IceStorm 98 Study

Harold Nuttle is a 3rd generation dairy farmer and first-term Deputy Reeve of Front of Leeds & Lansdowne. He has been in municipal politics for 10 years both as a deputy and a councilor. He has never been through an emergency before. There was one small emergency in the fall of 1995 -- six inches of rain between Joyceville and surrounding area -- in six hours. The township should have declared a state of emergency -- there was a bridge washed out -- but that's the closest thing to an emergency.

Harold Nuttle realized Thursday morning that "it was going to be real bad"-- people had been stopping in to see him and tell him about the hydro poles. Harold Nuttle went for a drive around the township, the weather reports on the internet were calling for more freezing rain on the Doppler radar. The storm was blowing up from the gulf of Mexico, Harold Nuttle gathered that they could be in for bad weather. Thursday morning Harold Nuttle saw a lot of poles down and guy wires snapped under the weight of ice. Heavier guy wires might have saved a lot of poles.

The Road Superintendent was in different times that week after the storm started on Sunday Jan. 4. There were three men on the roads crew and they had been working steady since Sunday sanding and trying to plow the ice off the road. On that Thursday Harold Nuttle tried to phone the township from his truck's cell phone and there was no answer. He thought that was strange. The home phone was out. Harold Nuttle tried to phone the Reeve to find out his opinion -- but no answer. Later that afternoon he got hold of another councilor who told Harold Nuttle that the Reeve was not that concerned about the emergency. Harold Nuttle concluded he could not do anything on his own.

Friday morning he tried to phone the Reeve again but could not get any answer. He learned Thursday night that the Clerk had given the office staff the day off, cause the phones won't work without hydro, he sent the staff home and went to London. Harold Nuttle phoned the clerk in London (Friday morning) to tell him that something had to be done -- and just then the road superintendent drove in to tell Harold Nuttle that the Reeve had called a state of emergency in the township. Kingston and Gananoque had done it the day before. The Reeve (or someone) was a little late off the mark. The land phones were all down, only the cell phones were working.

On Sunday morning a delegation of firemen came to see Harold Nuttle because they had started (on Friday) to man the firehall on 32 highway and they wanted to do something but they didn't have leadership.

The fire chief (who is also the manager of the telephone company) should have delegated to the deputy chief because all the other townships had their fire departments organized. "Things were slow at getting going." Harold Nuttle learned that the Deputy fire chief was putting in hydro poles. Harold Nuttle went down to the township office for a meeting with the fire chief and deputy chief. They set up a schedule for people to work on 8 hour shifts. The volunteers wanted to do stuff and on the Saturday they started to check homes, but they got called back to the fire hall in case there was an emergency.

They then had daily 1:00pm meetings with the Fire Chief, Road Superintendent, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the OPP and the army. The firemen were the natural choice to do the house to house checks because the volunteers know the elderly people and the people who would need help. The MTO -- truck inspectors off the 401 -- started going through the township on Monday morning, but at Harold Nuttle's end of the township they did not see anyone until Wednesday. Harold Nuttle and his family were supplying dry wood and everyone was helping everyone.

Friday the army started through the township checking people, finding people who might need help, elderly people who should be checked once a day. The army started the whole campaign and they checked every household. They came in on that Friday and checked on Harold Nuttle to tell them that the hydro would be back on that night -- it came on three days later.

Harold Nuttle does not blame hydro because it was a bigger disaster than they could have prepared for.

"The whole emergency plan didn't really work. It was not designed for something of this magnitude." It was designed for a localized emergency in which all your resources would be available rather than tied up. Hydro for the west end of the township comes from Kingston, a lot comes from Brockville and the south end comes from Granite Power in Gananoque -- and there are two different phone entities to deal with (Bell and Lansdowne). It makes it hard to deal with so many different organizations. If you phoned Ontario Hydro they answered in Markham and they knew nothing about the ice storm.

The township had 35 generators.

"The main thing on everyone's mind was the safety of people. Money won't buy life."

People were stealing generators -- there was quite a bit of it -- the railroad had to have a generator at every crossing and they had to have people sit and guard them, "you can't trust people." Bell Canada bought 300 generators and they can't account for one of them today. They've all disappeared.

"Everything worked but it just took so long to get working." Harold Nuttle was disappointed that there was no one in the township office to get hold of, people could not turn to the township cause there was no one there. The council was trying to help and the fire department was trying to help -- but there was a lot of mixed up things .... since the storm Harold Nuttle would like to see the township office set with a generator real fast. Harold Nuttle can run his farm with his generator. The fire hall on highway 32 did not have enough generator to run the sewage pump so they could not keep people there. So people went to Gananoque. But there weren't that many people who went to the shelters anyway, especially elderly people.

Harold Nuttle's power came on after nine days and Harold Nuttle was ready for a holiday. He had people living with him during the emergency. The township benefited from its relationship with Gananoque. Harold Nuttle stresses fairness in treatment.

