IceStorm 98 Study

The office of Human Resources provides personnel services and labour relations services to the employees and departmental managers of the City of Kingston. In addition to these services, the department provides assistance to various boards and commissions throughout the City i.e. Police Services Board, Kingston Frontenac Library Board, Kingston Access Bus, just to name a few. All issues dealing with personnel who are employed by the City of Kingston are dealt with by the Department of Human Resources.

Bill Bishop (B.B.) lost power to his residence at 2:00 a. m. in the morning of January 8. Since he had a generator, he was able to restore a certain amount of power to the house and wait for the lines to be repaired.

On Friday morning he was asked to help a neighbour clear some debris away from his house and attempt to obtain a generator. He became aware of the damage that the storm had caused on the way to Amherstview to retrieve a generator. Although his power was fully restored at 8:00 p.m. that night, he felt that the situation might be more serious in the downtown core and decided to head into town the next day.

The next morning he drove to City Hall "and that's when it really hit me as to the extent of the damage and the extent of the exercise that was underway from an emergency response. "Up to this point in time he had not been aware of the massive relief effort that was taking place at City Hall since he had not been called. This situation was not uncommon. " ... I talked to a number of people that ..Thursday; they didn't recognize the damage. Friday they didn't recognize the extent of the damage.. Saturday, same thing... and then when they got right into downtown Kingston and driving around the municipality you really recognized the extent.. and I don't think that anybody probably recognized the extent of the emergency response if they weren't actually involved in the emergency response..."

Upon entering City Hall he was "quite surprised ... the hall was filled with people, I just couldn't believe it and I walked down to the human resources department and again it was filled with people and phones and phones were ringing and people were hurrying here and there and I thought wow this is really something... and so I jumped right in...".

He encountered Jim DeHoop in the hallway who suggested that he attend a meeting which was about to begin. At the meeting, B.B. realized the extent of the emergency and how seriously conditions had deteriorated in the aftermath of the storm.

At the outset, people were volunteering their help in any position that was required to be filled.. But as time wore on they were putting in long hours due to the urgency of the situation and setting aside no time for rest. Things became more structured as people soon realized that they were wearing themselves out. Shifts were assigned and routines were installed to prevent "burn-out" situations. "...people just stayed and what I found as the week went on was that people were becoming more accustomed to staying for lots of time.. at first when I went in on Saturday morning I eventually went home on Sunday afternoon, I was there for 28 hours... and then I came back in later on Sunday... what I found as the week went on is that people were coming for 8 or 10 hours and the process of replacing people... was becoming more structured".

By Sunday, January 11, Judith Perry had organized a series of rotating shifts with lists of volunteers who would be willing to replace others at the phones and around City Hall. The co-ordination of personnel was a major relief to those who had worked long hours with no indication of when they might be relieved.

B.B. continued his involvement by helping to formulate press releases, maintain contact with the shelters around the City and taking calls that were coming into City Hall. His shift extended from 4:00 p.m. in the afternoon until 8:00 or 9:00 a.m. the following morning. This routine continued until about Friday, January 15 when he returned to his normal duties. At that point there was very little activity since a major portion of the City had returned to normal conditions with the restoration of power.

For the most part authority was not an issue. There was no time to consult or discuss during the emergency. One did what had to be done to get the job done. "My decisions were probably independent of checking with anybody".

Money was not an issue with B.B. despite the fact that he really didn't have to spend any.
"Money never crossed my mind as being an issue...".

Communications were "very informal... there wasn't a lot of note taking.

Co-ordination of the call centre was given top priority at City Hall as the lines were overwhelmed by incoming calls . B.B. referred to the efforts of Queen's and R.M.C. students who constantly manned the phones and ran messages to officials. Constant contact with the shelters had to be maintained to ensure that needs were being met and supplies were provided.

What worked well and what didn't work well?

In the first place B.B. would recommend that a "phone tree" be put in place so that everyone that should be called, can be called.

A file should be maintained to indicate "who is responsible for the various areas and for each of those persons there should be a backup person, there should be teams developed in each of those areas, one thing that the ice storm impressed upon me was the need to prepare and not to take any of these things for granted...".

One drawback to having City Hall set up as an E.O.C location was the inadequacy of the phone system and lack of proper facilities. B.B. would have preferred a different location for the phone system in an area that was set apart from the public area. R.M.C. would have been a suitable location for the phone system set-up, but it was not utilized. As it happened, the first phone centre operated out of a room next to the department of Human Resources. A second centre was set up in the council chambers on the second floor in order to allow City Hall to return to a state of normalcy " because by that time the public started coming into City Hall looking for normal city services" so the call centre was moved to a more secluded area of the building.

What would you do differently next time?

"I guess personally I would go to the Emergency Response Centre earlier than I did... I was absolutely flabbergasted.. I had absolutely no idea...".
When he arrived at City Hall that Saturday morning he was so surprised by the devastation in the City that he phoned home to describe the scene to his wife and children and told them that he "wasn't going to be home for a day at least". Living in the 'township' had isolated him to a certain extent from the crisis which was occurring in the city. For most, if not all 'township' residents, power had been fully restored by Friday night. It took another 4 or 5 days before power was restored to city residents.

A certain amount of guilt on the part of the 'township' residents regarding the situation which their city cousins had been faced with was evident at the time.

B.B. suggested that it might be beneficial if the City's emergency plan could be updated to include the lessons learned in this crisis. Teams should be set up to take over the larger functions such as supply depots, organizing volunteers and for setting up transportation facilities. In the event of another ice storm, a team should be assembled to deal with possible evacuation of care facilities, such as hospitals and retirement homes. He hopes that some of his recommendations will make it into the Emergency Response Plan. "That's one document I never saw [the Emergency Plan], I never saw that document during the time I was at City Hall."

Although he did not come into direct contact with emergency measures officials, he had high praise for the assistance which they provided to the City.

The media called for constant updates on the progress that was being made to restore power and services to the City and B.B. took their calls and provided them with the information that they requested. It would have been more beneficial if the Mayor, the C.A.O. or the chief co-ordinator had set up press conferences during the day and issued updates to the local media.

National media had taken a different approach to the story and were asking B.B. for information which he did not have at his disposal. They were asking for numbers of households without power, how many military personnel were being employed to assist local authorities, how many service personnel were coming from outside the city to help etc. The information that they were requesting could possibly be obtained from the military since they took a much more organized approach to the crisis.

Certainly, records were kept of the number of outside personnel who had come to Kingston and the number of households without power had been determined, but this was the responsibility of the various authorities, such as Ontario Hydro for example, who were dealing first hand with the situation.

"Stress was not a concern for me personally,... I was concerned about the stress that some people were under because of the amount of hours that they were devoting to the exercise...I did take the issue to the Kingston Community Counselling Centre and I discussed it with them in terms of would they be on standby in case they were needed...". Senior staff was also reminded during their meetings to be on the alert for symptoms of stress in themselves and others and that the Kingston Community Counselling Centre was available to them.

"We did have some moments when we laughed and had a chuckle or two, ..(but on the other hand) these people that were at City Hall... they were employees of the new City but I never knew them, I had never met them before and this served as an excellent opportunity to meet people (the new people at City Hall)".

There were stories of people who had to deal with flooded basements and no power who would come into work whenever they could to help out others. "It was absolutely amazing what people were enduring". There were others, who through no fault of their own, were oblivious to the crisis that was taking place in the downtown core. Their first reaction to the situation was "why didn't you call us?"