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Posted Jan. 11/07
Studying emergency preparedness has a way of turning everyday events and ordinary places into the unusual. The last time Chris Stoney, MA/89, walked into a curling rink, his first thought was: this is where the bodies would be brought.
The associate professor in the School of Public Policy and Administration and chair of the Centre for Urban Research and Education is embarking on a study of responses to mass death in Canada with journalism professor emeritus Joe Scanlon, DPA/56, BJ/55, former director of Carleton’s Emergency Communications Research Unit.
“We initially conceived this as a fact-finding project, but beyond identifying who has responded and how mass death has been dealt with, we see the need to make recommendations for Canada’s mass death network of responders,” says Stoney.
He points to Scanlon’s 12-month investigation of the East Asian tsunami that found international rescue can be disrespectful in the recovery of the dead. Balancing taboos, customs and religion with public health and the recovery, storage and identification of bodies requires protocol and coordination.
With funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the pair is looking at 100 years of disasters in Canada — including the Halifax explosion, floods and earthquakes — to explore what levels of government and which key players are involved in the mass death network.
“We hope that there is a degree of cohesion between people involved so that there is a community of responders building their knowledge,” says Stoney. “We’ve seen with Hurricane Katrina and the tsunami that things can be badly handled.”