IceStorm 98 Study

During the early days of the storm, the Grenville Christian College served as the very first shelter. Due to the fact that they had a backup power system which was second to none, they were able to operate their extensive facilities without interruption throughout the storm. They lost their phone lines for only half of a day on Thursday, and otherwise operated as normal. Michael Phelan, a graduated student from GCC, co-ordinated the relief efforts of the about 75 students who worked tirelessly to assist those in need until they officially closed the shelter on the following Tuesday evening.

On Thursday morning the head nurse at GCC received a call from the reeve of the county requesting the use of GCC as an emergency centre. This request was granted and preparations were made to take in those who chose to move to the shelter. On Thursday night the Salvation Army brought cots to the GCC and food started to arrive for distribution. As the Public Health Nurse arrived, some of the local residents began to show up.
That evening they hosted 100 people and set up sleeping arrangements in the gym at GCC. In the meanwhile the College had been providing food from their own stores. This was supplemented by food which was sent in by the various agencies. Michael Phelan (MP) estimated that by Saturday night, which was the busiest night, they served dinner to 200 people. Among the people who appeared were parents of students of GCC. As an aside, he reported that GCC never ran short of food, but if they had to rely solely on food provided by the city, they would have run out quite quickly as people began to arrive in large numbers looking for a good hot meal.

GCC was the only shelter operating in Brockville during the early days of the storm. TISS was set up on the following Friday morning after they had located a generator to power up the building. This relieved the pressure at GCC and allowed those who didn’t want to come that far out to go over to TISS which was far more convenient for the residents of Brockville. Once TISS had been set up, the focus of relief efforts shifted to the county.

Seniors were encouraged to go to the Brockville Psychiatric Hospital while others were taken in at GCC. There was an infirmary available for the few seniors that did show up and it was utilized. On the first night of the operation of the shelter, MP reported that an elderly lady experienced a heart attack, another individual had an epileptic seizure. MP was credited with saving the life of the woman who had had the heart attack. These were some of the situations that staff and students were confronted with in the early days of the storm.

The Red Cross had set up an aid station at GCC. This function was replaced by staff from the social services department which proved an to be an asset since there were several low income families at GCC who were looking for financial assistance.

A chef from the Royal Brock Hotel, who was due back at work the day the ice storm hit, had been visiting at GCC and stayed on to help out. He was “a great help” in the kitchen.

A constable from the Brockville Police as well as an alumnus from GCC who is in the O.P.P. and stationed at Maitland were on hand to help out. There were never any serious security problems to report at GCC.

MP estimated that the food costs were in the area of $ 2,000.00. There were other costs that occurred, but nothing substantial.

MP had separated the students who chose to stay behind from the areas which sheltered the general population. He tried to keep the general public away from the classroom areas and therefore set up the feeding stations in the lounge and the auditorium at the other end of the complex. There was also a flu that had been brought into the building by the younger children and despite attempts to isolate it, it spread through the school after people had returned to their homes.

A problem which also occurred at other shelters concerned the care of children. “... unfortunately, a lot of the parents, once they got here wouldn’t take care of their children, so our students had to take care of the kids ... babysitting.. and that got to be quite a problem... we couldn’t find the parents and we’d be with kids who were quite sick...”. A craft room was set aside for the kids; videos were played in another room and an activities area was set aside for the younger children.

Although it was an exciting experience for the students, there was a measure of stress and exhaustion which accompanied the relief efforts that did not go unnoticed by MP.

Since GCC was the only facility in the area that had power and extensive computer equipment the Brockville Recorder and Times had set up a newsroom in one of the computer rooms of the GCC and published their special issue on the storm. They were also billeted at the GCC from Thursday until Monday while working on the paper. As far as other media was concerned MP heard that a reporter from the CBC had dropped in as well as a news crew form CKWS TV from Kingston to cover the activities at GCC.

It was an experience which drew everyone together. MP observed that the people who came to the GCC to escape the storm realized that “this is not a rich kid’s school” and acquired a better understanding of the institution and of what the students and staff are capable of giving to the community.

(It was at this point in the interview that Michael Phelan excused himself as he was scheduled to be in Kingston to accompany a festival participant. The balance of the interview was conducted with Chuck Farnsworth.)

CF told of the data base system that had been set up at GCC to assist relief efforts in North Augusta “whereby everyone could be entered on the computer and the daily checks recorded so that the information can be monitored more efficiently”. Door to door searches were conducted by staff and students of GCC as well as with students from other secondary institutions throughout Brockville. The data base was constantly updated as information came back to the students. It was especially helpful for the troops who came later to continue the door to door searches.

CF’s wife’s cousin and son came down from Orillia in their truck with chainsaws and were prepared to clear driveways, front yards or wherever there was cutting and clearing to be done.
They’d leave after work on Friday and return home Sunday night in order to return to work on Monday morning.
CF went to North Augusta with his two friends and was welcomed by the reeve who was grateful for the help. They then toured the countryside and cleared brush and trees from roads and driveways.

