Show HN: What a major earthquake does to Vancouver
quakeimpact.caAbout 10 years ago, I attended a presentation by someone who had compiled existing engineering reports to describe the impact of a major earthquake on infrastructure in British Columbia. It was really striking, and it has stayed in the back of my mind ever since.
I am now the point of contact for downtown Vancouver in the French community's emergency network, and it drives me nuts that most people I talk to have no emergency kit at home and basically no water.
People are shocked, or in denial, when I mention that it could take weeks to restore electricity and that they will have to rely on their own food and water for at least several days.
So I decided to build a public-facing site that compiles existing information, as a way to lay out the facts and help convince people, instead of hearing back that "the army will come" or that "there are emergency food reserves" (there aren't).
I see this as a citizen initiative, with one main message: go buy some water and canned food, it's your civic duty.
I relied on AI agents to compile the information, which is spread across hundreds of reports. With different levels of validation, plus my own review, I am confident the information is reliable, even if some details may not be fully up to date. The process took 2–3 weeks, alongside work, a toddler and a baby!
I'm posting it here because: 1) I'm curious to get feedback and suggestions. 2) Many HN readers are on the West Coast or in other seismic areas, so even if you're not in Vancouver, the general recommendations may be of interest. Be smart: buy some food and water.
Cheers
Thomas
Some feedback:
- It's obviously AI created
- There's way too much text
Visuals tell a story faster and leave a bigger impact than a wall of text. Is there a way you could turn some of the most important messages into visuals? For example, "it could take weeks to restore electricity" - having a calendar view or animation of this with perhaps comparable situations that happened elsewhere.
For food and water, show pictures of what someone should have on hand for a family of 4.
Your main message is go buy water and canned food but that doesn't appear until 3/4 of the way down the page. Research kits that people can buy at their favourite local stores or online and have a clear call to action for people to buy one of them now. If someone visits and leaves the page by buying a kit without reading any of the information, that's going to help them way more than reading and absorbing all the info but without buying a kit. If there's no good kits that you think are worth buying, that could be a good business opportunity. Make your own and sell that.
The sources take up way too much space. That section could be made much smaller.
Thanks for taking the time!
I prefer to avoid having commercial links and don't intend to make this a business, but I'll see if I can reduce the text. the challenge is trying to keep this a reference and explain things properly
That's fine. I would still emphasize trying to make it easy for people to get their kits together. Having someone go from no kit to a poor kit is still infinitely better. If you don't have links, something like a clear list of items would be something that I would find helpful.
For example you say "Keep enough water, food and essential supplies for every person and pet in the home for at least two weeks". Ok, how much water is that? Is a pack of water bottles enough?
Yes, there is a page about Preparing (https://quakeimpact.ca/prepare/), but I agree that a list would be useful.
I have my own spreadsheet in which I keep track of what I have with expiration dates, so that I know when to renew, I was thinking of making this a reusable template
That sounds like a great idea! I know I bought an emergency kit a while ago but I should probably check when it expires/expired.