IceStorm 98 Study

CKWS-TV serves the Kingston and Belleville region as a CBC affiliate. The company is privately owned by Power Broadcasting in Montreal.

Gerrard Campbell [GC] recalled that throughout Wednesday everybody was worried about the approaching weather system; "We knew it was going to be a big storm, but we didn't realize how big until the next day..." The satellite shots were showing a massive system over the north eastern US which was headed towards eastern Ontario.

GC woke up at 1 or 2 am from the sleet hitting his window. He got up and pulled the curtains aside but couldn't see a thing, "...it was a sheet of ice..." A little later the power went out. He set his pocket organizer to act as his alarm clock in the morning because he had to pick up his wife early that day. It went off at about 6 am and he slowly picked his way around the downed branches and power lines to the hospital where she works.

GC usually works 11 am to 7 p.m. but he went into work early on Thursday. When he arrived at work there was no power. "On the way to work - it was incredible- branches were crashing, lines were coming down, and I knew then that we were in for a busy period".

"There was disappointment that we weren't on the air. However, with the widespread power failure, even if we had a signal, not too many people would be able to pick up what we wanted to do."

The staff got to work collecting information, hopeful that they would be able to get back on the air later that day -in order to broadcast information regarding the storm. At that point the broadcast tower on Wolfe Island was still up -it fell on Friday evening. At this point the main problem was a lack of power at their Queen Street studio building [which sends a signal to Wolfe Island which is then amplified and broadcast throughout the region].

"We instructed our reporters and camera people to get out and work as if we were going to have a 6 o'clock broadcast. We aimed for that." They decided to go hour by hour, aiming to broadcast at some point.

At 10 am everybody was working, "some of our technicians hooked up some generators and we got some power. The former Royal Bank, on the other side of the block, still had power so we...ran a couple of long extension cords into the building so we were able to do some editing."

They had enough power to work two of the computers in the newsroom, and the news anchors worked away at getting a newscast in place. They were all set to go by 6 p.m. But there wasn't enough power to send a signal. "By 10 p.m. we realized that we wouldn't be able to do anything for the next who knows how long." So they called it a day and came back the next morning.

They had power briefly Friday and got some news breaks on air and gave out emergency numbers. They aimed for a 6 p.m. broadcast and managed to get it out.

Then, disaster struck. Shortly after 8 p.m. the Wolfe Island broadcast tower came tumbling down under the weight of the built-up ice. At first, all they knew was that they had lost their signal. Soon they started getting telephone calls from Wolfe Island, several residents had heard the 800 foot steel tower come crashing down.

"Our people went over the next day and checked out the site, and there was virtually nothing that could be saved. At the very top of the tower they found some ice that had encased portions of the very top of the tower, and measured it at 8 inches thick. So it's surprising it stayed up that long."

Saturday was a write-off. They were off the air totally, but the reporter and camera person assigned to work that day went out and collected some stories. They got on the air Sunday and put out a 6 p.m. and an 11 p.m. newscast with anchor Carolyn Dunn [see also Dunn interview].

The next two to three weeks were "...very hectic..." They did an extra half hour of news, which was a big undertaking for a small station. A number of city and utility company officials came in- to the studio to do interviews.

Some parameters were set out for the reporters regarding stories to cover. Sometimes, however, they came across situations in the field which would take precedent. In all, the storm crisis "...wasn't too bad to cover, we had enough people to cover things."

Changes from their normal routine included a shortened time period allotted for sports news, [down from 7 minutes to 2-3 minutes] and more live interviews than usual. They also expanded the 6 p.m. newscast to 1.5 hours, starting at 5:30 p.m.

Losing the antenna was a big disappointment. Their technicians assembled a small temporary tower, 12' high, that basically covered the greater Kingston area. Belleville, however, did not receive a signal. This lasted for a couple of weeks until they located a firm with a 400 foot tower in storage in Toronto. Arrangements were made to have the new tower put up quickly. With current technology, this 400 foot tower can achieve the same range that the larger one did. It was up in three weeks or so but they are still fine tuning and waiting for some parts.

GC feels that the storm was a learning experience but thinks they did very well in spite of the challenges they faced. There are no plans underway with regard to implementing anything new, although he admits they could do some "fine tuning."

The extra half hour of newscast meant added work and pushed everything ahead by half an hour. This put some stress on the staff. On some occasions the equipment wouldn't co-operate and sometimes video tapes got to the studio and were "...inserted into the playback machine just seconds before they had to be on air."

GC said cost was not an issue. Tom Brennan, the operations manager told him that cost was no object; "...we were going to go on the air and do the best we could."

GC notes, however, "I'm sure it was terribly expensive, there was a lot of overtime."

A few weeks after the storm they aired a retrospective presentation of their ice storm coverage called, "Ice Storm '98." It was an hour long special which reviewed the region's experience with the ice storm [see video tape].