IceStorm 98 Study

As the lead agency during the ice storm, social services was confronted with major challenges which had to be met with speed and sensitivity. Dorothy Theobald, in her capacity as chief administrator, led her team and the many volunteers who offered their assistance in overcoming the many obstacles which she encountered during the emergency.

On March 30 she became the interim director of social services for Leeds and Grenville replacing Mark Darroch who had resigned to take up a new position with Renfrew county. On June 1st, she’ll officially take over as the new Director of Social Services for the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville with greatly expanded responsibilities due to the consolidation of services demanded by the province.

Dorothy Theobald (DT) had been informed of the severe weather that was heading her way the night before the storm hit. She had therefore placed her staff on standby and sent them home with a copy of the emergency plan guide.

The majority of her staff live outside the city, which eventually affected her ability to get her people back in the next morning. This became an issue which would be dealt with in her recommendations to the county in her report.
Arriving at the office that morning she discovered that there was no power to the building.
Although there was no power, she had to keep staff there to answer phone calls which continued to come into the office. Phone lines were still connected, but became jammed from time to time due to the volume of calls.
People were told to stay indoors due to the danger from falling trees and live hydro wires.

A small number of people elected to stay at the city office to help out where they could.
“...those folks, they really did a tremendous job because of course we needed them ..this was the main switch so they were here without heat and we brought them in lots of hot food and what have you throughout ... and checked on them to make sure they were all right”.
Eventually, stress began to take its toll. “...we were able to manage with the staff we had at that point in time but as the day started to progress... what happened was that the few who were able to get here started working extremely long hours ... all of us, I think that there were a couple who went for three days without sleep... it’s hard to pull yourself away from it”.

She received a call from the Fire Department directing her to the Gord Watts building on North Augusta Road where an emergency centre was being set up.

The City of Brockville was divided up into four quadrants, each with its own shelter. The first shelter that was opened was the Grenville Christian College. The College had called DT to inform her that they had full power and were prepared to operate as a shelter should the need arise. “...they had everything so it was a great start because it allowed us a little bit more lead time, we were able to send people there in the early stages”.
The next shelter was at TISS. But it took 24 hours to set up a generator to power the school.
Once TISS had been set up, this allowed them to make arrangements to send a considerable number of people to the shelter.

Brockville Psychiatric Hospital also called DT and told her that they had full power and were prepared to offer the facility as a shelter. Her plan was to reserve the BPH as a shelter for the seniors and non-ambulatory patients.

The Salvation Army offered to provide hot meals but needed a generator to power up the gas stoves. Eventually, the Salvation Army was set up as a shelter as well as a feeding station.
A local banquet hall had been set aside to feed the emergency workers “and that worked extremely well, we would do that again because I think that for all the hydro... and emergency crews they really needed to be separated ...I think that it really made a huge difference because at the end of the day those folks needed to go some place and not be bothered by people innocently trying to get information”.

Because of the layout of the school TISS was an excellent choice for a shelter “ it allowed us to separate seniors from families and small children because there were enough classrooms and we were able to put up single people and younger folks in the larger (areas)”. Two chefs and their support staff cooked the meals served at TISS. Meals had to be supplied to those who were staying at TISS as well as those who chose to remain at their homes but would come over to TISS for a hot meal. Seniors were bussed into TISS three times a day for meals. There were those who refused to leave their homes in which case, meals were bussed to them.

The Social Services staff had since moved over to the Gord Watts building and “took over the whole building and fortunately all the staff out there were wonderful... but it really restricted them in being able to do some of the work they had to do as well”. In the future, an alternative location would be preferable. Although it was certainly convenient to arrange for bussing, all of the offices were downtown which posed a few problems.

One of the things that DT would ensure would be done in the future is inventory control. “We attempted it at the beginning because... you get such a tremendous response from the community in terms of food and clothing ... we really tried to keep it well organized of who donated what and what are we paying for ...it started really well but as shifts changed and new people came in it didn’t carry on.... it’s not problematic at the time but it becomes problematic afterwards when you start trying to pay the bills”.

