IceStorm 98 Study

Tilly Nelson received a phone call from Horst Wohlgemut on Thursday afternoon at about 3:45 p.m. telling her that the school would be opened in about half an hour to be used as an emergency shelter. She was told that Mark MacDonald would be there, as would members of the Red Cross, City Hall, and so on. She simply said, "I'll be there in 15 minutes." When she got there, Tanie Steacy (Social Services) and Mark McDonald (Superintendent of Planning and Operations) were on the front steps. So she just stepped up to the sidewalk and said, "What do you need?". "Coffee." "Okay, we can do that."

They had team meetings every hour for the first whole night "just to troubleshoot". Mrs. Nelson stayed overnight that night. The first thing they did was tour the facilities to see what they could do there and what areas they could use. They decided to use the gym for people to stay overnight and the cafeteria would be used as the recreation and eating area with play equipment "and different things like that". They secured the rest of the building so they wouldn't have people going all through the building. They used garbage bags to tie off the rest of the building. They could use the central corridor, the main office, the gym and the cafeteria. They kept the other doors locked.

"That worked really, really well. And right behind us people were coming in as quickly as we were getting here. People knew, it was on the radio, and it happened pretty quickly." Cots arrived that evening but they didn't have enough cots that first night. Mrs. Nelson slept on the floor of her office that first night, as did Tanie Steacy. They all took turns sleeping and basically stayed up the whole night sort of handling things as they came.

They had a central command at City Hall and Tanie Steacy did all the contact with City Hall. She called downtown and got directions from City Hall about what they were to do. "And we just played it by ear. And everybody did their particular role."

Red Cross took care of all the medical things that might be needed. They ordered supplies, diapers, talked to downtown and got R.M.C. students. They had medical students from Queen's, nursing students from Queen’s.... "So it worked just like a well-oiled machine."

The Salvation Army went in to organize the food and they opened up the kitchen. The Salvation Army took food to L.C.V.I. already prepared so they just had to keep a "legal" temperature on soups, etc. to make sure that there would be no problems. Supper was on the table by 7:00 p.m. that first night.

"The first night was pretty exciting. People were very stressed, pretty anxious when they came. Some people were crying. The elderly were confused. Some people were fine, perfectly calm, but just knew they needed to be here. That's it, basically, the first night."

Gary Medd's family lost their power at about 4:30 a.m. on Thursday morning. He went to school that morning to see what was going on. He had difficulty getting into the school because of road conditions. In fact, he saw Tilly Nelson on the road and they had a chat "door-to-door" in their cars. He found a way to get to the school and there was no power there. He went in to look around and spent some time there. One of the men from the physical plant department had gone in to check things. The power went back on and then off again.

Mr. Medd was in the school a couple of times during the day. He had no phone at home because the branches had taken down the phone line. He was back in the school at about 3:00 in the afternoon and the power was back on. He was receiving messages that the City was not going to use L.C.V.I. but would open up Frontenac Secondary School as a shelter. Then Frontenac lost power and the decision was made to use L.C.V.I. Unfortunately, there was no way to get in touch with him. "So I didn't find out until the next morning because we had no radio or anything at home other than the radio in my car. And I heard the next morning that there was a shelter at Loyalist and I thought, 'how did that happen?'. So, of course, I came in sort of first thing to find out what was going on here and then I got connected into the processes that were already in place that Tilly had helped them set up."

Mrs. Nelson did have a telephone at home (she lives downtown) but did not have power. "We were cold in the house but my telephone worked so they were able to get through that way." (Mr. Medd was without power and telephone for nine days at home.)

They never left the building unsupervised. Three of the administrators stayed there around the clock, 24 hours a day, for the duration of the shelter. They just felt they should do that. While the other people were used to working with clients, they felt they should be there in order to give consent to do things since they felt ownership for the building and wanted to protect the building and the other people. "As much as they were in positions where they would be maybe giving people help and giving them food and giving them blankets, they didn't know how to be firm with somebody and say 'no, you can't do that'. So, for instance, in the middle of the night the first night we had someone come to the door drunk. And that immediately caused...we had to have a team meeting but I said 'we're not taking one person in who's been drinking that will upset a hundred people who are sleeping. So the decision was made at that time [to] send that person by taxi to Detox or to the Salvation Army so they're safe and protected; we haven't turned them away." L.C.V.I. supplied taxi chits to send people elsewhere. The shelter had babies sleeping, the elderly, and they were trying to protect people there as much as possible. "So I dealt with those things as they came up. And there weren't many."

