IceStorm 98 Study

The City of Brockville is located on the St. Lawrence River about 80 kilometers west of the City of Kingston. It has a population of 21,000. Ben TeKamp was elected Mayor of the City of Brockville less than a month before the storm hit.

The Mayor had been aware of the fact that assistance had been sent to Cornwall and Akwesasne on the previous Tuesday evening. All of the available cots and other equipment had left for that area so that little remained in Brockville.

On the Wednesday afternoon he noticed that conditions appeared to be deteriorating in and around Brockville with a severe ice build up. Hearing branches cracking around him, he anticipated a power interruption and went off to Canadian Tire and purchased $93.00 worth of batteries and an oil lamp.
Heading home that evening he came across a fire crew who were attempting to extinguish a transformer fire “you could pretty well predict that we’re in for something major”. His daughter arrived home at 11:00 that evening and informed him that the roads were becoming impassable. Fearing that the trees which stood on his property might collapse he suggested that she move her car down to his nephew’s place for the evening. Sure enough, he awoke the next day to discover that one of the trees had fallen down across his driveway onto the very spot where his daughter had planned to leave her car on the previous evening.
Power went dead between 2:00a.m. and 4:00 a.m. Thursday morning.

“...I went outside at that point, it was around 4:15.. the eeriest sound, at this point it wasn’t the creaking of the trees any longer, it was the crashing of the branches, it was just like constant thunder, you’d hear the crack and then you’d hear the thump on the ground or somebody’s roof, or whatever... it was dark outside ... it was the eeriest feeling”.

At 5:00 a.m. the Mayor contacted his C.A.O. and inquired whether he knew if this was a local problem or if it was more widespread. At that time his C.A.O. was about to tour the city with the police and fire chiefs to assess the situation and would meet with the Mayor at the Works garage at 6:00 a.m. It became apparent that the outage was far more widespread over a larger area. A further meeting was planned for 8:00 “to review what was happening, not only within the city but also in the outer areas”.

At the meeting held at 8:00 that morning, the Mayor, the police and fire chiefs, utilities manager, director of operations all agreed that they had a situation on their hands although they were advised by Ontario Hydro that power would be restored within 24 hours.

To better understand the situation the mayor explained that the source of power for Brockville originated at the Cornwall generating station. It was transferred along a corridor from Cornwall towards Smiths Falls. Brockville ‘tapped’ into this power corridor to provide its own power. It was reported that two main towers along the Smiths Falls-Brockville corridor had suffered severe damage and that it would take 24 hours to repair the damage.

The Mayor then went to the local radio station and announced that the power would be down in the city for up to 24 hours.

At the 10:00 meeting, it was reported that half a dozen or more towers had experienced significant damage and that the best estimate now was that power would be restored between 48 - 72 hours. Meanwhile the Mayor had been receiving weather reports that warned of a substantial temperature drop to 13 to 18 degrees below zero within 72 hours. This fact accelerated the prospect of a massive evacuation and it was at this point at 2:00 p.m., Thursday, January 8 that the Mayor declared a State of Emergency. “... so at that meeting that’s when we declared our state of emergency and that was primarily based on the fact that at that stage...we really didn’t have a clear fix on how long the outage was going to take, the second concern was evacuation; where would we set up evacuation centres and how soon and what kind of help did we require in these evacuation centres.. Fortunately the people who responded to the emergency plan did a superb job...”. They responded quickly to the emergency “yet as far as the outlying areas, the rural areas... for at least four days there was very little or no activity...”.
The Fire Chief then explained to the Mayor what steps he needed to take to put the emergency plan into effect. The emergency plan was implemented and the Mayor contacted the E.M.O. that afternoon. Randy Reid of the E.M.O. who was then in Akwesasne, was dispatched to assess the situation in Brockville.

The police chief had some concern about public safety since three reports of vandalism had been made. He suggested an evening curfew to try to control movement in the city.

Once the state of emergency had been implemented, the control group scheduled three emergency operation meetings per day to keep everyone informed as to the progress of events. They were held at 8:00 a.m., 2:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m.

