IceStorm 98 Study

Lt. Col. Thornton was the acting Base Commander during Operation Recuperation.

Lt. Col. Kirk Thornton (KT) said that on January 8th, he received a call from the Duty Officer on Base and was told that there was no electricity on the Base. The Duty Officer told him that the conditions appeared to be worsening as well as dangerous and as a result of that reporting, KT called the G3 Ops, to confirm the situation. It was decided to have the Base stand down. KT and the Duty Officer called the Base Commander (Col. Ronald Aitken) to have the stand down approved. KT said it wasn’t until he got to the base that the full extent of the storm’s damage was apparent.

The damage was primarily the ice forming on the trees and buildings and pulling the wires down. It was apparent that the scope of the storm was not confined to the Kingston area but widespread across the eastern province. As the day progressed, more reports were received to the effect of the storm across the province. KT said that he recognised the extent of the damage from early morning from the drive in to the Base. Evidence of downed power lines and trees were enough to have him believe that, “ … this was not going to be a one day event”. KT said, “As more reports came in we recognised at the Base that the storm’s aftermath was going to take us longer than a couple of days to get going again.”

Col. Aitken was still the Base Commander and stayed the Base Commander until the 14th of January, KT took over as Base Commander at that point. Col Aitken was the Commander for Task Force South. The first thing that they did was hold an O Group meeting to establish a list of priorities. Among these priorities were, power restoration to the base and PMQs, generator power to the kitchens, a temporary shelter and the movement of the Base HQ to a building that had auxiliary power. The temporary shelter was not used as the personnel found other places to “camp out”. The Base also provided shelter and accommodations for the Hydro line crews that were from out-of-town.

KT said that the authority to act comes from the responsibility of the military to respond to a state of an emergency that is declared and the request of the Provincial and Federal Governments has been made. KT said, “We respond to that request and our support is in response to the requests coming from the emergency measures organisations. There are certain responsibilities that are important to provide in a state of emergency where there are some areas that we cannot assist in. These requests are reviewed by our Head Quarters in Toronto who would approve these requests and then begin working with the EM organisations.” In the case of the Kingston area making direct request to the base for assistance, KT said, “ I’m not sure exactly when the request was made by the City to our HQ but I’m aware that such requests did in fact occur. From a Base point of view, pending authorisation from HQ, we started to initiate what ever assistance we could provide to the Kingston area.” KT said that the Base was in a crisis which had to be dealt with first but as resources became freed up, they started to offer help first within the immediate area of Kingston and then to the wider area of Sector South. KT recalls that one of the first tasks the Base personnel did was going door-to-door checking on Kingston residents.

KT said that the Base consists of 264 military personnel and 495 civilians and the Base supports 22 units that are not under the Base Commander’s command. The primary units that were involved in this operation were the cadets at RMC, the Electronic School, Division HQ, and Division Signals who were deployed to Montreal, and 79th Communications Regiment. The 79th Command Regiment was assisting restoring hydro lines from Gananoque to Montreal. The interface with Brockville and Cornwall units was providing support from the Base. The problem was not with the Base having an ability to support itself, it was being able to support these units that had been put under command of the Base. The militia units are very limited in what they can do and with the Base being hit hard by the storm, it was difficult to support these units.

The transportation of the troops was met by the City of Kingston providing buses to move the troops into the local areas. KT said that without this transportation, it would have made it difficult to keep moving the troops.

KT said that there are 800 PMQs on the Base and the families were without electricity for four days. For the most part, the Base was able to accommodate the families by feeding them and providing shelters. He said that some families found accommodations in town with friends.

As far as money was concerned, the Base focused primarily on the safety and restoration of the Base’s function over what it was going to cost.

KT said that in comparison with the restrictions placed on the RMC cadets, the Base personnel had no restrictions placed on them as to what task they could do. The personnel were all trained in their job to carry out their duties and were properly “kitted out” to perform their tasks unlike the cadets who were limited by their lack of a winter kit. Many of the Base personnel were assisting line crews and clearing downed trees and as KT said, “This was part of what these people do everyday so there was no need to concern ourselves with restrictions.”

KT said that the only agency that they worked with was the EMO and they focused primarily on supporting the Base and those units who were under command. KT represented the Base at the City’s meetings. His task was to liaise with the City, the PUC and the Police. KT speaks about the meetings he participated in with the heads of the various agencies chaired by the Mayor. He said that “passage of information was key to the meetings.” KT said,

“…that there was a certain amount of learning about the function of agencies during an emergency. Whether it be how to organise a door-to-door or getting information on how long it could be before power was restored to sectors of the City or the potential evacuation of residents.”

