IceStorm 98 Study

Ms. Bernier is responsible for the operations of the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) in the Ministry's Kemptville District. The district includes the counties of Leeds & Grenville, Lanark, Stormont, Dundas & Glengarry and Prescott & Russell and the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton. Except for Frontenac County and the southern part of Renfrew County all of Ontario affected by the Ice Storm of January 1998 occurred in the MNR's Kemptville District.

(Interviewer's note: I contacted Ms. Bernier to obtain information about who I should contact regarding the MNR's response in Leeds & Grenville and Frontenac Counties. Once in conversation, I realized that her information was relevant to the project. So it was at that point that I decided to use this interview for the Ice Storm '98 Study.)

MNR's procedure is to coordinate its activities at their head office in Sault Ste. Marie. During a major occurrence such as a "project fire", flood or ice storm, Sault Ste. Marie (SSM) activates its emergency response centre and conducts daily briefings which inform participants about what is happening, who is coming in to what areas and who is doing what across the Province. Depending on the event, the briefings will include the deputy minister, the regional directors and usually the district managers.

During the ice storm, there were one or two briefings each day. They kept Ms. Bernier informed about conditions in the affected area. This was particularly useful in that she had no other means of communication and there were SSM coordinated activities in her district. For example it was from the briefings that she learned that there were three MNR helicopters in the district and she learned the number of MNR staff who had come in to help from other parts of the province.

The Kemptville office was closed on Thursday January 8th as electrical power was lost the previous night. It reopened on Thursday January 15th when the power was restored.

During this period, Ms. Bernier worked from her home where telephone communication was maintained and heat was available from a fireplace. She was without electricity at home from Tuesday January 6th through Monday January 12th.

Her immediate concern was for her staff. Through her managers, she endeavored to track down her 75 staff to see if they were safe, who had not lost power and who could help locally or on a provincially coordinated basis. Usually, the local or district office seconds the lead role of SSM. But in this case, the district was unable to be the back-up because it was in the middle of the emergency.

Ms. Bernier recommended contacting the following:

Trevor Woods: 705-945-5790 Emergency Coordinator in Sault Ste. Marie
(Frontenac County is in the MNR's Peterborough District)

Doug Howell: 705-755-1925 District Manager, Peterborough (about to retire)
Gerry Mulder: 613-531-5720 Area Supervisor, Kingston

Ms. Bernier recalled that her first involvement with the ice storm was a conference call on the afternoon of Tuesday January 6th 1998 with staff from SSM and Emergency Measures Ontario. The news was that Akwasasne was declaring an emergency and other municipalities might follow. Akwasasne was seeking equipment like generators from MNR. SSM has weather forecasting capability and was calling for freezing rain in the Kemptville District until Friday January 9th.

Ms. Bernier was made aware of the extent of the emergency by her Ministry's conference call of Wednesday January 7th. She was aware of the impact of the storm as she had been without electricity at home since Tuesday January 6th. She did not have a working radio. On Thursday morning, January 8th, she got to her Kemptville office to find it also out of power. She then began warning staff to stay at home. Another conference call on Thursday informed her that SSM was now in full operation. They were dispatching staff and equipment to the ice storm area.

Ms. Bernier contacted area supervisors and instructed them to contact their staff. Staff were not to try to return to work until they were called in. In the meantime, they should look after their own situations. If they had the time and energy, they could volunteer at their local emergency centres during their normal work hours. It was understood that they would be paid for time volunteered as work time. But she was not sure whether she asked them to keep track of their time. If they needed help they should call her of their supervisor.

Until recently there were MNR offices in Brockville, Cornwall and Carleton Place so the staff were distributed pretty well right across the area of the ice storm. If they were unable to be reached by phone, it was possible for someone to drive over to check on their safety. It took a while. Some staff were not contacted until Monday January 12th . The priority was to attend to one's own situation.

Within a very short time, staff were volunteering at fire departments, installing MNR equipment (mainly pumps & generators) and sharing their relevant expertise. Equipment started to be loaned out to municipalities on Saturday January 10th. Items included trucks and backhoes. MNR staff operated the equipment. MNR conservation enforcement officers helped the Ontario Provincial Police. Some of the clerical staff helped at the shelters. Technical staff helped with their expertise starting on Tuesday January 13th.

Was a plan being followed? Ms. Bernier said, "We have an emergency plan but this was more common sense." She added that this event from the Kemptville District perspective was more about doing what needed to be done: responding to need rather than a plan. They continued to respond to SSM's tasks, but if they could help the local effort, that was acceptable. The SSM effort was assigning MNR personnel and equipment to address the needs of the municipalities who were calling in to EMO. Ms. Bernier specifically requested that the Kemptville staff not be included in the provincial call-up roster because she was certain that if they were in a condition where they could help, they would be helping. Kemptville MNR staff were sent to Akwasasne on the first Saturday and on Monday January 12th, a couple of her staff were sent to Trenton to train other MNR staff on use of certain equipment.

