A summary of the proceedings can be found by Jared Wade at Risk Management Monitor.

Omar Ha-Redeye attended the 2009 World Conference on Disaster Management. He has attended this conference regularly for several years, and has spoken at it before.

Day 1

Eat Dessert First – Using Social Media Channels to implement Company or Community Recovery Faster workshop by Bill DelGrosso, Director of Emergency Management for Professional Organization for Women’s Enrichment (EMPOWER).

Best Practices in Crisis Communications by Boyd Neil, Senior Vice President, and Jane Shapiro, National Practice Director, at Hill & Knowlton Canada.

A write-up on the second workshop can be found on Slaw and Social Media Mafia

Day 2

John Merkovsky spoke on Building Resiliency in the Face of Global Risks, and Scot Phelps
of Southern Connecticut State University shared Ten easy, cheap, or fast technologies you should know about.

What Hackers Don’t Want You to Know about Identity Management was shared by Jeff Crume, while Graham Walsh of Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP presented Business Continuity and Risk Management: A Legal Perspective.

Prof. Martin Rudner of Carleton University gave a provocative talk entitled Communication, Collaboration, and Co-operation in Countering Terrorist Threats to Critical National Infrastructure.  What the talk gained through sensationalism it lost in accuracy and substance, and it would have little use in mitigating future threats.

One of the final talks for the day was given by K.C. Rondello on EMOC: Emergency Management On Campus — Student Assistance in University Disasters.

Day 3

The third day started with a plenary session by James Lukaszewski on How to Avoid Career-Defining Moments in Crisis: Manage The Victim Dimension, followed by a break-out session with Jeannette Sutton on Warning Systems, Risk Communication, and New Social Media: How Technological Innovation is Changing the Landscape for Disaster Communications.

Dana Libby shared some New Mapping Tools Aid in Response to the 2008 Hurricane Season, and Dan Hefkey spoke on some First Nations programs with Culturally Appropriate Emergency Management Programming.

The afternoon continued with David Tickner on Pandemic Tipping Points – planning for and responding to the collateral impacts of failing critical infrastructure and Applying recent lessons from the Indian Ocean to improving tsunami warning along Canada’s West Coast by Peter Anderson

Day 4

An international panel, with Peter Powers, David Parsons, Nathaniel Forbes, John Stagl, and Raph Dunham gave A Global Perspective on Resilience.

Patrick Helm spoke on a Systems Approach to National Security Risks.

Amit Yorand presented Taking the Uncertainty and Doubt (But Not the Fear) Out of Information Risk Management.

The closing plenary was given by Warren Faidley, author of the bestselling book, Storm Chaser.

In previous years Omar had presented at the WCDM on subjects that included the SE Asian tsunami, and ethics in disasters. As part of his private consultancy, he continued training in these areas for private security agencies and governmental organizations.

Pandemic Simulation

This year he participated in a pandemic workshop sponsored by Hoffmann-La Roche Limited:

Experiencing a Pandemic: Managing a Metropolitan Crisis

Effective crisis decision-making will be essential during a pandemic event. An ineffective response will threaten the very survivability of our communities, key industries and critical infrastructure. In this computer-based simulation of a pandemic flu event in Toronto, you will participate in making interdependent crisis-decisions and experience firsthand the cascading intended and unintended consequences of your decisions in near real time.

The exercise was run by Crisis Simulations International (CSI), who describe their programs as,

…designed to build critical leadership and decision-making skills among the senior leaders who direct community resources and in whose hands lie responsibility for the safety and survival of their communities. Those skills apply to virtually any crisis those senior leaders may be called upon to face.

Omar played the role of a hospital CEO of a major health system, with facilities in Toronto and London, Ontario, where he currently resides.

Ontario Association of Emergency Managers

Omar also greeted members of the emergency management community at the Ontario Association for Emergency Managers (OAEM) booth.

The OAEM is the largest organization for interdisciplinary emergency managers in the province.

Emergency Management and the Law

One of the highlights of the conference was a session by Norm Keith, a partner with a Canadian law firm Gowling, Lafleur, Henderson.

Keith is the leader of the Occupational Health and Safety, Workers’ Compensation, and Emergency Management (“OHS”) practice group at Gowlings. He is also the author of a text, Canadian Emergency Management and Response Manual: A Guide to the Law and Practice.

Keith spoke on the importance of emergency management preparedness, and its applicability to Canadian law. He stated that a successful emergency management will
prevent and mitigate:

• Injury/illness to people
• Unwanted environmental release and human/animal exposure
• Property damage / Insurance claims
• Damage to business reputation
• Regulatory Enforcement, and
• Costs associated with the above

An effective Emergency Plan should include:
1. Purpose & Policy Statement
2. Scope
3. Definitions
4. Responsibilities
5. Equipment Maintenance & Testing Procedures
6. Employee Training
7. Procedures
8. Crisis Management
9. Testing
10. Debriefing
11. Business Continuity / Recovery
12. Records Management
13. Revision History
14. Appendices of Checklists / Forms, Audit of Building Resources

The importance in addressing all of these areas is the potential civil liability and monetary exposure to those suffering injury or property damage as a result of a disaster or emergency.

A special thanks to Michael Allison of Young Blood PR for assistance with the photos at the conference.