It was the big one - but B.C. dodged a bullet when a massive 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck out to sea near an uninhabited portion of Haida Gwaii.

"We got lucky," said Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, trying to impress upon residents how serious the results would have been if a 7.7 quake struck closer to the Lower Mainland. "This is a real warning, close to home, that people need to heed."

Robertson said 50 schools are at risk - a major multi-year retrofitting of schools is under way - and people shouldn't be complacent because there were no damage or injuries. "There are a lot of buildings around the city that are not ready for a large quake," Robertson said.

City emergency planner Jackie Kloosterboer said people need to plan ahead, setting up an emergency kit and knowing where to go now that the possibility of a major quake is so evident. "People need to get prepared now," she said.

Dr. John Cassidy, a seismologist with Natural Resources Canada, said it's all about location when it comes to the amount of damage - in this case the closest community was 70 kilometres away.

"Seven-point-seven is really a huge earthquake - there might be one or two a year that large worldwide - and here in Canada it's been 63 years since we had that large a quake," said Cassidy. "But because Queen Charlotte City is 70 kilometres away, there was no damage - trees do really well in an earthquake. They just sway back and forth."

B.C. Minister of Justice and Attorney-General Shirley Bond said Sunday that local authorities did what they were supposed to do in reacting quickly to Saturday's quake.

But Bond, whose responsibilities include emergency management, said the B.C. government will review its own response to the 7.7 quake.

While communities affected by the quake sprang into action, the official government response was a little slower. "I think it was within about 40 minutes [of the 8: 04 p.m. tremor]", said Bond.

The quake was a good reminder for everyone to be prepared.

"We've had over 40 aftershocks," said Bond. "We all need to be prepared, starting with individuals."

The individuals of most concern to Patti Bacchus, chairwoman of the Vancouver School Board, are children and staff in schools that need to be seismically upgraded.

"We still have about 48 schools that need funding," Bacchus said Sunday. "If you put it together, it's close to $1 billion of work that needs to be done. We have the majority of the at-risk buildings in the province."

A revision of the B.C. mitigation plan from September said a "new assessment has identified 152 schools with at least one 'high-risk' building section that needs to be addressed with structural upgrades under the School Seismic Mitigation program. The cost to address these high-priority schools is estimated at $1.3 billion."

Another fear raised by Saturday's quake was the risk from a tsunami that could swamp an oil tanker. More of such ships will ply B.C. waters if the Enbridge pipeline is allowed to cross the province to Kit-imat or if Kinder Morgan's existing pipeline is allowed to increase its capacity.

"I think this is a warning of what the risks are of moving large quantities of dirty oil off the coast of B.C.," said Ben West of the Wilderness Committee.

A tsunami triggered by Saturday's quake forced the precautionary evacuation of low-lying areas on Vancouver Island, as well as a massive relocation to higher ground in tsunami-prone Hawaii.