IceStorm 98 Study

Utilities Kingston is one of the departments of the new City of Kingston which is responsible for the delivery of electric and gas services.

What are your recollections of the night before the storm?

We knew the storm had hit the Cornwall area and that Cornwall had requested us to send Hydro crews down there. We debated and finally decided that we would. When I went home from work on the Wednesday evening the freezing rain had started. I called in about 9 o’clock that night and was told that there were some problems but nothing that couldn’t be handled. Then my phone rang about 2 in the morning and it was the Mayor. Before the meeting on Thursday morning, we realized that this was something bigger than what we had ever had in Kingston. We got the line crew together and we decided to call in outside help. At that point people seemed quite relaxed. I don’t think people knew what we were getting into. We had no feel for the actual magnitude of the damage. It was Friday night before we realized the full extent of the disaster because the ice didn’t stop coming down until then. I spent most of the day on Thursday trying to get outside crews to come in from other utilities. I went home on Thursday night and came back in about 4 on Friday morning. Friday seemed to be quite uneventful other than lots of people coming in. We had some logistic problems with handling the large number of people. I was actually making progress until late afternoon or early evening and then it just seemed like everything seemed to start to fall apart. The weight of the ice brought down more trees and poles were actually snapping off. We shut things down somewhere between 6 and 8 on Friday night because we didn’t feel we had a handle on things. We then realized that it was going to take more than a couple of days to restore the power -- probably about a week. It was actually a week and one day before we got power restored.

Did you sleep any that night?

I went to a meeting at City Hall after we shut things down and that’s when I felt we really knew what was going on. We were not talking a day or two. We had to do things completely different. I talked to one of the operators and a lineman and got across the point that we were going to take a different approach. We wanted to make sure that the power was de-energized so that there was no danger for the tree crews to go in and prepare for the linesmen. I left it to a couple of workers who put together an incredible plan. I came back and slept for 2 or 3 hours and then went back and went over the plan. By de-energizing whole areas the crews were able to work very quickly. In Kingston, the whole city never lost power completely, whereas in Brockville the whole city went down. Were standard operating procedures and authority still very much in place?

We probably didn’t have the checks and balances that you would normally have. We had meetings in the lunch room with everybody involved every morning and we went over what we were trying to do and stressed some of the safety aspects.

What about money? Was it something that was always on everyone’s mind?

It was on people’s minds. From the electrical restoration point of view and the utility point of view, one of the things that made it a success was right at the start it was established that basically it was our show. We didn’t have to ask Gardner Church or the Mayor every time we wanted to do something. However, we were cognizant of money. One of the decisions we made was that with the exception of two private contracting crews that we had used previously, we stuck totally with utility crews. We didn’t go to the private sector.

Were decisions and communications relatively formal or structured?

I think we established at the beginning that we didn’t have the management staff here to carry things through. The management-union thing disappeared very quickly. I think there was real empowerment. There were some formal aspects that were very important to follow through. I insisted that we didn’t release an area to be re-energized until my say was given. I made sure all the normal steps were followed before my approval was given.

Was there any tension between the Mayor and his office proper? Between the political staff and the technical staff such as yourself?

No. I have done a number of presentations on this to the public since the storm and I think you have to give the Mayor a lot of credit because we had no political influence at all. Basically, it was ours to do and I was really surprised at that.

What worked well and what didn’t?

The team work aspect and trying to get a lot of people involved in how we were going to go about doing things and making decisions worked well. Using the cafeteria at the utilities building helped because you had contact with the workers. The general community support was a great help and getting rid of the management-union idea right at the start was important. We didn’t do enough analysis of the situation at the beginning. It took us a while to realize the extent of the damage. At the start, we didn’t have a way of registering people and finding out who they were and what they could do. It was a day or so before we got that system set up. Although I think we did very well with communications and getting the word out to the public, especially with the media, we could have done that better. We should have spent more time with the people who were answering the phones, educating them on exactly where we were and what we hoped to accomplish that day.

Do you think the City and your department would know more or less what to do more confidently next time?

Yes. In a few areas — how you call in people, how you track people. Also, going out and doing a much more in-depth analysis.

What are the possibilities of putting together a good emergency plan for the City and is the City going through with that?

I know there is a plan in the works and I have had some input into it. I think the problem with the emergency plan we had was it was more localized.

Did you or your department have contact with provincial and federal government or services?

No. We didn’t.

How about the media?

We did a lot of work with the media and that worked quite well. We tried to get the message out as to where the problem areas were, where we were working, and what areas were going to be out the longest. We had photographers in the control room and we also had them up in the buckets so they could get a feel for what we were doing. I spent quite a bit of time working with the radio stations and we received a lot of very positive feedback on this.

Did you feel that communications was just as important as hard services as time went on?

I had some involvement in the initial set up of the plan. Communications is viewed as one of the most important things. We put a new radio system in here a couple of years ago and if we would not have had that system in place, we would not have been able to respond like we did. We had meetings twice a day with the whole control group. I feel it went quite well.

Was stress a factor for you?

Yes it was in different ways at different times. I think on the first Friday night when things sort of fell apart that it was probably the lowest point. I had only been in this job officially for a week. I went from being kind of low and questioning my abilities to we can do this and we have got to go on for quite a number of days. It was almost fun, it was like a high, the adrenaline just pumped in and you kind of flew through it. The lack of sleep became a factor around Wednesday of the second week. I was doing a presentation on Wednesday and I was thinking it was Tuesday. I realized it was time to take a break.

Any amusing anecdotes or things that stand out?

I remember on the first Friday night when I was feeling down, driving down to City Hall with Nancy Taylor and looking at the infrastructure, the lines, the poles and the tension on them and I felt scared. It is amazing with the number of lines that were down, that nobody got hurt. Also the parade on Saturday night stands out in my mind.

Is there anything else that I didn’t ask that you think is noteworthy?

One of the things that we were successful with was how we treated the people — the people from out of town, the people who were here. Having the cafeteria here, feeding people well, and putting them in a decent hotel was important.