An expert in B-C is supporting a decision by emergency officials to issue a tsunami alert after Tuesday morning’s 7.9-magnitude earthquake in the Gulf of Alaska. Residents of many coastal communities in B-C were ordered to evacuate to higher ground although Emergency Preparedness B-C says in the end there was only a three-centimetre wave at Tofino. But earth science professor Brent Ward at Simon Fraser University says officials weren’t wrong to declare the alert because the quake carried all the signs of spawning a tsunami, even though it turned out not to be that kind of tremblor. Tofino Mayor Josie Osborne says there was a great sense of relief when the warning was lifted — saying you prepare for the worst and hope for the best, and that’s what happened.