They had about 100 people overnight and about 165 for supper. People got to know that the school was available but they were anxious to not leave their own homes "for whatever reasons" so they would go to the school for meals and then leave, or volunteer for a while around the lunch or supper hour before leaving.

They set up a screening process for volunteers, including checking identification. There were several people who went in to help out.

Mr. Medd says, "I think the thing that impressed me was the way in which the five different agencies all found what they were good at in the situation, let the other agencies do what they were good at, and just coordinated as we needed to." They didn't even really need to have team meetings the last couple of days. They had the Queen's medical and nursing students, R.M.C. cadets, the Salvation Army, City Social Services, the Red Cross and their own staff. The R.M.C. cadets were there for the last three days, looking after the front desk and doing anything that was needed. The L.C.V.I. custodial staff was also there, even staying overnight.

They took the cots and cribs up in the elevator from the day-care centre in the school so that the mothers could be with their children in the gym. "And the R.M.C. students would do anything we asked them to do so when we would have maybe one custodian on and you have maybe 200 people to manage, there's a lot of work that has to be done as a routine just to keep the place clean and safe," says Mrs. Nelson. "And the R.M.C. students would sweep the floors or wash the floor or take out the garbage, do whatever you asked them to do. They were really, really good."

Meanwhile, there was no power in the building. They were operating on a generator. The power had come back on Thursday evening and went out again on Thursday night around 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. So, on Friday, the fellows from the physical facilities plant department from the Board made contact with the military and by about 4:00 p.m. they had a military generator installed that was on a big trailer. But it still only had enough power to run part of the building. Once it powered up the boilers, it drained off most of the power that the generator was giving. So all that was left was enough power for the lights in the main office foyer, centre court and back as far as the gym and the cafeteria.

Even in the kitchen they only had enough extra power left to operate one receptacle. That's how close they were to "maxing out" the power from that generator. They have gas stoves so they were able to keep food at the proper temperature. They had one plug for the coffee urn and they heated water for tea on the gas stove.

The power went on and off in the area of the school for several days and Mr. Medd made the decision to not go off the generator until they were convinced that the power situation was stable.

There was a staff information meeting on the Monday and two of their department heads pitched in (Tom Worthy and Angie Lowry) and stayed overnight, which gave the others relief. Before this, the staff had not realized that Mrs. Nelson, Mr. Medd and Dale Midwood (the other vice-principal) had been staying at the shelter. Mr. Midwood had power at home, unlike the other two. "So we stayed here willingly two different nights. Gary stayed two nights, I stayed two different nights overnight because we had no heat at home. So we aren't the heroes you think we are!"

Mrs. Nelson recalls that one of the interesting things when they were shutting down on Tuesday was "the elderly were leaving and one of the women said, you know, how much she loved it and was so grateful and she said 'I didn't know how lonely I was until I realized that I've been living with all of these people'. And she said, 'I live in an apartment with 300 people and I'm lonely... because I don't talk to people. I realized how alone I am now that I'm sleeping... All of these strangers were sleeping a few feet apart which we would never do, you know, unless you go to camp and you're kids, but as adults we don't do that anymore.' And she was just thrilled with what happened here and the care she got."

She says that stress was not really a problem for them because they helped each other and they know each other well so they would know when they were getting close to "burnout" and they would send each other home and take over their shift.

One of the first families in was a woman (a single parent) and two children. She was a chronic complainer. She complained about what they were doing and that they weren't doing it fast enough. "We tried to get her busy then, involve her in the process and say well could you help us with this and could you help us with that. And you could see it was absolutely her own personal stress. There was nothing wrong with what was going on but we couldn't do enough fast enough. And she eventually opted to go to another shelter and we were grateful when she went. But it was just how she dealt with stress and she was making everybody around her very uncomfortable. And we were having [other] people come to us and saying, 'She's upsetting me. I was fine but she's upsetting me. Can you do something about her?' ... But you also can't say to somebody 'you can't go in that room'." They did eventually tell this woman that she was upsetting others and her children.

