ranks regions according to their seismic risk, and then lists these regions by their Postal Codes. Thirteen areas in British Columbia fall into the “Extreme” category, all of which are located in Victoria, Delta and Richmond.
Also included in this “Extreme” category is the Postal Code V7B for YVR Airport, the main point of entry into Western Canada, and an airport that handled nearly 18 million passengers in 2012. It also contributes about Cdn$2 billion annually to the Canadian GDP, and employs over 23,000 people.
Other areas rated in the “Very High” category include V8N and V9B in Greater Victoria, V4L in Delta, V4R in Maple Ridge, as well as V2S and V2T in Abbotsford. Then there is V7P in North Vancouver. And this is where this actuarial map becomes intensely personal.
I should mention that I now live in North Vancouver, just a few hundred yards from the sea, and about twenty feet above sea level. Any Tsunami generated by a Cascadia mega-quake would almost certainly swamp the area where I live for miles around.
Was this a premonition?
So the question then becomes, was the experience that Elise described to me in such graphic detail on that Hallowe’en night all those years ago a premonition? And if so, what are the chances of a Subduction Zone mega-quake actually happening on Friday October 17, 2014?
Based on the fact that nothing has happened on the previous two anniversaries of the star pattern that Elise observed, one would have to say that this is unlikely. Yet, according to seismologists and other experts who have studied the Cascadia Fault, there is nothing to suggest that it couldn’t.
After all, three hundred and fourteen years have elapsed since the last recorded rupture. And, perhaps even more important, since 1960, the Cascadia Fault is the only Subduction Zone in the entire Pacific Ring of Fire that has not experienced a mega-quake. All of the others have.
And then there is the strange feature of the numbers that Elise spoke about. She said that for several weeks afterward she had been left with the strong impression that the numbers one and four were important. Could these numbers perhaps refer to the year 2014?
Either way, this leaves me in a quandary. What should I, and all those other thousands of others who are living in harm’s way, do about it? Should I ignore Elise’s story in the hope that, because nothing catastrophic has happened thus far, nothing dangerous will happen now?
According to the local Emergency Management officials, the answer is simple. Because a mega-quake is certain to strike the Pacific Northwest at some point in the future, everyone who is at risk needs to have a plan of action drawn up now, on what to do when the “Big One” finally happens.
As I am advising my friends, as soon as the shaking stops, if you are living in a vulnerable area, you need to get to higher ground. You need to reach a height of at least 100 feet (30 metres), but preferably twice that height, remembering that Tsunamis rise in height when they reach the shore.
And you need to do so quickly. As the voice warned Elise: “You have twenty minutes to escape to safety“. Those who take their time are risking their very lives. And of course you need to have a Grab-n-go bag that you can take with you with essential provisions.
As local Emergency Management officials warn, be prepared to be on your own completely for the first three days, to which I would add that it is more likely to be at least a week before outside help could be expected to arrive. So you need to have sufficient quantities of food and water.
After lengthy consideration, I have now reached a decision about what to do. I already have my Grab-n-go bag packed, ready to leave at a moment’s notice. I also have an escape route planned which hopefully would take me to safety.
However, because of a variety of possible obstacles, such as fallen power lines, gridlock on the roads, and a landscape buckled by the forces of the mega-quake, I have decided to adopt a more pro-active response, and that is to leave the area beforehand.
For a few days before and after October 17, 2014, therefore, I plan to be out of town staying with friends some two hundred and fifty miles away.
Meanwhile, as I lie in bed at night, I cannot help wondering whether we may be just days away from the greatest natural disaster that has ever struck the North American continent.
