VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- While examining two of the world's largest environmental crises in recent history – the 2011 Japanese earthquake, tsunami and nuclear emergency and the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the U.S.'s Gulf of Mexico – a group of experts will discuss how communities can better bounce back from disasters. The Saturday Feb. 18 symposium's speakers will discuss how governments can work with the public, groups and businesses to help communities prepare to more quickly overcome the hardships that inevitably follow an emergency. The symposium participants and what they will discuss are as follows:
- Moderator: Ann Lesperance, deputy director of Northwest Regional Technology Center for Homeland Security at PNNL. Lesperance develops regional programs to accelerate the deployment of homeland security technologies by working with emergency management and the responder community.
- Nancy Kinner, co-director of the Coastal Response Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. Kinner will discuss how Deepwater Horizon spill response evolved and how state and federal politics as well as a desire for 24-7 information complicated the response.
- Kumi Fujisawa Tsunoda, co-founder of the Japan-based Think Tank SophiaBank. Fujisawa will discuss the issues and challenges that Japan is facing as a result of the tsunami and lessons learned during the crisis.
- David Kaufman, director of Policy and Program Analysis at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Kaufman will discuss FEMA's efforts on community-oriented approaches to effectively prevent, prepare, respond, mitigate and recover from any disaster.
REFERENCE: "Responding to and Recovering from Catastrophic Events: The Road to Resilience," Feb. 18, 10-11:30 a.m., Room 211, West Building, Vancouver Convention Center. Media contact: Franny White, franny.white@pnnl.gov, cell phone at conference: 360-333-4793.
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is a Department of Energy Office of Science national laboratory where interdisciplinary teams advance science and technology and deliver solutions to America's most intractable problems in energy, the environment and national security. PNNL employs 4,800 staff, has an annual budget of nearly $1.1 billion, and has been managed by Ohio-based Battelle since the lab's inception in 1965. Follow PNNL on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.