Leeds and Grenville had designated the Grenville Christian College as a shelter some time ago when they originally drew up an emergency plan for the county. It was an ideal choice due to the fact that it possessed the necessary facilities to maintain a shelter. Additionally, it had a superlative backup power system that would enable it to weather any crisis and provide sufficient emergency power to all of the facilities without interruption.

Chuck has been running an amateur radio club for a number of years at GCC and the storm presented him with the opportunity of a lifetime. Fifteen of his students have obtained their licences as a result of his efforts.

At the time that the storm had hit, CF (Chuck Farnsworth) had thought that the power interruption was a temporary problem. He had no idea as to the extent of the damage. He, and the geography teacher, were describing the unique features of the storm to the students while completely unaware of the eventual destruction and dislocation that would result.
“This is like 1 in a 1,000 odds of happening ever, you’ll never see this again in your life... enjoy it while you can... I wasn’t appreciating the damage it was causing...”. At noon on Thursday it was announced that the Grenville Christian College “was the only operating institution within 100 miles”.

His radio group met on Thursday evening and he told his group that “we may have the beginnings here of an emergency so let’s turn the radio on and see what’s going on... you’re going to hear a lot of emergency traffic...”.He told his students that “this is something that most amateur radio operators kind of live for; they almost never get a chance to participate in a real natural emergency... you are in the middle of something here that you may never (see)”.

Although the large antenna had been knocked out by the storm, their smaller antenna was still functioning. As soon as they turned the radio on they heard Clarence Angst (Emergency Co-ordinator for the Leeds and Grenville Amateur Radio Emergency Service - ARES) request that all HAM operators stay alert and at their stations because it was feared that the phone lines would go down all through the county. CF came back on the air and identified himself to Clarence who informed CF that a state of emergency had been declared in the county and would GCC be able to operate and man their station 24 hours a day until the emergency was lifted.
Chuck responded by telling him that he could set up a schedule to do this as long as Clarence was able to authorize use of the radio frequency by unlicenced students. Clarence replied “go ahead”.

The first shift was manned by Chuck’s son, who is a licenced operator, and a fellow student.
Later on that evening Clarence asked if Chuck could send a team with a radio over to the Brockville Psychiatric Hospital. After some discussion it was decided to send the equipment over to the BPH and if the situation got worse, he would send some students over to operate it. On Friday morning Clarence requested that GCC send a team over to TISS and set up a station. The problem was that other amateur radio operators could not get out of their houses, let alone onto the roads which at that time were completely impassable. They were completely iced in, therefore unavailable.
Chuck’s father, who had kept his car running throughout the night, loaded up equipment and with his son and his friend drove over to TISS. Later on that afternoon, a relief operator from Athens took over at TISS and chuck’s son and his friend returned to GCC.

Even though the ice storm had abated to a certain extent, the emergency situation continued. Nurses who needed to contact doctors and others were unable to get through because of either jammed or downed lines. They utilized the HAM radios and got in immediate contact.

Chuck maintained a constant vigilance over his operators. He provided videos to help relieve the boredom, got food for them, checked to make sure that schedules were followed and assisted them when they experienced technical difficulties.

“Our kids were eager, able and ready and they had an opportunity that they’ll never have again, probably.”

Clarence Angst, in recognition of the tremendous contribution of the students of Grenville Christian College, handed out certificates of credit from the Radio Amateurs of Canada and made the students honorary members of ARES.

In an aside, CF reported that Clarence Angst has recommended that all of the shelters should have antennas installed in the event of future disasters of this nature. There were several that had been installed which had come down during the storm. When Angst set up his station at the Gord Watts building, he had to erect an antenna to replace the one which had snapped during the storm.

CF was grateful for the opportunity to help out during the storm which proved to his students that there was still a need for amateur radio. It was a real life example of the effectiveness of amateur radio during a state of emergency. “When the phones are down amateur radios are the only thing that keep you going, your cell phones don’t work and your batteries don’t last ... amateur radio is your last resort...”.

Ice Storm
By Cheryl Farnsworth
Brockville

Two of our staff went to help in the door-to-door searches. They were asked to make charts and transfer the information to them. As this would take hours, they suggested that it be done on laptops at our school. At the time there wasn’t an accurate database of the homes in the Township. So Rebecca went to the fire hall and spent an entire day setting one up using Microsoft Works. Since information came in as people were going door-to-door, we took several students and entered the data at the fire hall. This continued for about two weeks with at least one adult and four students spending a minimum of five hours a day there. Once the list of homes and the status of the people was complete we went every morning to update and generate new lists for the searches in the afternoon. They were able to keep track of medical conditions, elderly people, marginal conditions and needs- food, heat etc.

We were very exited to be able to help out in this way. At first other townships thought we were making a big deal, but as the lack of power and extreme conditions continued, the foresight and effort paid off. There is also now an established data base which can be used in future.

Cheryl Farnsworth