IceStorm 98 Study

Chief Donovan is responsible for a large area which encompasses 88,000 hectares. There are two stations, one at New Dublin and the other at Lyn, under his command. There are 33 members, most of whom are voluntary fire fighters.

At 8:00 in the evening on January 5th, JD received his first call that informed him that tree limbs had fallen on some power lines. The following morning he got 3 calls concerning ice buildup on the power lines. He could see that something was building and at 5:30 Wednesday he answered a call at home from one of his captains “and I went down and checked and that’s when the storm really started to look serious”.

On Thursday morning the area felt the full brunt of the storm. Roads were becoming impassable, phone and power lines were snapping off of poles and homes and the calls that the station could receive increased in intensity.

From the midnight of the 7th of January on for the next 13 days both stations were manned 24 hours a day.

Although the station is quite new, only half of the building was provided with emergency back up power. The well was operational as was one of the furnaces. As for communications, the station radio never went down “which was quite amazing”. There are two frequencies available to 17 departments and 23 stations and an unknown number of vehicles with a range that extends from Westport to Kemptville. The congestion on these frequencies was overwhelming and JD could tell from the chatter that the storm was not localized but spread over a broad area.

Luckily the station had power to the well which was used to provide potable water to local residents. Some water was provided to farmers for their livestock. The station at Lyn had no power to any of its facilities since it was a much older station. Until a generator could be found, it could not provide any support to the local community.

The station at New Dublin became the local command centre since there was no power to the municipal offices. JD had his own duties and responsibilities to take care of as Fire Chief and additional staff from the municipality working out of the fire hall made things a bit tight. The fire hall was not set up as a command centre, “it was busy enough as a fire station”.

As days wore on, the men began to feel the stress building up “everybody was getting really tired”. JD did send a couple of men home to get some rest and see to their families. The station was involved in non-traditional activities. In addition to delivering water, the station became a distribution centre for generators which began to arrive. As the only facility in the northern part of the township with showers and water, various crews would drop in from time to time to refresh themselves. These included Bell, Hydro, some O.P.P. and roads crews. Periodically, local residents would drop in for a shower as well as wives and children of the volunteers.

The staff at the station tried to get to bed by midnight, but crews would wander through all night long thus depriving the staff of much needed sleep. The army cots provided to the station were “less than desirable” which compounded the problem of lack of sleep.

The door to door checks were originally organized by the O.P.P. and subsequently manned by the army who utilized the municipal offices as a command centre once power had been restored. Some duplication of organization occurred but once the routines were established, the checks were more productive.

There were some close calls that occurred in the early days of the storm. A staff member received a call from a farmer who requested some help in his basement. Numerous calls came in requesting assistance in pumping out basements and the chief informed the caller that he had neither the manpower nor the equipment available to do the job. A short while later a woman called to report that her husband had suddenly become ill. Aware that this was the same call that had come in earlier, a truck was dispatched to the address. The husband had fallen ill from CO2 poisoning and the wife was beginning to experience the same effects. They were taken to the local hospital for treatment. Several calls such as this came into the station during the storm and thanks to the vigilance of the station staff, fatalities from CO2 poisoning were prevented.

In the attempt to provide alternative sources of heat, several individuals became quite inventive and put themselves and their families at grave risk. Lack of experience and know-how did not prevent them, “you should have seen the application, it was something else”. It was quite amazing that there was no loss of life.

In times of emergency they can draw on the skills of their volunteers who are not only skilled in emergency response but also bring their professional skills to bear. His staff includes electricians and mechanics “the members come from pretty diversified backgrounds... so there isn’t too much that they can’t do”.

Fuel for the station vehicles was provided by the city of Brockville on the first day of the storm and once a generator had been installed at the local Petro-Canada fuel became available.

Power was down in this area for up to a week, although in certain areas power did not come back on for a period of 20 plus days. For the first couple of days “it was a novelty, but after that it (took on a more serious nature)”.

The local council informed the chief that funding was available for overtime costs if there was a request made and JD reported that no such request was submitted from his members. Monies were available “how the members wanted to handle it - to keep it themselves or turn it back into their own associations to buy new equipment - the thing is that there was funding there and they didn’t act on it”.

Once power was back on in Brockville, the station began to encounter staffing problems. Since most of his people were volunteers, “employers were starting to look for employees which began to thin our ranks.. we had 33 and 2 worked for hydro and we lost them”. As time passed, more returned to work and reported to the station for duty after putting in a full day’s work. Both stations continued to operate 24 hours per day with a staff of 4 at each station.

The fire stations were” the focal point of the community” during the storm. They received and processed up to date information as it became available. The chief attended a couple of fire meetings in Brockville which were organized by Harold Tulk who checked in with the stations on a daily basis. HT made a tour of all the stations in the county on the second Sunday of the storm to assess their needs and current status.

From time to time the fire fighters would find themselves in potentially dangerous situations. On one occasion, they had to hack their way into a property to check on the occupants only to be faced with falling limbs and live wires on the way out. Compounding the problem was the ice buildup on the roadway as it continued to rain down on them. Trucks would have to be towed out of ditches and driveways .At one property it took an hour for the crew to get back onto the main highway.

Telephone service was intermittent for reasons other than fallen lines. Generators which were being used to power bell lines were being stolen. JD met with two individuals who had stopped by the station for a cup of coffee who were from Correctional Services in Belleville. They had been assigned to guard the generators 24 hours a day.

The main problem as JD saw it was in the “flow of information”. Information “doesn’t flow very well... it’s well delayed” by the time he received it.

The staff at the fire station were equally affected by the storm as the community. The wives and children of the volunteers were stuck in homes without heat and light and this certainly affected everybody. Without the volunteers, things would have been a lot worse. “They’d bring their kids in for a shower and a meal once a day... it was certainly great for their support and things wouldn’t have worked as well as they did..”.

In answer to the question as to what he would do differently in the future, JD was satisfied that he had done the best job that he was capable of doing under the circumstances. Of course extra generators would have come in handy, but this was unforseen before the storm.