There were a lot of things that went on in the township -- like government food vouchers -- that people in the west end of the township never knew anything about. Radio and television were unable to get the message out. The announcements were going through the radio station in Brockville, but radio reception in the west end of the township is erratic. The debriefing at the end of February revealed that the CRTC had granted the Brockville station more power to cover more territory -- but no one knew to listen to them.

Harold Nuttle had no contact with the media himself. A report was made up by the clerk and it was phoned in to the media. But a lot of people did not have battery powered radios either.

Harold Nuttle was quite concerned on Thursday that no one was at the township office. The clerk came back on Saturday and he got the office running on Saturday night. No one bothered on the weekend anyway, Harold Nuttle was kept informed by the road superintendent. The Reeve had moved out -- next door -- to his son's place and Harold Nuttle never thought of phoning his son. Council and staff have an emergency contact manual, but the Reeve is supposed to set up, but that emergency manual did not pertain any emergency of this kind. Harold Nuttle could not reach the Reeve until Monday at the noon meeting. The Reeve had a lot of his own problems, of course, but Harold Nuttle thinks he should have put the residents of the township first.

Harold Nuttle's son is on the volunteer fire department and owns a portable pump and water tank which he used on a track fire last year. The water tank pumped out a lot of basements. The fire department was pumping basements too and delivering water to farmers for their cattle.

The main thing at the start was to get the roads passable for emergencies. Harold Nuttle wanted the fire department to do the house to house early -- rather than wait for two days, for the MTO to do it. They know everybody and where they live. They didn't have to check on everybody. But they (the fire chief) didn't want the fire department to do it. Harold Nuttle does not know why -- there are two or three different stories -- they started the house to house checks and then got called off. Harold Nuttle thinks there were enough guys at the hall that they could have done the house to house and still responded to an emergency.

Harold Nuttle did not attend county meetings, but thinks they were real slow at getting things started too. They did not declare until next Wednesday because they had no emergency plan either and had to evacuate to the St. Lawrence lodge. It was a week before Harold Nuttle knew that. There needs to be more planning done at all levels of government. A storm this summer could wipe out everything again.

Harold Nuttle has seen no changes since the ice storm. No concrete decisions have been made on generators for the township.

Biggest problem -- a lot of people -- had problems with communication. There was a need for generators to milk their cows. There was a conflict between generators for cows and generators for human use. On the Monday they started to take generators around from farm to farm -- but some cows went for four days. Harold Nuttle stressed to the township that they need to know who to get in touch with. Should be in the plan. When resources are tied up over the whole area ... Harold Nuttle's township was two days behind everyone else. A lot of generators came from western Ontario. One of the big problems once the generators arrived was finding an electrician to wire the generator into the system -- cause not everyone has the plug on their pole. Then the other problem was in the differences between generators themselves so that brand A wouldn't work on brand B. If things were standardized there would be no problem, but electricians are working 24 hours a day. Finding stuff and people was the biggest problem. The army had electricians, but it would take you a day to get hold of them and people needed it quicker than that.

Harold Nuttle felt sorry for the farmers who were not equipped for the emergency.

Harold Nuttle would know who to contact if there was another ice storm, and how to go about doing it. His eyes are open to things he previously took for granted.

They weren't getting communication, even from the deputy chief. Harold Nuttle feels that the men were frustrated but that no one would either tell them what to do or let them do anything. They wanted to help but they needed direction and leadership. Eventually the captains had to lay out a shift schedule and they did some pumping of basements. But that was controversial because the chief wanted them held back for other emergencies. Harold Nuttle is surprised there weren't more fires and emergencies given that people were using fireplaces and chimneys that had not been used in years. People were trying to improvise stuff -- like living a hundred years ago -- Harold Nuttle thinks that the really big disaster was losing the power for that length of time.

If everybody had had the hydro, it would not have been the disaster it was. A lot of things are going to take years to ... it's going to depend on the weather or whether disease sets in.

The problem this summer is that people are going to burn brush and the fires are going to get away from them. Harold Nuttle has a lot of tree damage on his property, the extent of damage makes him cry.

Harold Nuttle does not know how many more days he could have managed under the conditions of the ice storm. There was always someone wanting things or trying to get hold of generators. Harold Nuttle went from 5:00am to 12:00 for about 10 days straight and he got to the point that he could hardly keep his eyes open, eating on the run and so forth. Townships need the proper emergency plans to deal with such things.

A lot of people were after Harold Nuttle to hold a public briefing after the ice storm, but council rejected the idea (one other person supported it). Many people were unhappy with the way "things were done" -- Harold Nuttle thinks it would have been a good idea.

Harold Nuttle says that communication is vital -- that even the cell phones were acting up because one would get the American operator rather than someone in Leeds & Lansdowne. The American cell network must be stronger than the Canadian. Without cell phones the whole thing would have been worse.