The New Normal
Posted by Bill Molesworth
Gordon Key introduced Dr. Jim Young. Dr. Young has worked at both the area hospitals and lives in Elmvale, but over the past years he has been working in crisis and disease management for the Provincial and the Federal governments. He received an award for his work during the SARS outbreak and has experience working around the world.
Dr. Young said he and some colleagues had been discussing the future during a break from the SARS work and one commented that he would be glad to get things back to normal. Another suggested that the normal we have been used to is gone, there is a new normal of constant crisis.
He said 40% of Canadians live in Ontario, 50% of the chemicals we use are made here, there are 30 million shipments of hazardous materials a year in the Province, 40% of our power comes from nuclear generation. Numbers like this lead to other numbers - 60% of rail accidents involve hazmats; when there's a blackout, nuclear stations shut themselves down and it takes them a long time to get started again.
We learn some things over the years - Hurricane Hazel taught us not to build on flood plains and to create conservation areas, but people forget and then New Orleans happens.
But some things are changing; the ice storm was probably because of global warming - the conditions haven't existed before - and storms like that create a huge infrastructure problem. As the weather continues to change, more weaknesses will become apparent.
Planning doesn't foresee the scale - nobody thought 60 towns and cities would be without power at once.
Nobody thought Sept. 11 would happen either. Now, security is paramount. The US is convinced it will happen again and that conviction is driving all decisions - often at the expense of others. FEMA was overshadowed by the fear of terrorism and was unprepared. Now border problems are looming and our integrated economy is at risk.
The biggest problem is to keep people at work when they want to be home helping their families.
We are expecting problems from Global Warming, our Interconnectivity, our Infrastructure, from Terrorism and from Pandemics. From Warming we can expect more weather - storms, fires, floods. 16,000 people died in the heat wave in France. One event, a fire at a bank, affected VISA operations on the whole Easter Seaboard. The August blackout combined poor infrastructure and mismanagement with inteconnectivity and shut down half a continent. Terrorism could come here - by hitting at us they could hit at the US.
We need to be proactive, aggressive and seamless in our planning and responses. Through constant monitoring we can stop or contain some things. The Tsunami wrought incomprehenisble destruction from 1,500 kms away. 5,000 people were killed in 35 countries and economies were destroyed because tourism stopped. The salt water that was carried 10 kms inland killed plants and introduced microorganisms that change the ecology.
There are huge risks of earthquakes in North America, and not just in the west. An earthquake and wave hit Newfoundland 50 years ago.
When a crisis like that hits a lot of people feel they should go and help, but often they are ill equipped, untrained and un supplied. They should send money and let the professionals do it.
We need to be aware of pandemics - they do happen on a regular basis. Though the 1968 one had a low death toll, the one in 1918 killed 50 million people. We have to plan for the worst and monitor all the time because it can be spreading before we know it exists.
The Avian flu exists and it is mutating though it has not developed human to human capability yet. If it does and it spreads, between 11 and 20% of the population will be sick and the most vulnerable will be the people we will need the most - the health care workers who will be lost as the demand grows. There will be a need for triage decisions.
Bruce Wilcox thanked Dr. Young for his presentation, saying that though the prospects discussed were scary, it was comforting to know that people like him were working for out safety.
He said 40% of Canadians live in Ontario, 50% of the chemicals we use are made here, there are 30 million shipments of hazardous materials a year in the Province, 40% of our power comes from nuclear generation. Numbers like this lead to other numbers - 60% of rail accidents involve hazmats; when there's a blackout, nuclear stations shut themselves down and it takes them a long time to get started again.
We learn some things over the years - Hurricane Hazel taught us not to build on flood plains and to create conservation areas, but people forget and then New Orleans happens.
But some things are changing; the ice storm was probably because of global warming - the conditions haven't existed before - and storms like that create a huge infrastructure problem. As the weather continues to change, more weaknesses will become apparent.
Planning doesn't foresee the scale - nobody thought 60 towns and cities would be without power at once.
Nobody thought Sept. 11 would happen either. Now, security is paramount. The US is convinced it will happen again and that conviction is driving all decisions - often at the expense of others. FEMA was overshadowed by the fear of terrorism and was unprepared. Now border problems are looming and our integrated economy is at risk.
The biggest problem is to keep people at work when they want to be home helping their families.
We are expecting problems from Global Warming, our Interconnectivity, our Infrastructure, from Terrorism and from Pandemics. From Warming we can expect more weather - storms, fires, floods. 16,000 people died in the heat wave in France. One event, a fire at a bank, affected VISA operations on the whole Easter Seaboard. The August blackout combined poor infrastructure and mismanagement with inteconnectivity and shut down half a continent. Terrorism could come here - by hitting at us they could hit at the US.
We need to be proactive, aggressive and seamless in our planning and responses. Through constant monitoring we can stop or contain some things. The Tsunami wrought incomprehenisble destruction from 1,500 kms away. 5,000 people were killed in 35 countries and economies were destroyed because tourism stopped. The salt water that was carried 10 kms inland killed plants and introduced microorganisms that change the ecology.
There are huge risks of earthquakes in North America, and not just in the west. An earthquake and wave hit Newfoundland 50 years ago.
When a crisis like that hits a lot of people feel they should go and help, but often they are ill equipped, untrained and un supplied. They should send money and let the professionals do it.
We need to be aware of pandemics - they do happen on a regular basis. Though the 1968 one had a low death toll, the one in 1918 killed 50 million people. We have to plan for the worst and monitor all the time because it can be spreading before we know it exists.
The Avian flu exists and it is mutating though it has not developed human to human capability yet. If it does and it spreads, between 11 and 20% of the population will be sick and the most vulnerable will be the people we will need the most - the health care workers who will be lost as the demand grows. There will be a need for triage decisions.
Bruce Wilcox thanked Dr. Young for his presentation, saying that though the prospects discussed were scary, it was comforting to know that people like him were working for out safety.