IceStorm 98 Study

Joe Farish teaches Search and Rescue as well as Management and Search Function for the Ontario Provincial Police.

Comments from Joe Farish's Power Point Presentation:

Joe Farish opened with a power point presentation off his laptop computer, consisting of pictures of the operations centre, some of the people involved as well as photographs of the maps as the recovery effort proceeded. The operations centre on Wolfe Island was set up in the fire hall: the trucks were moved out to make room for people, desks and maps. Joe Farish stressed the need to all actors to be "absolutely straight up" as regards information sharing and decision-making, that it had been an incredible learning experience for everyone concerned. Joe Farish puts emphasis on having a lot of visual information available in the command centre so that people can know as much as they can get from the maps on the wall before approaching anyone for detailed information.

Joe Farish was initially sent to Howe Island on Saturday by the OPP to cut their way into a remote area of the island that was cut off. Mike Quinn was the fire chief on Howe Island. Initially the islanders were trying to depend only on each other, Joe Farish says, but when Joe Farish returned on Sunday the situation had worsened. Joe Farish urged the establishment of a dedicated command post (on Wolfe Island) to be staffed 24 hours per day and with someone able to make decisions. Joe Farish stresses that the most effective communication in this situation was face-to-face, that telephones were not "cutting it." Within a short time the Wolfe Island command post was working so well that by the time the MNR arrived they were able to slip right in to the existing organization.

Bottled water arrived on Sunday or Monday, the first water to arrive on the island since the power went out. Tuesday morning, Joe Farish 'touched base' on Howe Island and returned to Wolfe Island in preparation for the Prime Minister's arrival. By day 4 or 5 stress and anxiety levels were getting up.

Joe Farish used 911 maps to monitor the progress of recovery in the command post, using colors and labels to indicate what progress was happening where. Joe Farish notes that there was confusion generated by mixed messages from the media -- the Kingston and Toronto media telling the world that Wolfe Island was in a state of total breakdown -- and the people on Wolfe Island reacting to the media reports rather than the situation in front of them.

Joe Farish used little graphic updates on his progress maps to lessen the level of stress among people in the command post. He had to threaten arrest on a couple of people -- but never actually used it -- for causing disturbance on the island, most stressed out citizens and farmers who were under stress for themselves or their cattle. Joe Farish managed to get the mobile kitchen brought down from Sault St. Marie on the premise that a mobile kitchen under his control would keep the hydro workers on the poles and happy and well fed. The military kitchens were coming and going, and would not be under Joe Farish's direct control. So Joe Farish took a chance and made the call and the kitchen arrived a day later. Joe Farish says that food resources were flowing into the operations centre from all over the island, and that the kitchen travels with a certain stock of resources. Once the kitchen arrived Joe Farish had resources to feed all the workers on a specific site -- taking the kitchen to them and now Joe Farish is working to get one for Kingston.

Joe Farish has praise for Matt Meyers (MNR, Forest Fire Suppression from Fort Francis) "really good to work with." Meetings were held twice per day, at 9:00am and 5:00pm. Joe Farish says that Hydro (Ken McTeer) was initially reluctant to "come on-side" because he did not want to be blamed for anything. Joe Farish had to cajole them into playing ball, so that all were able to focus the recovery plan around Hydro's efforts. Joe Farish says that Wolfe Island got their power up a week before they should have because the volunteer firefighters were willing to get into the dirty work and actually pull the lines out of the ice and snow and pick them up off the ground.

Joe Farish kept the mayor in on every decision, agreeing to run the command centre on Jan's authority -- and with the understanding that Jan could dismiss them any time. Joe Farish stresses the tight-knit quality of island residents. Joe Farish also stresses the necessity of planning hours and even days in advance.

Joe Farish stresses the necessity that someone in the organization has to be prepared to play the bad guy when decisions have to be made that may alienate or insult someone. Particularly in a setting where Joe Farish, for example, could leave at the end of the day and go home -- but island residents had to stay where they were -- there is a need for someone to be willing to bear the burden of other people's stress and anxiety.

Julie VandenAkker (an island resident) provided some materials on the issue of stress management via some publications she delivered to the command post. Joe Farish observes that the ice storm was an 'enriching experience' -- everyone knew the right thing to do, all they needed was someone to be the bad guy or someone to reinforce that people were doing the right thing.

End of Power Point Presentation, beginning of Ice Storm Questions

Timeline: Joe Farish worked both Wednesday and Thursday night, and Joe Farish saw the electrical arcing across town. He talked to his mother in Montreal and they said they were "not bad" -- so Friday he called the office and everything seemed to be all right. Joe Farish phoned Saturday morning and was told around noon to go to Howe Island. He took some tools and picked up Tom Watson and drove to Howe Island. Their first task was to make contact with some people they had not seen for a couple of days. Joe Farish finds that this small group has been using one generator between five houses and coping but not realizing the extent of the event, having had no contact with the outside since the power and phones went out.

