Category Archives: Disaster

There’s always another disaster…

Like taxes, we can always be sure that there will be another disaster.   What follows are some data on 2012 but, as I write, the 2013 tally seems on its way with the increasing number of communities in Canada declaring disasters due to rising water levels from the thaw.   The sad, and somewhat irritating, fact is that many of these events are predictable with predictable consequences.   It is notoriously difficult to maintain sustained public (and, therefore, political) interest in high-consequence, low-probability events.   However,  something like the annual thaw flooding or the annual hurricane season should not have anyone, least of all politicians, looking wide-eyed in shock. We can … Continue reading

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The benefits of a deployable pool of volunteers

Last year, I had the amazing opportunity to work with many other volunteers in a large post-disaster recovery operation.   The disaster itself was a major event which affected a significant proportion of a town and its residents in northern Canada.   My role was to assist in the early days of the recovery effort once the situation had been stabilised and attention could be focussed on the longer term. I’ll probably write more about my experience as I found it quite fascinating and it has led me to do quite a bit of thinking about disaster response in general.   However, in this posting, I want to focus on the power of … Continue reading

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