KT attended the 2 o’clock meetings and then reported back to the Task Force Commander, Col. Aitken.

The military was often asked to perform duties outside the realm of their mandate. KT said that, “There were some things that we did that were clearly outside of our area of responsibilities. If we had the capabilities to do such a task then we tried.” Some of these tasks included clearing brush from the roads. “From a military point of view, that would have been a task that anyone could have done. Our first concern was being supportive to the Hydro crews and by clearing the roads it assisted them.” Some requests were being made to provide generators and the Base had to ask that the City make a priority of where these generators were to be supplied. The Base had a limited supply of generators. KT said that in the beginning, there was no co-ordination of where these generators were supposed to be used and eventually the City assigned one person to deal with the placement of generators. The Base had 5 of its generators on loan to the City.

KT said that if they made a mistake during the entire operation that was using the Armoury as a supply depot. KT said that if the emergency had been a much bigger situation then they would have had to use the Armoury to house the additional troops. KT said that the Base resources were already being used to shelter families and therefore limited with how many more personnel they could house. With the Armoury being used in the way it was, the military would have had to find another place to house troops if they were called in.

In this case, the troops that were brought in were deployed to the Brockville area so the situation worked out well.

In Brockville the militia was augmented by troops and the structure was for them to become part of the command of the CO in Brockville. With the PWOR, if there had been a need to augment them, then by not having them housed in the Armoury would have made it difficult to keep them under command.

Communications with the personnel was “on a need to be there basis”. Radio announcements were made as well as a telephone tree calling to inform non-essential personnel to stay home. The Base remained stood down until the following Thursday. KT said that there was some element of confusion with the announcements from Fort Drum. However, he said that the individual units handled their communications with their personnel as to what were the standing orders of the day. The main switchboard at the Base did not provide any central statement as to the status of the Base.

The Base had a command post set up in City Hall along with the Police and PUC. When a request for military assistance came in, the request went through the command post to the Base to the unit. The Base didn’t have much to do with Ontario Hydro except for providing them air transport to get to certain areas.

KT said that he didn’t think that they would have done anything differently than what they did.

“In a situation such as this, you react when you need to and we are all trained for that. Once the scope and magnitude has been identified then you just start looking at how you are going to deal with and provide solutions. We found in situations like this, everyone works together and everyone understands the situation and gets the job done.”

One of the intriguing incidents KT recalls was that the base HQ does not have auxiliary power. The other was being asked to set up a command HQ that was totally beyond their capabilities. “We were sitting here trying to command an operation with just candles and lanterns. We eventually moved over to the base hospital until we could get a generator running at this building.” KT assures the writer that the lack of auxiliary power in the Base HQ has been remedied.

When asked if he could recall any funny incidents, KT said that he could not because “this was a serious situation where there were life and limb on the line. The degree of co-operation was amazing and everyone worked very well together. I guess the only funny thing that I recall is the eight skids of diapers sitting in the Armoury.”

KT’s home environment was not affected by the storm and he was glad that he didn’t have the stress that other families had. His family coped quite well because they had capabilities. KT has a daughter in Montreal and was worried about her but she went and stayed with a friend who had power. His aunt and uncle also live in Montreal but they had a fireplace and coped for the duration. KT said, “We really didn’t have it so bad here in Kingston compared to those folks on the South Shore of Montreal”.

This was the message that was given out to the families in Kingston whose partners were being deployed to Montreal. KT said of that, “Yes, we told them, it’s bad here and you don’t have power but the folks in Montreal are in really bad shape and they need our help.” During the emergency there was a controversy regarding the deployment of Kingston personnel to Montreal. What they had to focus on was the need was greater elsewhere. The Base did focus on supporting the families by providing shelter and food and handled it the best they could.

KT said, “There is no question that congratulations are due to the personnel both military and civilians and families who provided support during the emergency. It was sad that there was some deaths but it could have been worse.” KT said that the support was clearly sufficient otherwise it would have been worse and there would have been many more people who suffered extensively.

He said in closing, “I think it’s important to recognise that the military has gained relatives, we are there, we are called out to support the Ice Storm. We have the training, the equipment and the ability to react and adapt to a situation. Whether we are the right organisation to deal with these situations is a matter of political decision that has to be made. We march to a tune that has been set to us. We have a responsibility to support the community.”