IceStorm 98 Study

Carolyn Dunn [CD] lives in downtown Kingston and so was among the first to lose power. Her power went off about 10 p.m. Wednesday evening. Early Thursday morning, “I woke up freezing” because, with the power off, so was the heat. “I was mildly irritated because I thought it shouldn’t take all night to get the power back on.”

Although she had heard some noise from the branches in the night, her thoughts in the morning were about heading off to work. It wasn’t until she walked out the front door and saw “police tape all over the place” and her street closed off, that she realized the extent of the storm damage. With the street closed she had to leave her car and walk to work. “I walked down half a block, to Barrie St., and saw the full scope of the downed trees. My first reaction was ‘I have to get to work - NOW.’”

As she walked the 8-9 blocks to work, with branches crashing down around her, “with each block, the story got bigger and bigger in my mind. At first it was “boy I’m going to have a busy day and then I realized that we were all going to be very busy -that this was a huge story.”

When CD arrived at work the power was out and CKWS had no backup generator. This was “frustrating for us.”

Their assignment editor hadn’t made it in to the office but the news director, Gerrard Campbell, and the operations manager, Tom Brennan, had made it in. “What struck us immediately was [that] we were incommunicado, since our phone system is electronic.” [which requires power to operate]. This meant that a crucial tool was not available; “When we’re in the office, we’re on the phone all the time.” Without power they couldn’t use their computers either and the question arose: “How are we going to get this story out, assuming we would have power by 6 p.m.” “We had 60 minutes of show to fill and no tools to do it with. We ended up bundled up, writing on steno pads.”

CD’s assignment was to get the “official scoop on what was going on and how widespread it was.” “So I headed to City Hall, assuming that if there was any emergency measures, that it would [be] run out of there or they could direct me to where it was running out of.”

From the trip down to city hall, CD recalls that, “we had been laughing in the car about [how] this brand new city, which doesn’t know head from tail at this point, [would] get us through an emergency. We didn’t have a lot of faith in them, to be honest with you, but did that team pull through -I was really impressed!”

She found out at city hall that all the people she wanted to talk to [the mayor, and fire and police chiefs, etc.] were at the PUC building. So, “we went over there and camped out...[and] ...at noon on the 8th I believe, they declared a limited state of emergency.”

As the day progressed, and through contact with other reporters, the full impact of the storm began to sink in; “...we were all wrapped up in our own stories, but as each reporter came in with their stories we began to get a sense of the full scope of how many people were stranded.”

Finally, a power source was found: “I believe it was late in the second day [when] our president went and picked up a generator from one of our affiliate stations. We finally got back on the air, and were doing everything at this incredible pace...it was the biggest story anyone could remember.”

Unfortunately, power problems and the eventual collapse of the CKWS broadcast tower on Wolfe Island meant that little of their prepared broadcasts actually got out -customers with cable service were able to receive their programming. This was “very frustrating” for the reporters.

When they were broadcasting, they initially concentrated on relaying essential information. “Once we got past the bare bones information reporting, i.e. this is what’s going on and where shelters are, [we] got into the stories of what people were doing...where people were helping each other.” But there were also stories about price-gauging; where shop keepers were charging 3-4 times the price of generators and batteries.

In terms of work routine, CD said they were “not as organized as [they] normally would be. Half the time we found stories when we were out. Often we went out with one thing in mind and came back with three or four. In a city the size of Kingston, to be able to fill the entire newscast -when we eventually went back on the air- with the same story and all the different angles, is unheard of.”

The staff communicated by cell phone but, initially at least, had no place to charge them. Camera batteries also needed to be charged. This was important since, “even if we weren’t going on air, we wanted to capture the images of the storm and crisis for archives purposes.” CD went to city hall and explained the situation and they were assigned one outlet in a corner which could be used as a power supply for their battery chargers.

The relationship with city hall was very open door, she reports. Although there were some closed door meetings, CD could understand the need to have private meetings at times. “They were very open [regarding] their own problems.” For example, “they thought, initially, that the whole power grid was down beyond repair.”

The mayor arranged for briefings for the media every three hours, with information and updates. “These were often the tail end of a meeting where we would walk in and set up while they were still discussing. Then he would go over everything that happened in the last three hours and [were] very open to our questions. I can’t praise them enough for the job that they did as a team.”

CD felt that the important players were always accessible. Mayor Bennett and PUC manager Jim Keech, gave out their personal cell phone number. Others, like the police and fire chiefs, all had a contact number where they could be reached at a moment’s notice. Bennett and Keech also did on-air interviews from the CKWS station.

She feels that the station’s biggest problems were not having a generator and then the tower going down.

Outside of her own work, CD noted a lack of co-operation between PUC and Hydro in the first couple days. But “they finally gelled.” Although, “Granite Power has maybe responded once to a phone call since the storm and never during the crisis.” “It really highlighted the fact of the division there.”

The things that worked well, CD reports, were the people. “The people that I work with are amazing.” The bosses were providing support services and “trusted everybody enough to go out and bring back what was happening out there. We worked as a team more than I’ve ever seen...[and]...everyone was stepping out of their normal roles to help each other.”

CD is still frustrated by the fact that for a long period they couldn’t put their product to air. Regarding the downed antenna, she noted that “they actually recovered very quickly with the replacement.” At first, following the collapse, “they phoned everybody to tell them not to bother coming in since they couldn’t transmit anything. Rumour was that we might be off for a month.” But “they got something in a week to provide limited coverage. Normally it takes a long time to get an antenna.”

“I think the people who were most stressed were the people who were cold when they weren’t at work and busy when they were. Despite the fact that there is a lot of stress, it’s the kind of thing that you love doing anyway. It’s the days of the ice storm that you really want to go to work. I came in early most days.” “The stress came from the frustration of not getting things done.”

CD also reports that there was some tension between the staff who came in to work and those who, for no apparent reason, did not come in.

Although the staff largely stayed within their job functions, “the traditional job roles broke down all the time but no-one was upset about it.” “Everyone did whatever it took to get the story done. I’m sure they blew their entire over-time budget for the year.”

One interesting note was that a new employee, a video-grapher, [who does solo video recording and reporting/interviewing] had his first day of work on January 8th. Although he “didn’t know our equipment, city, or anything, he did really well.”

CD has CPR/St Johns ambulance first aid training. She doesn’t know of any emergency plan at CKWS. She was also not aware of any contact with the EMO people.

CKWS was constantly receiving news releases and updates from city hall and PUC. Their fax machine was so busy with incoming faxes that they could not send out on the same machine.

CKWS is a CBC affiliate and so they were in contact with outside media. But the out-of-town media only really became noticed when the Prime Minister came to visit Wolfe Island.

She felt that Wolfe Island was ignored by Kingston until the PM’s visit. Given the Island’s limited resources, the city should have recognized their problem and offered help.

CD found the PUC kitchen to be an amazing operation of non-stop food serving from breakfast to lunch to dinner.

CD noted that the city was “put to the test so completely and early in its new existence...[that]...the old boundaries seemed to disappear.”

She felt that a driving ban should have been considered for all non-essential vehicle use. CD also noted that the police seemed to be reactive rather than pro-active. They were “assisting others to do their thing rather than doing their own role.”