In addition, the Mayor decided to hold a council meeting at noon every day to keep everyone up to date. He was not required to do so, but felt that this would be a prudent thing to do.

At the 6:00 p.m. meeting, the mayor was informed that all of the towers between Brockville and Smiths Falls had been damaged and that it would take between 72 hours to 2 weeks before repairs could be effected. No estimate could be made as to when power would be restored to the Brockville area.

Emergency shelters now took priority especially since reports were indicating that weather conditions were deteriorating.

That night the mayor slept on the floor of the Works Centre on North Augusta Rd. At 7:00 a.m. on the Friday morning TK was awakened by the sound of a thunderstorm, “ how can we have a thunderstorm through all this, can it get any worse... it kept raining and raining and it seemed as if any headway that hydro were making, they were progressively reporting that conditions were just getting that much worse... there were a massive amount of hydro poles that had snapped off like twigs and they were reporting that some areas would be out of power from upwards to maybe three weeks...”.

Dupont, which had its own power generating facility, was seen as a possible source of power to the city. But in order to do so, “they would have to construct a specific line to tie in with the closest line... it meant that there was a phenomenal amount of work”. The other consideration was whether Hydro should re-direct its crews to the Dupont tie-in or stick to the job of restoring power. The Dupont option was dropped.

The Mayor now concentrated on the job of getting people out of their homes and into the shelters. His major challenge was in getting the elderly to accept this measure.
“This is the ironic part of the entire ice storm disaster, is that some people treated it as an adventure. Some people had their own ways and means of looking after themselves...”.

Yet there were those who took the situation on as a challenge to their ingenuity. TK related the story of a man who suggested that you could half fill a soft drink bottle with gasoline, stick a cork in at the top and drill a hole in the cork for a wick. This, he suggested, could provide you with necessary light. What he in fact had done was to construct a bomb!
There were reports of people who had moved their barbecues into the house in order to provide a source of heat and were discovered by their neighbours unconscious from carbon monoxide poisoning.

As the situation continued to deteriorate, the focus of operations now shifted to the removal of people to the evacuation centres. The Brockville Psychiatric Hospital served as the first evacuation centre. . The Grenville Christian College opened their doors to the community. It took two days before the Thousand Islands Secondary School could be operated as a shelter. A large generator had to be dug out of a quarry and was installed in the school by George Tackaberry. As the temperature fell, more and more people drifted into the shelters for heat and a warm meal.

That night the Mayor visited the shelter and among the local residents he encountered visitors from outside the area who had run out of gas on the 401. They had been picked up by the O.P.P. and taken to the shelter. A number of people who had been passing through were forced to abandon their vehicles and take shelter at TISS.

On the Saturday evening, the temperature had begun to plummet and more people were taking advantage of the shelters. Elderly citizens were hesitant to leave their homes and pets behind. It was suggested that under the state of emergency provisions, if the situation was determined to be life threatening, those who refused to leave could be placed under arrest. The Mayor was not prepared to go to such lengths although he was aware that hypothermia was a certain eventuality if they remained in their homes. Announcements were made over the radio pleading for relatives and friends to take in their elderly neighbours.

At the high school, families were kept together in the classrooms whereas the technical wing which had its own cafeteria, was set aside for the seniors. The seniors were thereby provided with a certain amount of privacy.

Later that night, January 10th at about 2:00 a. m., the Mayor received a call that the auxiliary generator at the hospital had died. He now faced the prospect of a general evacuation of the hospital and was told that it had to be accomplished within two to three hours. “The overlying concern I had through the entire ice storm was fatality... you feel so helpless in terms of what conditions could provoke a massive disaster, and that being to my mind was the elderly .. who would succumb to the cold temperatures...”. As plans for the evacuation were being put in place, a couple of mechanics from the city went to the hospital to inspect the generator. Within a short space of time they managed to repair the generator and the evacuation was canceled. The very next morning an auxiliary generator was brought in to back up the first auxiliary generator in the event of another failure.
“... there seemed to be crisis after crisis... you feel as if you had control over one aspect and then something else would happen”.

