The tragedy created by the partial collapse of the roof of the Algo Centre Mall at Eliot Lake Ontario on June 23rd 2012 was a mini disaster on the Global scale. However it has the potential to yield a range of valuable lessons for managing large disasters. The event indicated that challenges might exist in areas such as mobilization, heavy search and rescue, logistics, government funding, media reporting, command control and coordination, structural design, building / facility maintenance, compliance, enforcement, and ethics.

York University has organized a series of disaster forensic seminars which included the Haiti January 2010 Earthquake, 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the March 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami. These seminars indicated interest across diverse stakeholder groups in new knowledge networking, exploration of innovative ideas and out of the box conversations. The overall purpose of the Eliot Lake Seminar will be: to promote and stimulate wider dialogue and timely sharing of Lessons Learned between all stakeholders; facilitate the exchange of information and lessons learned in the Canadian interest groups; stimulate dialogue and discussion regarding optimal development and timely utilization of emergency, disaster, and risk focused knowledge and skill sets at all levels. Officials, scholars and researchers, media, practitioners, NGOs, and private sector representatives will be among the panelists and participants.

Partners

IAEM

OAEM

Friday March 8,  2013          |      9am – 4:30pm

Room 109 Atkinson Building, Harry Crowe Room  York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario

Disasterlessons.info.yorku.ca