IceStorm 98 Study

Col. R. Aitken (RA) began his interview by reviewing the documentation that he has made available to the Study. (See the After Action Report) He also reviewed with us who else to speak to with respect to the activities on the Base. (See interviews with Majors Frazer and MacDonald and Lt. Col. Thornton)

RA was in Ottawa on the 7th of January and witnessed the effects of the storm in that area.. Ottawa authorities had already begun their emergency response as it had been raining up there for a longer period of time. Later in the evening, he travelled back to Kingston via train which he said, "Was not without its difficulties." At around midnight the power went out in his home but RA didn't recognize the extent of the problem. To him, "it was simply no power in our home;" At approximately 0500 hrs he received a telephone call from the Base Adjunct, Captain Chapman informing RA that the police had issued a road warning to stay off the roads and the Base was without power.

RA declared a "stand-down" for non-essential Base personnel. Between himself and the Base Duty Officer they started to send out messages to their personnel. RA commented that although he is the Commanding Officer for CFB Kingston, he does not have under his command units which share the facility - 79th Signal, 1st Canadian Division as examples. The other Commanding Officers agreed to have their units stand down.

RA started to have a feel of the scope and extent of the storm's damage around noon. His first concern was the Base and it became apparent that there was no power around the Base and as he listened to the radio reports, he became aware of how broad the effect of the storm really was.

RA said that the first problem to deal with was the power outage in the PMQs. There are over 800 families living on the Base and none of the quarters had any power. RA knew that it would become critical as the families continued to live in cold quarters with no means of cooking or getting warm. There were also 300 single personnel and the personnel at the RMC living on Base and their quarters were also without power.

Communications on the Base remained stable and once they got power on in the Base Headquarters (generator) they were able to get their fax machines working. RA said they relied mostly on telephone and fax communications.

RA had the first indication that the Base was going to be on a warning order on the morning of January 9th. RA said that the major concern was to get the Base up and running first before they could deploy troops to assist the civil authorities. RA had in the interim, received an "unofficial" request for assistance from the City of Kingston. City Hall had called the Base directly to ask for help. RA said that although it is not exactly the proper procedure, "it worked". Theoretically, the City should have gone to the Ontario Government which in turn would send the request to the Base for an assessment of action. RA received a call on the Thursday evening at his home from Carl Holmbergh who handed the phone call over to Gardner Church. Church suggested that the military assist by doing a door-to-door to check on city residents. RA reminded Church that the Base was without power and there was a need for it to ensure that the kitchens were running as well as other essential operations. RA said, "I will see if I can, without promising, get some assistance from the Signals Regiment." RA explained that although he does not have a command over the Signals Regiment, the garrison does allow for some relationship between the Base and those Commanding Officers. The Commanding Officer from the Signals was requested to supply approximately 90 personnel for the Friday morning to assist the City. He agreed and the following morning, a bus arrived at the Base to pick up the personnel.

At noon on January 9th, RA received a call from Land Force Central (Toronto) and spoke to Major General Stevenson who explained that there was going to be two task forces set up. The first being, Task Force North that involved 2 Brigade out of Petawawa under the Command of 33 Brigade in Ottawa and the second being, Task Force South commanded out of Kingston. The Signals Regiment was placed under command of RA which meant that RA could assign tasks to them directly instead of asking them. The duties were still confined to the immediate area of Kingston. It wasn't until midnight when the Base received a visit from the Liaison Officer from Land Forces (Toronto) that the area of responsibility was widened to include the areas from Trenton to Cornwall and north to Hwy. 43 and 7. RA was also given command of the militia units in Kingston, Brockville and Cornwall. The normal relationship between these two units in the past has been simply the Base supporting them. RA said, ".this was quite a change in the command structure." The 79th Signals Regiment, 79th Communications Regiment and The 1st Canadian Division had received warning orders that they were to be deployed to the South Shore of Montreal. RA recalls that he was disappointed at losing these Regiments as he had earlier made plans for them and also because they had generators which RA said, "that we had counted one by one". RA was informed that not only was he going to lose these Regiments but they were also taking their generators with them. Some of these generators were being used by the City. RA was left with his own Base resources of 350 personnel. RA said that out of those 350 personnel about 1/5 of them were actually on the Base working. He cited bad driving conditions and lack of power on the Base for the reduced number of personnel.