The registration process at the shelters could be administered better particularly when people began to return to their homes. “As power started being restored in the city, everybody wanted to leave and it was like a mass exodus... and that’s problematic from the perspective that you want to keep track of everybody, where they’re going”.

Another issue which DT wants to resolve in any future emergency stems from the fact that “ it was one of the shortfalls that we had as an agency ... we weren’t assertive enough prior to the disaster in terms of communicating and educating people as to what our role was... I think they saw as doing the feeding and all that but more than anything else we’re the co-ordinating agency and are the lead agency once the shelters come on ... and when you walk into a building that’s not yours and just basically say we’re taking over, people get really sensitive and you can understand it... so one of the things we’re going to do is to prepare signs that we can post so as soon as people walk in “This building has been taken over by the City of Brockville ... it will explain our role”.

At TISS, there were a number of volunteer groups who were requesting items from social services. This lack of co-ordination was met head on by DT at one of the emergency control group meetings when she made it quite clear that “it’s not a case of being in charge, it’s a case of we are the co-ordinating agency” and everything had to go through her department, otherwise there would have been duplication all down the line.

DT’s approach to management embraces the team concept. As time went on, her staff could detect signs of stress and overwork in each other and could therefore warn others of potential problems of “burn-out”. DT herself was told to go home by fellow staff who could see obvious signs of strain. It was difficult to get people to take a break because in most cases there was no one to replace them. Eventually, DT was forced to set up sleeping arrangements at the office. This was something that she would never do again “I knew it was wrong, wrong, ... the first day we knew that we couldn’t get the rest of our staff in so we had to stay in case something started to really happen ... we had all gone down to sleep and were scheduled to get up at 6:00 a.m. but all of a sudden at 5:00 a. m. they came and got us ...”. A “quiet room “ had been set up upstairs, but nobody used it. The next time would be different. A separate area would be set aside for those who needed rest.

DT had high praise for the amateur radio operators who had set up stations at all the shelters. Although she had phone communication, the lines became jammed with calls.
“They were excellent, absolutely excellent, they were our lifeline... although we had phones, they were so jammed, it was terrible..”. As requests were coming in to DT from the shelters, the amateur radio operators would contact the base station at the Gord Watts building. Quite a bit of food was left over (two Ryder trucks were full) after the emergency ended. This supply was stored at the Water Pollution Control Plant and subsequently sent out to the county who still required assistance. What couldn’t be sent out to the county ended up at the Brockville Psychiatric Hospital and Grenville Christian College.

DT described the organization that was implemented by Don Buffett at the Gord Watts building. He arranged for extra phone lines, set up “task centres” where volunteers would be running messages back and forth between rooms and streamlined the communications network. His organizational abilities enabled DT to make effective use of the volunteers and respond more quickly to requests from various shelters.

As far as costs were concerned DT said the priority was to get the job done no matter what the cost. The cost would come later.

After the shelters had been closed down DT’s department chose to issue emergency vouchers for food and other supplies. This was for those who had to throw out all the food as a result of the storm. An announcement was made over the radio that people who required food vouchers could come to city hall to pick them up. “Because it was us doing it... it was a double edged sword... people saw it as welfare... and of course they saw their neighbours and all these seniors and all these other people standing in line, and I kept saying this is not welfare, this is disaster relief...”.
Of course there were a number of people who took advantage of the situation and DT was made to feel somewhat guilty in not making any judgement calls about who should or who shouldn’t get any of the vouchers. “ We took so much heat over that ... and staff said afterwards, for the five days that we were in this thing, and everything we went through, the voucher thing was more stressful than the disaster.” Her department issued just over 3,000 vouchers which is a small number compared to the total population of the area.

DT pointed out that approximately 15 % of the population needed the shelters and that the balance of the population were able to take care of themselves. Of this 15% there were a small number who being most vulnerable, were also very visible at the shelters during the emergency.
These people became the target of others who made value judgements.

“As it turned out (in the end) we did the right thing and people’s needs were met and I don’t think that anybody can criticize us for that”.