Kelly Egan |
The Ottawa Citizen |
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
We live in an invincible age, save for those days when, as a modern society, we totally fall apart.
Amazing. One wonky old culvert on Highway 417 has managed to disrupt the lives of roughly 30,000 motorists for a couple of days, with untold inconvenience and delay.
On the same day, there is panic buying of gasoline in Scotland due to a strike at a refinery and the closing of a North Sea pipeline. So-called rice fever has led to hoarding, lineups and panic in countries around the world, with even Wal-Mart taken to rationing in some locales. The basics -- flour, corn, grains -- are spiking.
And every time you fill up at the pumps, well, there is fresh fuel for the fire, isn't there?
How can you not be a little edgy? Gas, food, essential transportation. Is it all hanging by a rusty thread?
We await the triple whammy: Being detoured from the highway because it's falling apart, running out of gas on the way to the store, which has no food.
Trefor Munn-Venn is the associate director of national security and safety for the Conference Board of Canada.
He recalls a maxim that was making the rounds at MI-5, the British intelligence agency, a few years ago: "Four meals away from anarchy."
It is a reference to the time it would take -- a little more than a day -- before the effects of food shortages would be felt, possibly leading to widespread looting, disorder and panic.
It is not make-believe.
In September 2005, there was a trucker protest in New Brunswick that lasted several days. As the rigs sat parked, the impact was immediate. Stores began to run out of fresh produce, liquor stores out of liquor.
Mr. Munn-Venn points to the "just-in-time" supply system that is used in many industrialized countries around the world. Large retail outlets do not stockpile massive quantities of food on the premises. Instead, they rely on a steady flow of goods, via trucks, to keep products fresh and storage at a minimum. In the New Brunswick example, he said it was difficult to quickly switch the delivery method to rail, or onto secondary roads not built for large trucks.
"It highlighted the vulnerability that comes with a highly efficient, just-in-time delivery system. They started to feel the impact of that in a matter of hours in the grocery stores."
There are 320 culverts on 417 between Ottawa and the Quebec border. What happens if five or 10 culverts need replacing at once?
What if culverts on 417 west, or 416, need replacing at the same time? It isn't difficult to imagine our entire freeway system crippled.
Mr. Munn-Venn underlined the important linkage between security and commerce in our highway systems. The full name of the American interstate system, he reminds us, is the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways.
"It's not just a road system. It was designed in response to a security threat, a Cold War security threat. The notion was, if the Russians land on one coast, how do we move our armies really fast?"
The culvert is merely a symptom. It is well established that, nationally, our infrastructure is in some difficulty.
In Ottawa alone, officials estimate infrastructure, mainly roads and sewers, needs $1 billion in upgrades.
Across the country, meanwhile, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities is estimating that our towns and cities are looking at a $123-billion repair job on our water-treatment plants, roads and public infrastructure.
Much of it, says a commissioned report, has not been upgraded in 30 or 40 years. Mr. Munn-Venn says the conference board found, after consulting public and private-sector leaders, that the greatest threat to security and safety in Canada is a clear idea of governance.
In other words, who is leading the response, who does it partner with and how does it communicate its plans?
The response should reach across the usual players -- police, firefighters, paramedics -- to include industry, non-profit groups, the general public, he said.
"You can't always stop the bad thing from happening,'' Mr. Munn-Venn says. ''You won't always stop a bridge from collapsing, or a hurricane from coming. The issue, then, is how quickly can you bounce back?"
The contrast there, he said, is New Orleans and London. While the American city may never fully recover from Hurricane Katrina, the British capital has bounced back from the terror strike on its transit system. "People were riding the tube the next day."
Mr. Munn-Venn credits the City of Ottawa for doing excellent work in terms of emergency preparedness, which it had to deal with in spades after the Ice Storm of 1998.
It is worth pondering, he agreed, what would happen if our usual supplies of food suddenly evaporated.
"We need to keep asking ourselves big questions like that because we don't know what we're going to face."
Indeed. Just one more big bump in the road.
Contact Kelly Egan at 613-726-5896 or by e-mail, [email protected]
© The Ottawa Citizen 2008
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