The Base remained in a stand-down situation until the following Tuesday. RA chuckled when he said, ".we had got our hopes up that the power was on to stay on but it ended up crashing again Saturday afternoon." RA recalls that the power was restored to the McNaughton side of the Base but remained off on the PMQ (Vimy) side for four days or "91 hours and 45 minutes as my wife calculated". The power had come back on the Sunday but RA erred on the side of caution and kept the Base on Stand down because of weather forecasts calling for more freezing rain.

In terms of who RA was left with, he said:

"I was left with the excellent co-operation of the garrison units. Let's start with the RMC cadets. They had already started working down in the City and doing all sorts of stuff which is well documented. But the limitation in their employment was the lack of a winter kit. That's why they wore their track suits, great advertising, but if it had got any colder they would have been severely hampered in their efforts to assist the City. As it turned out, it did get milder on the weekend and they were able to continue doing jobs for the City. They were being employed under the direction of the Director of Cadets and the City. General Haig and I agreed that they would continue to do what they could and just report back to me on a regular basis. By having 400 kids knocking door-to-door it freed up the Canadian Forces School of Communications and Electronic (CFCSE) to do other things."

CFCSE was not under command to RA but as he explained, on a matter of legality, General Stevenson was the Commander of The Task Force and if RA had thought it necessary he could have requested that the units who were not under his command at that moment be placed with him.(1) RA said that he decided not to ask for a formal direct command of these units as he put it, "I have to live with these people during fair weather and demanding command of them would have made it difficult. As it turned out, I simply had to ask for assistance and received it." Most of these units had already started assisting the civil authorities and RA gave the example of Captain Chris Grandy from the Cryptomaintenance Unit helping out in Mallorytown.(2) Another unit that had been assisting was the 79th Communication Regiment. Their job normally is to provide satellite links and communication and they had been tasked on a national level to assist in Quebec.

RA said that by this time the Base had reached a critical point of having access to generators. The Base had planned that if the Signals Regiment needed to take their generators on deployment to Quebec then they would use the generators from the Communication Regiment. The Base had 5 generators deployed to the City. When the Communication Regiment received their orders for deployment that is when, "it got traumatic". RA spent one night on the phone (for 30 minutes) with Major General Jeffery discussing the position of one generator.(3) It was one of the generators being used by a shelter (it was there as a back-up and not being used to supply power). RA said that his concern was that if the military took away the generator and the power ended up going out then it would have made for some bad press. RA had another discussion with another Commander, General Richard, about the generator that the 79th Communication Regiment was planning to take with them on their deployment to Quebec. RA said, he could not afford to lose another generator.

On the subject of what worked well, RA replied it was the initiative of the personnel and self-discipline. RA said that,

"There is an inherent capabilities in the Armed Forces to organise into well defined units and chain of command. We are a well equipped group and a certain amount of internal mobility. Also a general propensity to go ahead and do something, if you see something that needs to be done, go ahead and get it done. That's how this whole operation basically went. To say that I sat here in Kingston and commanded the whole thing is technically correct but it's philosophically wrong. What I did was try and keep track of what was going on in Brockville, Cornwall and here in town and with the occasional exception that we had to switch emphasis or add a slightly new task to an organisation it was just a matter of trying to co-ordinate it. The local initiative at really all levels, individual right up to command level really worked well."

RA said that what didn't work well was the whole business with liaison between the civil authorities and Emergency measures organisation. RA said,

"Once the EMO got up and running, and the irony was, with the exception of Randy Reid, everyone was a retired Armoured Corps Lt. Col. The gentleman that came here to set up his command post with me was a retired Lt. Col. and the guy in Toronto does the same job. The good thing was everyone spoke the same language. By the time they deployed and set up their teams, and to get a handle on who to contact and how to get their hands on resources, it was fairly late in the game. There's been a lot of criticism of the organisation including from Brig. Gen. Rick Hillier of 2 Brigade. That could have worked better and there would have been less spinning of wheels about provision of some of these things, whether it was food, generators, tents or other equipment. With the EMO and the some of the contacts they already had, probably would have been able to put some of these in place had they been in place sooner and the civil authorities had understood that this was the interface that they should have been working with. The "chain of command" should have been, the civil authorities to the EMO and the EMO to the military ,who are only one resource they could have used, didn't crank up as quickly as it should have."

