Disasters

It had not much registered with me before this year that December 6, being noted today as the hundredth anniversary of the Halifax explosion, is also the anniversary of the Polytechnique shooting, 28 years ago in Montreal.

As centenaries do, the Halifax disaster has provoked quite a bit of new research and new publishing, from surveys of the whole event, like Ken Cuthbertson's (at right) to studies of recovery policies, eg, David Sutherland's.  It's the featured story on CBC Radio's The Current this morning.

I guess it's not a "major" anniversary in Montreal, by the calendar, but it will be remembered too.  I wrote this about that event ten years ago, and it stays with me:

This is also the 18th anniversary of the Ecole Polytechnique murders in Montreal. I was giving a university exam the morning after, and the visceral moan or growl or something that arose from the class when I raised the subject remains with me. Then I had a 3 month old daughter. This week she sits in a university building doing exams herself.