Preparing for the Big One: Joyce group hardens windows in case of a quake

JOYCE — A community group has hardened the windows at Joyce Bible Church to prevent glass from shattering in a major earthquake.

Joyce Emergency Planning and Preparation, or JEPP, installed a thin plastic film on the insides of dozens of windows at the church gymnasium, sanctuary and fellowship hall last week.

Former state Rep. Jim Buck, who designed the safety improvement, and other JEPP volunteers applied the film to the double-paned windows last week.

“After 9/11, when they rebuilt the Pentagon, they used a product inside of the brick walls like a Kevlar wallpaper,” Buck said in a Wednesday interview at the church.

“So I started looking around to see what you could get for safety security glass.”

The church gymnasium will be used as a community shelter after the next Cascadia earthquake off the Pacific Coast.

Geologists predict that a magnitude-9.0 earthquake will reoccur along the Cascadia Subduction Zone — the last one happened in January 1700 — in a matter of time.

The 20 77-inch-by-27-inch window openings in the church gymnasium are about 20 feet above the ground.

Broken windows in the gymnasium would pose a safety hazard, allow heat to escape and require repairs with a ladder or lift that would be dangerous in an aftershock, Buck said.

Experience from the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 showed that more than half of the injuries that occurred in the San Francisco Bay Area were caused by broken glass, Buck said.

“We cannot have glass shards running around the place where we’ve got kids playing and people trying to sleep,” Buck said while Marylan Thayer, John Kent and Bruce and Rae Leiper prepared or installed the clear plastic film.

The 4 mil, or thousandths of an inch, plastic was carefully applied to the insides of the clean windows using a spray soap solution and squeegee to flatten the film against the window and to eliminate air bubbles. The edges of the windows were caulked and re-installed.

JEPP tested the shatter-resistant windows at the Clallam County Fire District No. 4 headquarters in Joyce last month, needing a pick hammer to eventually crack a test window.

“It worked fantastically and it held up,” Buck said in a Feb. 19 email.

“The unprotected outside double pane shattered and spread glass around the outside of the enclosure. The inside double pane, held together by the 4 mil film broke, but was held in place by the film.

“It did not become the projectile hazard normally associated with broken glass flying into a living space,” Buck added.

“This will cut down on casualties, cleanup and material/labor needed to repair shelter windows.”

Buck said it cost about $700 for the materials needed to enhance the windows at the church campus.

The labor and mechanical lift needed to reach the high windows in the gym were provided by volunteers.

“Everything pretty much from here on out is ground level and fun,” Buck said Wednesday.

JEPP has been regarded as a leader in disaster preparedness.

Buck has given well-attended speeches about the Cascadia megaquake and other disaster planning throughout the North Olympic Peninsula along with Clallam County Fire District No. 3 officials.

Buck was involved in the 2016 Cascadia Rising exercise and continues to work as an earthquake-preparedness activist.

Jefferson, Grays Harbor counties

Other emergency preparedness community groups have sprouted up in Chimacum, Port Ludlow, the West End and parts of Grays Harbor County, Buck said.

JEPP has a foam-insulated shipping container stocked with emergency supplies at an “undisclosed location near Joyce,” Buck said.

The container, which registered 47 degrees and 41 percent relative humidity Wednesday, contains different types of sleeping bags and large stocks of rice, cornmeal, red wheat, oats, dehydrated scrambled eggs and other food.

“We’ve got enough chow in here for 300 people for, we think, four weeks,” Buck said.

“Most of the chow’s got a 25-year life cycle.”

JEPP secured a second container last fall that will house items that do not require temperature and humidity control such as cots, propane tanks and tents.

The large propane tank at the Joyce Fire Station was anchored into the ground to prevent it from moving in an earthquake.

“That will be here until the next ice age because it’s going to take a glacier to move it,” Buck said.

Buck and others have said it will take weeks for food and other supplies to arrive on the North Olympic Peninsula after a magnitude-9.0 earthquake.

“I’m ready for this,” Buck said.

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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.