When asked whether RA felt levels of frustration such as Captain Weigand of the PWOR did in dealing with the lack of ability of the civil authorities RA replied that he did feel frustrated but certainly not as much as Captain Weigand would have felt since Weigand was on the ground and facing it everyday. (4)

"The frustration was apparent when an individual called saying they were from such and such government and asked for help. We would tell them that they should be calling the EMO and even after the EMO set up their post we still continued to get these calls. Our orders were theoretically to assist in the aid to civil powers but that doesn't mean that every military resource within a hundred miles is at their beck and call. If the structure had been set up earlier, it would have prevented a lot of confusion."

RA said that the militia units did extremely well during the operation and especially the Brockville Rifles and the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders who had 600 augmented regular force troops sent down to them. RA said that he was not without some reserve about the militia units but by the time the operation was over, he had changed his mind about the capabilities of these units and "I point this out to my regular command and threaten to abuse anyone who thinks that these units are not capable." It worked well, because there was an advantage to having the home town units working in the areas. All the units were able to take the augmented troops and put them under command and they did a good job.

In terms of how people were augmented it was a matter of push. Normally there would be an assessment of the situation and where people were needed, they were sent. "In this case, it was push. Until you got people on the ground, there was no way to know what was needed. Troops from CFB Borden and Gagetown were sent down in company units(100) and augmented into militia units. There was plenty of work for them to do in the beginning of the operation."

One of the problems RA commented on was that there was a sense that this operation was a good public relations exercise and everybody wanted to get involved. RA said that the extra bodies were certainly needed and as long as there was a way to feed and house them then it was fine. When there was a lack of resources to take on the additional personnel, then it became a problem.

RA said that the other thing that didn't work well was his own organisation and Head Quarters.

"This idea of someone to create a Task Force South that was a mirror image of a Brigade based on a Base HQ, is dead flat wrong. I'm not telling tales out of school either, I have mentioned this to my Commander. I was required, in addition to dealing with the problems on the Base and assisting the local community, to organise a staff and command control and a logistics support that equates to a Brigade and I don't have it. I had to haul in people from across the province just to be Duty Officers in the HQ. All this was really ad hoc. In my own view of the world, it would have been preferable to give this to 2 Brigade which are better able to handle this. With all the local initiative, I don't think my organization was a real impediment to the operation but I don't know how much. 2 Brigade would have had to come here. It would have made better sense to place the SD&G Highlanders under command of 2 Brigade. 2 Brigade was already deployed into the Ottawa area and they had a full command and logistical support. Normally I don't support the militia in Cornwall, we were having to provide logistical support and that meant running up and down the 401 providing medical and logs. Anyone can keep that up for a while but eventually, people get tired and there's more likelihood that accidents will happen. It would have been better if that area was under 2 Brigade."

The other problem was the way the boundaries were designated. The military tends to use major landmarks such as highways or streets. RA found that the local authorities don't define their boundaries the same way. The scope of the military boundaries had to be altered to match those of the municipalities. RA recommended that the military do a yearly check with the municipalities for any boundary changes. This was relevant to the deployment of troops to their tasking areas.

On the subject of what needs to be changed because of the storm, RA said that they are going to periodically check on the condition of systems and buildings and their auxiliary power sources. The HQ and kitchens are going to be equipped with generators. HQ found that the building that was designated for an alternative HQ had problems with its generator and that delayed getting the HQ up and running. The organization of a command HQ is being re-worked. The relationships of the various units within the garrison needs to be strengthened.

RA asked at a meeting in Toronto after the operation if there was any intention to follow up with capturing the events, mistakes and lessons learned, especially the EMO, and he does not think that it will be a big initiative to do so. RA said, that to date, he hasn't seen or heard if the City of Kingston is going to run simulated emergencies in co-operation with the Base to test the systems and contacts.

The military had been asked to review the City's emergency plan back in October but RA said, it was only one page and it stated that they would contact the military for assistance. RA said that it wasn't clear what the City would be asking for. RA has spoken to the EMO and they are going back to "their reaction to a nuclear disaster mode". RA doesn't think that we'll see that kind of an emergency but we may see another natural disaster again. RA fears that people will simply forget about the storm and the need to develop a good emergency response plan. RA is a firm believer of "the command post exercise". He said that it is important to know where one's resources are and how to access them.

