![]() capital has the unique curse of being simultaneously threatened by several types of earthquakes at once. “Victoria, more so than Vancouver, has highly vulnerable buildings, and a very high earthquake hazard,” said John Sherstobitoff, a leading Vancouver-based seismic engineer. Despite it all, Victoria often continues to act like a city that doesn’t stand on the brink of catastrophe. Faced with a 50 per cent chance of a major quake happening within the next 80 years, it is more likely than not that many of the future victims of the Big One are already alive. capital will be visited with a scale of civic destruction not seen in this country since the 1917 Halifax Explosion. It is a scientific certainty that the B.C. Victorians live in one of the most doomed cities in Canada. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist First Class Joshua Lee Kelsey) In this photo taken in the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, rescuers attempt to free trapped guests within the rubble of the Hotel Montana, one of the country’s most luxurious hotels. As you dive under your table, you can only hope that the five storeys of groaning brick and stone above your head will miraculously survive the violence and spare you the fate of being entombed inside B.C.’s grandest hotel. Through the windows you can see them struck by a rain of slate shingles before your vision is blocked entirely by thick, white dust as the hotel’s century-old plaster begins to crack. The earth underneath the Empress is so soft that in the hotel’s first 10 years it sank by as much as four feet, and that was without any whiff of an earthquake.Ī small crowd of panicked diners sprint outside. While no building is guaranteed to come down in an earthquake, the Empress – at least the original 1908 section where you now sit – is a sickening combination of unreinforced brick built atop reclaimed swamp land. It is the sound of the earth being torn apart.Īfter years of warnings, the Big One has finally arrived, and you’re unlucky enough to be inside the main dining room of The Empress arguably one of the most seismically unstable buildings in the entire city. Beneath all of this cacophony is a sound you’ve never heard before: a low, omnipresent rumbling, like being underneath a speeding freight train. A spreading puddle of premium alcohol has already begun to lap at your feet when the gasps and nervous laughter around you turn to screams. Tunnelling Conference in Auckland in November 2023.The first thing you hear is breaking glass hundreds of liquor and wine bottles shaking free from their moorings and shattering on the floor. The award is sponsored by Bouygues Construction Australia and the winner will be announced at the Australasian The ATS Women in Tunnelling Achievement Award recognises the leadership and achievements of the outstanding women in our industry and inspires other women to visualise themselves growing their careers and achieving great things. When supported, the nature of the work is such that it can provide flexible working hours, which is something that many women value when balancing work and family. Tracy says a career in acoustics provides a strong path to employment and financial security. Girls need to continue to be encouraged to develop skills in STEM fields from a young age, even in primary school and definitely in high school, which will follow through into university. Tracy loves that the profile of engineering is changing and sees that girls are far less intimidated by maths and science than they were when she was at school, but acknowledges that we need to keep up the momentum. She held the position of Chair of the NSW Division and later President of the society during this time. Tracy is an active member of the Australian Acoustical Society and has previously served the society from 2004 to 2017. She has led the construction noise and vibration management team on several of these tunnel excavation projects, providing an innovative approach to the management of construction noise and vibration in metropolitan areas. Tracy has been involved with a diverse range of environmental acoustic projects, including the Sydney Metro Rail Tunnel projects and WestConnex road tunnel projects. Tracy is a Principal Engineer at Renzo Tonin & Associates and has over 20 years of experience in acoustic consulting. □✨ Celebrating our outstanding 18 ATS Women in Tunnelling Award nominees one at a time □□: Tracy Gowen
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