Jim Pedersen calls the tsunami that reached Port Alberni 50 years ago “one of those watershed moments that stays with us our entire lives.”
Back then, it was called a tidal wave, a term that has given way to the Japanese word tsunami, meaning “harbour wave.”
Pedersen was 12 at the time. There were actually six tsunamis that would reach the area — home to about 17,000 people — ranging from 1.5 to three metres above normal high tide.
Damage estimates would reach $5 million in Port Alberni, in 1964 dollars. Other coastal communities, including Zeballos, Ucluelet and Tofino, were also affected.
Pedersen recalled the day — March 28, 1964 — in a written account prepared for his grandchildren some years ago.
He said that he and his brother were awakened by their father about 8 a.m., well after the tsunami’s arrival at a little past midnight. The family lived in an elevated part of town and was spared the effects of the water.
A fire alarm had been sounded during the night as a warning, but Pedersen slept through it.
He remembers looking down on the community’s lower areas and realizing that it was “ominously quiet.”
“Coupled with the layer of mist that enshrouded the valley, the stillness was eerie.”
He asked his father if he thought his soccer game would still be played, but dad said it was unlikely because houses had been deposited in the middle of Port Alberni’s soccer pitch.
Pedersen countered that the game was outside town at Sproat Elementary School.
“Just the same, I wouldn’t count on it,” his father said. “The main roads through town are closed.”
But normalcy crept into the day when the soccer coach found a way to drive through and around the tsunami’s aftermath, and gathered the players together. The match was played, and Pedersen’s team won 6-0.
Despite the diversion of the game, Pedersen was still well aware of the scope of what had happened.
He remembered looking down Alberni Inlet the next day and waiting for another smaller tsunami that was predicted, but never came.
“The peacefulness of the balmy afternoon made it difficult to believe that a tidal wave had ever struck at all,” he said.