Nine years ago a tornado swept through Edmonton killing 26 people, half of whom
died in a mobile home park in the northeast end of the city.
According to PhD candidate Laurie Pearce, of UBC’s School of Community and
Regional Planning, it took almost one hour before rescuers realized that the
mobile homes had been wiped out.
“Communications from the top part of the city were cut off and response teams
went to the industrial centre and residential areas to the south,” said Pearce.
“If they’d properly completed a hazard and risk analysis they would have known
that the mobile home park was incredibly vulnerable.”
Pearce will make a presentation about who is most vulnerable during a natural
disaster at Pan Pacific Hazards ’96, an international trade show and
conference taking place July 29-Aug. 2 at the Vancouver Trade and Convention
Centre.
Pan Pacific Hazards ’96 – focusing particularly on earthquakes, volcanoes and
tsunamis – has been organized as a major Canadian contribution supporting the
United Nations International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR).
The conference includes 300 key speakers from 20 countries who are experts in
topics ranging from business recovery challenges in the aftermath of a major
earthquake to the importance of telecommunications in disaster preparedness
programs.
Among the trade show’s more than 80 exhibits are a simulated earthquake
experience in the “Quakey Shakey Van” from the Los Angeles Fire Department.
For her own research, Pearce has examined hundreds of natural and
person-induced hazard scenarios with an aim to developing programs to reduce
“social vulnerabilities.”
Some examples of social vulnerabilities are: inability to read English;
dependency of senior citizens and young children on others for help; citizens
in poor health, on medication or suffering from respiratory diseases; and
people with little or no money to cope after a disaster strikes.
In the case of the Edmonton tornado, Pearce said most of the people killed in
the mobile home park were low-income seniors over the age of 55 or youths under
18.
“I’m alerting people to things that they might not think of right away in the
event of a disaster so that vulnerabilities are built into preparedness
programs,” said Pearce. “Certain groups have to be targeted for assistance
before and after a disaster strikes.”
The conference, organized in part by UBC’s Disaster Preparedness Resources
Centre, will be open to the public on July 31.
