In Atlantic Canada, the moment you think you have everything nailed down, a Category 2 storm decides to pop in
A word to the wise: A daily five-km fast walk and a nightly 15-minute endurance routine on a floor mat doesn’t prepare a 50-something body for a sudden dismount from a handstand – especially if said body lands on its tippy toes, like Baryshnikov on a really, really bad morning. “Crunch!” was the sound heard…
What would possess the ‘selfie PM’ to smile for the cameras at a flood zone with people’s lives hanging in the balance?
There are pros and cons to a national leader appearing at a natural disaster. For every act of goodwill, someone will question the motive behind this visit. For every bead of sweat on the brow, someone will wonder if he or she wouldn’t rather be somewhere else. By and large, the positives far outweigh the…As spring beckons after four previous very dry springs and four summers of smoke, we should prepare for the worst
A funny thing happened in Powell River, B.C., the other day. There was a scheduled one-hour power outage that I heard about on the radio as I was driving the 30 kilometres into town to do some errands. No big deal, I thought. Lights out in the mall perhaps. My first stop was at the…
The MedicAlert Autism Program allows emergency responders to make better decisions to help people in times of need
The silver identification bracelet that indicates an existing condition to first responders has been a valuable tool for decades. In 1953, a teenage girl named Linda Collins cut her finger badly. At the hospital, she received a tetanus shot, had a severe allergic reaction and almost died. After that incident, her parents began attaching a…
It's apparently more important to protect the environment than it is to allow humans the tools to survive in a crisis
Oh the weather outside is frightful, But the fire is so delightful. Since we've no place to go, Let it snow, let it snow, let it – ZAP! The power has suddenly gone out. Are you ready for such an emergency? According to the federal government's Get Prepared website, “you need to be able to…
The book Dull Disasters examines how we can get ahead of the inevitable cataclysmic events, rather than resorting to futile generosity after the fact
I don’t know about your city, but everywhere I’ve lived in Canada, it snows. As we get past Halloween, I dig out my snow shovel, so one day I can dig out of the snow. I do this every year. I don’t have to reinvent the wheel or the shovel. Authors Daniel J. Clarke and…
If a disaster wipes out a lot of inventory, that scarce or non-existent inventory has a higher value with more dollars chasing fewer goods
Very few researchers document the positive effects of disasters. But a few do note that a disaster also injects a lot of new money into a region. It’s a tough way to get a little economic activity going but the imperative is to repair. Per L. Bylund is one of the rare birds who explores this in his…
In time of crisis, should governments rely on non-governmental organizations or should those groups be asked to stand aside for the greater good?
Former Canadian Finance minister Jim Flaherty was once asked whether the government would be or should be providing a certain service. He cleverly said that if you could find that service in the yellow pages, the government shouldn’t be involved. (For younger readers, the yellow pages were a listing of businesses in your city.) Flaherty’s point…
In emergency circumstances, we often help each other. But what happens when a municipality mandates that citizens need to help strangers?
The great disaster scholar Joe Scanlon told me that individuals perform well and organizations perform poorly in crises. Anyone who has been in a big storm in Montreal has seen individuals and restaurants open their doors to people with a thick layer of snow on their heads. Anyone who has lived on the Prairies has helped…
The violent 1990 protest in London over the proposed poll tax resulted in a change in policy and the departure of Margaret Thatcher