When the power came back on, the units that were in training wanted to get back to their courses. One unit was located at the Base and they were to shortly leave for the Golan Heights. RA recalls that these units were annoyed when they went to use the vehicles and they had been deployed to somewhere else.

RA said the stress levels were mainly because of people getting tired. He noted that there were more vehicle accidents in the second week than there was in the first. He said that the stress was quite high in the families. Some of that was because of the lack of power to the Base and a lot of it was because of the spouse being deployed to another area. He said it was hard for the personnel to leave their families in the middle of their own crisis and go off to Montreal. The stress levels were handled at the unit level and RA said it was handled well. The Base set up the facilities at Vimy Hall to assist the families. RA said there was a sigh of relief on the Sunday when the power came back on because of the weather turning very cold. RA recalled a moment when he and Lt. Col Thornton were coming up the hill on Highway 15 after a meeting at City Hall on the Saturday and thought the lights had come back on. They were disappointed to find that the lights were only reflections of passing cars in the windows. The weather forecast for the Sunday was minus 20 degrees. RA kept track of the family situations with the help of the padres and found that problems with them were not attributed to just the storm.

RA said that there are several stories that demonstrate how co-operative everyone on the Base was helping each other. RA recalled that there were a couple of instances on the other end of the spectrum where a spouse had called the Duty Officer twice on day one demanding that the HQ go over to the kitchen and bring the family some food. RA said that he had asked the Duty Officer if he was going to provide that service and the DO said , "No, sir, I'm not". RA said he doesn't know who that spouse was. RA also recalls that when the power went out at HQ, they quickly discovered that the emergency supplies consisted of 3 candles, a flashlight and dead batteries. RA assures the writer that this has been remedied. The HQ now has adequate supplies. RA said that both Toronto and London bases shipped them supplies. One of the intriguing items was discovering that the gas pumps are all computer and electrically run. RA said, "That only remains funny until you find out you've got a couple of hundred trucks coming through on a convoy to Montreal and need to gas up." The Base found that there is a way to bypass the electricity to make the pumps work but declined to explain how it was done.

RA said that the amount of damage to the buildings was minimal with the exception of one PMQ which had a large branch fall on it. The total cost to the Base was $380,000.(5) in damages, overtime, and supplies. The cost of the entire operation was $60 million. RA has requested that there be a review of the civilian staff's pay. The Public Service Commission has definite rules on how to pay staff and it is very restrictive. RA felt that the civilians should have been paid overtime at the same rate as the private sector trades working along side them as they were often working in adverse and dangerous situations. He said his hands are tied as far as the legality of putting in an "overtime bill" to the Treasury Department but he has made a special request to have the pay looked at.

RA mentioned that the study might want to speak to Captain Eric LaCasse who has been officially dubbed "The Governor of Seeley's Bay". Captain LaCasse was looked upon by the residents in Seeley's Bay as the military in that area. Captain LaCasse walked into the Ops Centre on day one and asked for a generator. RA talked about the "no man's land" where they had not yet covered that area. This area fell between where Task Force South's northern parameter was and the southern parameter of Task Force North's was. RA spent some time trying to get a handle on the situation because he did not want the Minister of Defence to get blindsided with complaints. RA asked PWOR to cover the area rather than assign it to 2 Brigade.

RA said that what he learned from the emergency was, " It reaffirmed my faith in some of the basic principles in soldiering. On a day-to-day basis with some of the nonsense that has been happening it has not been easy to be a soldier, especially a senior officer." RA said that on a selfish level, "It was nice to be able to concentrate on only one problem for about a month."

RA said that the reason the reserves at HMCS Cataraqui were not used was because they had been asked supply their facilities, which ended up not having any power, but more so because they were not part of the Army chain of command.

It took the Base a bit of scrambling to get started but once they were set up they could have kept going for an indefinite period of time. As things got back to normal the units expected their day-to-day support which was supplied by Lt. Col. Thornton. RA said, "It was an interesting exercise."

1. Canadian Forces Cryptomaintenance Unit.
2. See interview with Captain Chris Grandy.
3. See interview with Major General M.K. Jeffery.
4. See interview with Captain Harold Weigand.
5. See interview with Major Jim Frazer.