Mr. Medd also says that he did not find the experience stressful, but it was tiring. At one point he was there for a 30-hour stretch (going home for only one hour in that time span). He describes his mother-in-law, in her mid-70's and an extremely active person, and over the 9 days that they were without power at home "you could just see her sinking into a depression". They couldn't get her to leave the house even though many people offered places with power for her to go. He also remarks that we must remember that the people in the shelter had no other options and that the shelter was a place of last resort for them.

People from the community did go in to say 'I have power, can I take a family?' so they would let people know that there was an offer with, for example, one bed or two twin beds and ask if there was a family that would like to go. This happened about three times, that somebody would come and take a whole family away to shelter them in their home.

Another intriguing difficulty, says Mr. Medd, was donated food. He says they had never thought about the fact that there would be liability concerns because people's freezers would be down and they would want to donate their meat. "And people were not happy when their offers were turned down." So the school decided to start taking the food and they put it in their own staff room and the staff ate it. Mrs. Nelson says, "We took our own liability... so that we're at least not saying no to their faces." The only food they put out for the general population of the shelter was a huge tray of samosas that were delivered from one of the restaurants and soup from Clark's-on-King. They decided that if the food was made in a facility that met public health standards, then it would be appropriate to use it.

The public health department was in early on, advising them to empty their freezers. They were checking the temperature gauges constantly to see how quickly it was dropping and then finally said it all had to go. They had to record all of their waste and pitch it in the garbage. They run a full kitchen at the school, so had to start all over after the storm. They were able to use such things as lettuce and fruits, however, since their kitchen is run according to health department standards.

The police went by on a regular basis. The Kingston Police Volunteers were well identified (wearing yellow vests) and they had walkie-talkies. They would go in to check to see if there was anybody the shelter was worried about, what the status was at the shelter, and if there was anybody they would like taken away. L.C.V.I. had virtually no concerns that they hadn't already dealt with. "So it was nice to see them and it was really comforting for the people who were here to know, yes, the police are stopping in and everything must be okay." They did have Guy-Tash Security, a private security firm, at the school overnight. City Hall had hired them.

Costs incurred included the food lost, caretakers' overtime (which was the biggest single cost), and a break-in towards the end.

Somebody had gone in, registered and went into the gym. The rest of the school had only been sealed off with garbage bags because of the fire code, so this was only an impediment, not a barrier. Somebody stole a lot of equipment out of their physics labs and woodshop. They stole electrical supplies, small energy-producing items. (Mr. Medd suspects the things were stolen for use in the drug trade.) Their small hand power tools were also stolen. These items were all replaced by the time the school re-opened. [Because of the guest log they kept, they were able to help identify who had committed the theft.]

Mrs. Nelson kept a daily log of activities and Mr. Medd kept a log of everybody who was registered at the shelter. He also sent a copy of the costs to the School Board in order to recover their losses.

Mr. Medd says, "I mean, it's one of those situations where you do what you need to do at the time. And you worry about sorting it out later."

Mrs. Nelson adds, "Your social conscience kicks in and you're just there, you know. ... After it was over, someone said, 'Who made you do that? Like the very idea that somebody said that, well, while the rest of the city is in crisis you have to go and work through this.' I said, 'What do you mean, who made me do that? I have a social conscience, my children are all grown up, I don't have anybody to worry about at home, my husband was going to take care of our house (which had no power). Of course I'd be in my school taking care of anybody that I could help in the community.' And Gary was the same way."

Even though the Superintendent had only asked them to "go and help them (Red Cross and Salvation Army) open up", they had the keys, they knew the facilities, they could give them the layout and tell them what they could and couldn't use, it was obvious that they did not want the school staff to leave. They were not told to stay 24-hours a day by the school superintendent but the other people involved from Social Services, etc. were very happy to have them there because of the discomfort of walking into somebody else's building and taking it over.

