Officials across the Tri-Cities are viewing Saturday's earthquake off of Haida Gwaii as a timely reminder around preparedness and prevention.

Roccino Cerenzie, on the other hand, has just crossed five items off of his Christmas shopping list.

Cerenzie and his wife were at Coquitlam's SilverCity movie theatres as the quake struck shortly after 8 p.m.

Though no one was injured, the incident served as a sobering reminder to educate themselves around earthquake preparedness.

"We don't have an emergency kit, but [on Sunday morning] when we woke up, we were talking about it over coffee and we thought this is the perfect Christmas gift," said the Port Moody resident. "We're going to get packages made up for all of the kids. We're definitely getting prepared, because you never know."

Cerenzie described Saturday at the theatres as chaotic after the quake struck, as hundreds of people were in a state of confusion over what had just happened.

"We were halfway through the show and my wife looked at me and said, 'We're having an earthquake,'" Cerenzie said. "I thought it was the movie but I looked down at my drink and I could see my ice shaking. That building was literally shaking from side to side."

None of his kids - who live in Coquitlam, Port Moody and Burnaby - felt the earthquake, nor did they know it had happened when he reached them by phone.

"There were some tense moments," he said. "It was a little bit freaky when you came out of the theatre because there were hundreds of people in there and everybody was saying the same thing."

According to SFU geologist Brent Ward, people at SilverCity felt the quake because the theatres are built on a thick layer of loose sediment, which amplified the shock waves.

"With an increase in amplitude, the shaking is more intense," said Ward, adding he did not feel the earthquake at his home near the Poirier Sport & Leisure Complex.

"The people who felt it a long way away, I could almost guarantee that they're in places where they're on thick sediment."

Cineplex Entertainment spokesperson Pat Marshall told The NOW Tuesday the theatres did not sustain any damages, and nobody was hurt on Saturday night.

"The theatre was built to the building code, which already takes into consideration the seismic standards in the province of British Columbia," she added.

Meanwhile, emergency planners across the Tri-Cities learned of the quake from Emergency Management B.C. However, no specific actions were taken in any of the Tri-Cities and no reports were noted in terms of damage or inquiries from residents.

"Port Moody was not impacted at all by Saturday's earthquake," said Port Moody spokesperson Leslyn Johnson. "Our officers discussed the situation and determined that it did not require any further municipal emergency response."

"It is highly unlikely that a tsunami alert from an earthquake generated in Haida Gwaii would ever impact the City of Coquitlam," added Greg Kanya, Coquitlam's manager of emergency programs. "The only potential impact may be a rise in the Fraser River should a tsunami enter the river channel at its mouth."

Tara Stroup, PoCo's emergency program officer, was at a dinner party in Maple Ridge on Saturday night and felt no effects from the quake. She added no calls came into the city from concerned residents.

"It was a bit of a wakeup call, though," she said.

According to Ward, a few areas in the Tri-Cities are more susceptible to prolonged shaking during an earthquake than others - areas along the Fraser River and near the floodplains of the Coquitlam and Pitt rivers, as well as a portion of Dewdney Trunk Road near the Coquitlam/Port Moody border.

All of those areas feature the kind of thick buildup of loose sediments similar to the ground underneath SilverCity, Ward said.

. PoCo will host a free emergency preparedness course on Nov. 24. More information is available at www.portcoquitlam.ca/ep. To register, call 604-927-5466.

jkurucz@thenownews.com