A solution to the problem of feeding power to Brockville was in tapping into the Kingston - Smiths Falls corridor. This was done and power was successfully restored to Brockville on the evening of the 11th. It was decided to wait until the next morning before any attempt was made to start restoration throughout the city. The crews needed rest and it was too dangerous to work in the dark. Up to 95% of the city was restored by Tuesday the 13th.
In the north end of the city, power was restored almost immediately since most of the wiring was underground. In the south part, it was slow going since all the wiring was above ground and the area was heavily treed.

Help began to arrive as early as Thursday the 8th of January. Crews from Brampton, a total of 50 men, responded to the call for help and were on site within a day.
The Mayor recalled the scene of convoys of P.U.C. vehicles for as far as one could see. “They came from all over, they came from Kenora, they came from North Bay, they came from everywhere”.

The radio station remained open 24 hours non-stop to broadcast announcements of events as they occurred. They did an excellent job of keeping the community informed and kept an open line to those who required assistance but were unable to obtain it through more conventional means.

In the outer areas of the county, there was an obvious lack of co-ordination as became evident at a meeting held at the Fire Hall which included all of the reeves from the townships. “I sat in on that meeting and the fur flew for the first hour.. frustrations, every township was doing their own thing, there was no co-ordination, and there was some very, very serious concerns”. Randy Reid was assigned to oversee the co-ordination of relief efforts in the townships.
The Emergency Measures Organization eventually sent additional assistance to these areas. An interim acting warden, Howard French, was appointed to supervise the effort in the counties. A request for assistance was made to the city of Brockville by the counties and this was met with resources of personnel and equipment.
As the pressure eased on Brockville, efforts were focused on the county. Fire, Police and Social Service agencies were sent to the county to help out. “The rural areas were devastated, there were some remote areas ...that were still without power for two weeks or more”.

As far as cost and accountability were concerned, the mayor stated that you did what had to be done and you accounted for it later. The first thing that occurred to him was “what’s the mayor’s role in all of this?... you have a tendency to ask the people closest to the situation... which can probably be narrowed down to 4 people, the Fire Chief, Police Chief, C.A.O.... and in this particular case the Utilities (Manager)”. The Mayor’s role, as he saw it, was to ensure public safety. “That was my first and foremost concern throughout the entire thing... cost, to me didn’t even enter my mind, until it was all over”. “Not in a single meeting did anyone ever say we have to evacuate, or by the way here’s the cost what should we do?... Public safety come first, cost is totally a secondary issue”.

As an afterthought, TK has become quite frustrated by the slow pace of negotiations regarding financial assistance from the province which to this date has not been forthcoming. At the time of the emergency, the province advanced $ 500,000.00 to Brockville and the United Counties for immediate use. Since that time, there has been no clear cut direction as to how they are to obtain additional funding to cover the additional costs which amount to about 1.2 million dollars.

TK wondered out loud how this could be classified as a disaster, when we see devastation from hurricanes, tornadoes, flash floods and massive loss of life on the evening news almost daily.
“We had three fatalities through this area...I think what put it in perspective to me was when the fire safety officer said ‘think of potentially what could have happened... it could have been much more devastating than it was, and if the temperature had dropped even further, and if the power outage had been longer and who knows it might have started to rain again, and we’re right back in the same situation ... you look at it, it might have been worse”.

There was some damage to houses, but nothing significant. Flooded basements were quite frequent, but serious damage was averted.

TK acknowledged the vital role that the military, in particular the reserves, played out during the emergency. As a 17year veteran, he can readily identify with the reserves and certainly recognized their contribution to the community.

“... I went to the armories one night and I think that’s when it really hit me... I walked in and I saw cots from one end of the armory to the other, they were set up for 650 troops... I went outside and they had a field kitchen... they had 650 troops there...”

The local armory fed and housed over 650 personnel who came from as far away as Winnipeg.
He talked with two young ladies who had come down from Hamilton who were students at McMaster University and had taken 2 weeks away from school to come down to Brockville to help out. The troops went door to door offering their assistance. They helped pump out flooded basements, distribute hot meals and remove downed trees.

“They were low profile, they blended in beautifully with the emergency task forces, they participated, they had their own chain of command and they were well equipped and they did their task masterfully.”