When asked about problems, Mr. Medd says "it was kind of a hoot" because folks from the other agencies, who have a very different job on a day-to-day basis and relate to their clients in a very different way, would talk about problems, "but we saw them as just routine procedures". He tells the story of the night that Schneider's took the barbecue in (which had been announced on the radio and so was the biggest night for dinner at the shelter). "So the place is packed. It's running a little behind and the fellow from the Salvation Army is having a panic about this sort of rush on the food. People were sitting at tables in the cafeteria and Tilly just got up and said, 'Okay. Everybody's attention. Now this is the way we're going to do this. Table 1, table 2, table 3...', you know, that kind of thing. 'You go up as we call you.' [The Salvation Army worker] was astounded and says 'well, what a good idea'." With laughter they both comment that this is the kind of thing that they're used to doing all the time, being administrators at a high school.

The Salvation Army sent over "Ice Storm" t-shirts afterwards in appreciation for the key staff that had stayed overnight. L.C.V.I. made up certificates of service awards as a way of thanking people who had gone out of their way. The man from Red Cross and Gary Medd both signed these certificates for the custodial staff, the kitchen staff, "and anybody who did anything for us to help at all".

The shelter was open from Thursday until the following Tuesday at 1:00 in the afternoon, when the remaining people were moved to the shelter at Penrose. Mrs. Nelson comments that this was interesting because they had many clients at the shelter from the community who had been moved out of places like Kingston Psychiatric Hospital. (With the new health initiatives, these people have been moved into designated homes in the community.) They were willing to go to the shelter at L.C.V.I. but when told that they had to go to Penrose they said, 'No, no, no. I've been at Penrose. I'm not going to Penrose.' They had to be assured that they were being sent there only as a shelter and that they could return to their homes in the community when the power came back on.

One of the people at the shelter had an angina attack so he was moved to Hotel Dieu. They did not want to take any chances with a diabetic, as well, who had forgotten their insulin. There was a constant screening going on so that anybody who was medically unstable was moved to the Dieu by taxi. They were escorted by an R.M.C. student or a Queen's medical student or a nursing student so they were never left unattended. The City paid for the taxi fares.

The medical students went into the shelter all with their stethoscopes around their neck and looking very official. "They did a really good job." They were sent in pairs and worked in six-hour shifts.

"And one guy from St. Lawrence volunteered and we couldn't get him to go home and he lived out in the township. And you could tell, the longer he stayed, that he really had nowhere to go. And so he was happy to volunteer and we kept him here but we eventually sent him by cab back and forth. He didn't have the means, you could tell eventually. So we covered those kinds of costs." They tried to make sure that people who were helping were also getting meals for themselves so that they would keep their own strength up.

The school has an Emergency Procedures Manual "for everything you can think of from a broken neck to a sexual assault to some child assaulting someone with a weapon" but, as Mr. Medd says, this was an emergency the other way around. Their emergency manual deals with emergencies that occur at school with regard to getting the people out or bringing assistance in but in this instance "we became kind of the solution to an emergency that was out there".

They were pleased with what they did and that they were able to provide this service to the community.

When the generator was taken away, the electrical connections were left in place in case it is ever needed again. It took about 4 hours to install the generator and only took about 20 minutes to get it out because they had had to do some re-wiring initially.

They still have the towels and they ordered soap from City Hall..."little things you don't think about". People needed to bathe but there were no lights in the showers. In order to protect against sexual assault in the showers they said that 'all children will go into a shower stall with their parents. Somebody has to hold the door open but children under a certain age must be accompanied by a parent or they can't go in.' They did tell the general community that L.C.V.I. was not a place for bathing. By this time the Kingston Family "Y" was open again so people could go there for a shower.

When the school re-opened, they knew that there would be kids going in who were still in homes without power so Mr. Medd went out to the Lasalle Hotel to pick up a box of individual bars of soap that was donated and a box of towels was delivered to L.C.V.I. They also monitored the kids to try to find out which kids were coming in from homes without power. They gave out meal chits to the home-form teachers so that anybody who hadn't eaten could go (on the first two days) for meals at lunchtime without paying. "Kids are very reluctant to say, 'I have no money and I haven't eaten'." Interestingly, most of the kids who were still without power did not go to school.