He got home about midnight after doing house to house checks of people with health concerns. Joe Farish says that it was important to make them understand that if they needed emergency help they were not going to get it because they were too cut off. Sunday Joe Farish went back and began to urge the creation of a command post structure -- to develop a mission and a communications package, to relieve the fire-fighters and so forth. On Sunday Joe Farish began advising that the residents had better prepare for a long-haul recovery effort. He stressed that it was important that residents know that they were, for example, being given water so that they would not feel like they were 'in need' and taking water.

Joe Farish notes that someone showed up from Mississauga and advised that they had two generators. Joe Farish ordered them held, not to be given back, and transported under police escort to the Howe Island Ferry Dock. That person became the Howe Island generator repair person for the next two weeks. He lived on a cot in the fire hall in Howe Island.

Joe Farish says he had to think about his authority while the OPP were sending them over to Wolfe Island -- given that WI is a very tight-knit community that is not entirely welcoming to outsiders. Joe Farish made it known to the mayor that he could he dismissed anytime, at the mayor's discretion, so he made his concerns known to the mayor and within minutes had cleared the cars from the front of the fire hall. Joe Farish is unable to determine whether anyone had really taken charge upon his arrival. Joe Farish says that one command post is like another so there was a logical coming together of Matt Meyers and himself. Both cultures know from practice who is in charge, both have established hierarchies and that the authority structure was established soon thereafter.

Still there were times when Joe Farish had to think about his ability to restrain or arrest people for disruption of the command post. Joe Farish was challenged by Ministry of Transport Ontario (MTO) ... tape incomplete.

MTO wanted to be in on the network, but Joe Farish thinks it might have been an idiosyncratic personality -- once MTO understood the design of Joe Farish's plan they jumped onside, because there was no authority to say "you play along."

Joe Farish did think constantly about who was going to pay for the costs of the decisions he was making. Joe Farish had to substantiate every decision to order equipment.

Joe Farish says that training and experience ordered his priorities -- a lot of people on the island knew the right things to do but lacked the experience to do it. People needed someone to nudge them into doing what they already knew was the right thing to do, but lack confidence to do it. Joe Farish says that after years of training he has learned to prioritize in the following manner:

1. preservation of Joe's life.
2. preservation of all of Joe's network's lives.
3. deal with crises as they go and prioritize -- be ready for the worst case.

Joe Farish says that when he got to Wolfe Island he realized that he had to get some power and communications -- and that the latter was paramount because there were all kinds of people running around with chainsaws and if one of them got hurt there would be no way to get an ambulance to them. Joe Farish says that in terms of planning he thought in terms of "today's a write off" because it was the 6 hour supply line that was killing them. They would get generators but no cables to use them and it would take six hours to send someone to Kingston to get cables -- so it was necessary to plan for the next day so that all the volunteer resources that came online would not be wasted.

Joe Farish got someone to make a list of every task that came up so that it could be delegated to a volunteer as they came through the door the next day.

The back door, knowledge of your supplier, or the willingness to go to someone's face and express yourself -- this system worked well. The volunteer network needed only a little bit of guidance, and cooperation worked really well. Many of them knew the right thing to do, but lacked the resolve to do it themselves. Joe Farish says that where people were afraid they were going to hurt someone's feelings they were reluctant to act. Joe Farish says that where people were afraid of spending money they were reluctant to do so, even if they knew it was the right thing to do. Joe Farish spent a lot of money getting a satellite communication system from Bell Canada.

The real emergency measures supply chain. Joe Farish says that stuff would go into a stockpile in Kingston somewhere with the intention that it was for Kingston and region but when it got to Kingston the people there thought that it was only for Kingston proper. So Joe Farish ran parallel requests -- front channel and back channel -- and see which channel delivered first. People were hoarding equipment and things were needed.

Joe Farish did not have a 'biggest problem' -- he was able to deal with everything that came up, even though supplies were problematic, he was able to maintain the appearance of continuity at least. Joe Farish's own communication system stayed working most of the time, though some parts of it were marginal -- mostly Joe Farish depended on the MNR communication resources. A lot of communication was face to face. Joe Farish says that from the outset they should have requested the military to come with their communications system, set it up and stay there to run all the communications.

Next time Joe Farish would deploy the OPP's 100-foot communications tower to the emergency area.

Joe Farish's training includes forest fire fighting in Northern Canada; he was head of security for a CN hotel in Edmonton. He started the Search and Rescue Unit for the OPP in Pickle Lake. He has seven years of SWAT training. He has been a member of the emergency response team for the last three years -- and teaching search and rescue for 4 years, and search management for three years, and a search manager for four very large-scale searches, including attendance at conferences. Joe Farish has a lot of experience working with volunteers.

Joe Farish had no direct contact with the media. All press releases went through the mayor. Joe Farish would talk extensively with Matt Meyers and Joe Farish would vent to his wife (at home) and otherwise he would contact Julie (see above) to assess their status and the status of the network around the command post. Joe Farish registered some effects of stress on his wife, who was taking care of some neighbors. She got tired of hauling wood and taking care of other people in addition to their own four kids. They loaned out all their camping equipment, and all their backup systems too. The major source of stress was fatigue from meeting the needs of others.

Joe Farish's power-point presentation is 26 megs of data which might be available from Bob Johnson at the MNR.

Joe Farish has no information on costs. We are directed to contact Tim Charlebois.