Elliot Lake residents 'starting to smile again'

Elliot Lake residents are starting to move on from last month's tragedy.

The area’s MPP said people are trying to find some normalcy after the town was devastated when part of the Algo Centre Mall roof collapsed and killed two women, one month ago today.

"People are starting to walk, people are starting to go the beaches, and people are really starting to have those smiles again,” Michael Mantha said.

“Right now they are starting to get over the initial shock and the emotions and now what they're doing is they're reacting to the bigger concern as a whole, (such as) how are we going to pull this community out of this?"

Mayor Rick Hamilton said Elliot Lake residents are accustomed to bouncing back from difficulty situations.

“When we lost mines in 1990, we had about six-to-12 month’s notice that we were going to have economic upheaval,” Hamilton said. “In [the case of the mall collapse] it was instantaneous … it will take a lot of sweat capital [to work through this].”

The OPP investigation and the provincial public inquiry into the cause of that mall collapse are now underway.

A report from that inquiry is expected within a year to a year and a half.