They could have opened the school on Wednesday but Mr. Medd had a call on Tuesday from the Board office, who he had been keeping contact with. The question was raised of 'how safe was it for kids to go to school' so Mr. Medd went out and did a tour of their 'feeder area' (Strathcona Park, Balsam Grove, Polson Park, the Calvin Park area, etc.). The tree limbs had been removed from the roads by then but they had all been dumped on the sidewalks. He reported back that the kids would have to walk on the road everywhere. So an announcement was made that the City schools would not be opened on Wednesday, although the [old] township schools would be. The military went through on Wednesday with their chippers, getting the brush off the sidewalks in the high traffic areas. They did the school area immediately in case there were kids in the playground. There is an elementary school, Calvin Park (grades 7 and 8), right across the street so they wanted to make sure that there was nothing dangerous or anything they could use as a projectile if they got playing. "It's all those safety issues that you have to think about."

Mrs. Nelson says that it was fun to see the play areas. All of the "toys and things" were taken out of the day-care into one corner of the cafeteria "and these kids were sliding up and down." She also says, "We had two students who were fabulous...Justin Garnett and Thomas Gwizd. They turned up one night around 1:30 in the morning to get books out of their locker so they would be able to do homework. (Questionable but, anyway, that's when they turned up.) They never left. They stayed for five days. Those kids did everything. They ran, they wouldn't go home, they helped with everything you can think of. They were just constantly helping other people, taking people's little kids and playing with them on the play equipment and running for us if we had a message at the front.

"We started getting phone calls from people who were from Toronto saying, 'Is my mother there?'... And so then the reports were going to City Hall. That's something we realized after the first phone call, that people were panicked. So we sent that information back to City Hall every day." City Hall could then let people know things like, 'yes, your mother is in a shelter and she's at Loyalist or Q.E.C.V.I.'. Red Cross usually plays an identification function in emergencies and they have established procedures for identifying who they're dealing with for exactly that kind of reason. They decided not to do it in this situation because there was no threat to life.” As people were going in, Mr. Medd tried to keep a list of people who were in the shelter, who had registered. They logged everybody in and everybody out and they were allowed to leave three times a day. During the day there were so many people there that they were encouraging people to go to the "Y" and go do other things and then come back. The clients were good about understanding the need to know and that it was being done in order to try to prevent problems. They were welcome to come and go but the shelter needed to know if they were there or not.

At some point, they decided to lock the door at 11:00 p.m. and they would have security there. They wouldn't deny anybody access but they just wouldn't leave the doors open. One security person would sleep at the front and, if somebody knocked on the door, they would wake Mrs. Nelson or somebody else up so they could clear that person. They wanted to know if the person had been drinking or why they were back so late "and most times you could tell there was nothing wrong" but they felt better locking the building up at night so people in the shelter would feel better.

As they say, it is interesting that there was no plan in advance, but it worked.

It was Tanie Steacy from Social Services, Jim Goodale from Salvation Army, and John Winship from Red Cross who helped form their team. Salvation Army ministers came in to comfort people, also.

Mrs. Nelson had contact with the media and, in fact, "put the media out at one point". The media went in and wanted to go through the shelter and "even said things like 'this is our crisis, you have to let us in' but there is a Board policy that states that the school will not allow the media to talk to a student without the student's consent. She told them they could go to the cafeteria and speak with adults but they could not speak with students under 18. "And they said, 'Well, you're not operating the school right now and it's our storm and we can do whatever we want.'" This was one of the local newspapers. They also wanted to go in with cameras to one of the sleeping areas and she said no, that "these people are all disadvantaged, they've all been out of their homes for two or three days (it took a couple of days for the press to get here). They're tired, they're under stress. There's no way that there's consent or even implied consent. When somebody comes in at 7:30 in the morning and wants to take pictures of people sleeping in this gym, they're not going in that gym. They're not taking a picture of one person in that gym sleeping."