IceStorm 98 Study

As a member of senior management, I felt it was my responsibility to come in and do whatever was needed to be done. From the IT perspective, most of the operational side of IT was well in hand and was functioning, so although there were some things to do in terms of setting up printers and passwords, most of the infrastructure was workable.

What are your recollections of Wednesday night prior to the storm?
I went to bed early on Wednesday night before anything really started to happen. I woke up about 4 o’clock. My wife told me that about midnight our street was closed. We had no power and heat. We have two small children, so we booked a room at a hotel downtown. The 10-block drive to the Holiday Inn was very frightening. We realized what was happening was extraordinary. By the end of the day on Thursday, I started thinking more seriously about my role in City Hall. I walked from the Holiday Inn to City Hall and left a message for Jim Keech to say where I was and that he could reach me there. It was probably late on Friday or early Saturday morning that I got involved.

What was the atmosphere like when you did get here that day?
There was a lot going on. I got here about 8 o’clock Saturday morning so things were relatively calm. It was difficult to find people and make connections. After about an hour, I felt fairly integrated into the activity. It was clear that the people who had put in the first 48 hours needed to get rest. I was an IT resource. I had never worked at City Hall until that day. The ice storm gave me the opportunity to meet a lot of people very quickly which is helping me now in my day-to-day job. Basically, what I did was make myself available to the person in charge each day. It became obvious that generators were necessary. Lindsay Reaich and myself came in about the same time and Lindsay took the generator position because he felt comfortable with it. It seemed that Jim’s role was record keeping.
So I started following that kind of position and attending some of the senior management team meetings from that perspective. Then it became clear that there were operational needs that needed to happen as well. I was answering the phone and trying to answer people’s questions, which later translated into a group of people working almost exclusively to try and meet the needs of the shelters. The city shelters were set up and running quite well. There seemed to be a need for resources on Wolfe Island and Howe Island. So we coordinated water and food needs which we took to the ferry for distribution. We also set up a list of contacts in outside areas such as Brockville and Smiths Falls and we would check with them 2 or 3 times during the day. By the beginning of the second week, the city itself was in pretty good shape in terms of needing blankets, etc. Power was beginning to be restored and the shelters were in good shape, so we were focusing on the outlying areas, especially Wolfe and Howe Islands. I moved over to Pittsburgh Township for a couple of days and continued this role.

Was the intensity and the anxiety worse in the outlying areas?
We got a sense that the cooperation was there from the very beginning. The community bonded very quickly. There certainly was some concern and anxiety but the impression we were getting was that people had risen to the occasion and that they were going out of their way to make sure that people in need were being taken care of.

What about the chain of authority? Was it looser? Was there more room for input? Or was it still pretty much hierarchical?
There were many things to be done. There was lots of room for input and suggestions. We were finding creative solutions to problems.
Although I don’t think there was ever a situation where there wasn’t a fairly clear chain of command if necessary and an authority was not in place, there was certainly many opportunities for input. The senior people recognized that that was the environment they had to function in. It was a very creative time for decision making.

How about money? Was it constrained?
I think it was in the sense that no one knew where the money was coming from. But if something was needed in cost you dealt with it.
We worked very hard in our group to try to get businesses to donate and they were very willing. The generosity of Kingston businesses was incredible. I never felt that we didn’t make a decision because we didn’t have the money.

What worked and what didn’t work?
The technology worked fairly well. I think that a lot more technology could have been utilized in a much more effective way in the ice storm if the infrastructure had been in place. From a personal point of view, not knowing the city very well had its pluses and minuses. I think we did spend some time duplicating efforts, e.g. preparing lists. An effective Email system would have been a help.

What about the stress factor?
Overall, it was handled very well. We worked harder than we probably should have under the circumstances. In the beginning I was working 12-hour shifts, but towards the end of the week I actually had a day off before I had to come back in. There was a strong sense of camaraderie and fairly relaxed interpersonal dealings. Some people wouldn’t go home even though they were told to. Exhaustion was more of a factor than stress.

Did you have contact with the media?
Very little. Because I got into a fairly specialized area early on, I didn’t think I was the right person to comment generally on such matters.

Did you have contact with other levels of government?
Yes. To a certain extent. As part of the team that moved to Pittsburgh Township, there was a lot more contact with the police and fire departments. We often dealt with the Red Cross and the military. Also when we moved to Gore Road a provincial organization was using us as their emergency distribution contact point.

Do you recall any anecdotal or lighter moments during all this?
The Kingston business community was very generous and it seemed there was a steady stream of coffee and donuts. There were some unusual requests; e.g. the Ministry of Health says, “you have to get some showers here.” Or “send no more cheerios” or “we don’t like diet Pepsi on Wolfe Island,” etc.