Authority: Ms. Bernier said that she had no question about her authority to act as she saw fit. She said that MNR operates in a very decentralized way. She perceives that she has greater decision-making power than parallel staff of other ministries. The MNR system features decentralized decision-making with strong central coordination and resources. "I did not bother asking my people whether this is OK. We just did it and there was never really any questions."

Was money a concern? Not during the emergency part. There were costs in operating equipment but no new equipment was purchased. Her ministry is accustomed to fire and flood emergencies where one does what is required to get the job done.

Decision-making: Ms. Bernier made local decisions based on her judgment and the information at hand. For issues that required a broader response, decisions were made by EMO and the MNR emergency response centre in SSM. She described the MNR emergency mode of operation as quasi-military.

Ms. Bernier worked out of her home from January 8th to January 15th, when the Kemptville office was re-opened. During this time, her only means of communication was the telephone. The twice-daily conference calls kept her updated regarding what was happening within her district and throughout the province.

What worked well? Speaking with her counterparts in other ministries, what worked well for her were the twice-daily conference calls. SSM's calls kept her current with events. The regional directors of most other ministries seemed to miss these frequent, regular updates. Also, MNR is used to working in a decentralized way. She had the authority to act as she saw fit locally and she was used to working in emergency situations, fires and floods that required similar approaches to address.

Problems: Having been caught up in the emergency, it took time to make the transition from emergency response to thinking about the impact on the resources that the district was responsible for. Fortunately there were others at the MNR who were able to look after the resource issues.

Inter-ministry communications was a problem. She did not know what other ministries were doing. Many of her counterparts in the other ministries are located in Ottawa or Kingston. They were able to get back into operation sooner because they regained their electricity sooner. The Ontario Regional Directors' Council of 17 provincial government ministries, usually meets once a month. They were having conference calls and discussing important policy issues early in the week of January 12th, while the MNR Kemptville office was still out of power.

Other ministries have expressed concern about their lack of information from EMO. Ms. Bernier said that this was not a problem for her as SSM kept her updated.

She found it very difficult to get even a general estimate about when MNR Kemptville would get its power back. MNR's maps, which would have helped hydro, were electronically stored and therefore inaccessible until power was available. However, Ms. Bernier is not one who is critical of Ontario Hydro. "I think that they (Ontario Hydro) did a wonderful job, personally, considering the damage that was here."

Has anything changed? Kemptville has a home phone list of all its staff. Three staff have attended emergency measures training session. She is committed to review and maintain the district emergency plan, using their recent experience.

Media: Media contacts from Thursday January 8th were handled by the media relations person in Peterborough. This continued until Tuesday January 13th when the Kemptville communications officer was able to resume her duties. SSM also had their communica-tions person coordinating and issuing Provincial responses for the media. What was lost while the local communications officer was unable to respond was the knowledge of the local area and the local media contacts.

Stress and fatigue: MNR has peer counsellors for staff to contact if they are feeling the need. A training session on stress was held. Supervisors were briefed on observing and responding to employees suffering from stress. A couple of referrals have been made to the employee assistance program.

Ms. Bernier felt that the post-emergency activities of her office should be noted. She said that after the human emergency was responded to, after January 15th &16th, it was realized that there were major ecological impacts to trees, wildlife, streams and fisheries, as a result of the ice storm. She has been appointed to head a multi-disciplinary team to study: What are the effects? What does MNR need to do about it? The team includes representatives for forestry, fish and wildlife, data management/GIS and geography.

Forestry concerns include: extent of damage, potential for survival, economic impacts, susceptibility to insects, structural damage to wood fibre of bent trees (resulting in loss of economic value), literature research, management guidelines for woodlot owners, "agreement forests" owned by other agencies e.g. conservation authorities, but managed by MNR , roads and access and increased potential fire hazards of debris.

Fish and wildlife concerns include: siltation damage to spawning beds, debris in streams, (some limbs in streams will improve fish habitat), flooding, survival of turkeys, partridge and some of the smaller migratory birds, survival of animals who normally live under the snow which became ice crusted.

The team's action plan is to assess damage and determine action. They will consider what liabilities exist such as clean-up for safety of park users and the potential for fire. They will estimate costs and evaluate benefits. They have and will provide information: fact sheets and workshops about caring for trees and other wildlife issues. Over 50 workshops have been given by stewardship coordinators on ice-damaged trees in wood lots and how to care for urban trees. Five workshops have been conducted for municipalities on how to preserve their trees and what are the long-term impacts for municipalities. They have conducted meetings with other ministries to avoid needless duplication and have worked with OMAFRA on interim tapping guidelines for maple sugar producers. A big effort is now on for consistent compensation for losses. For example, the federal government compensates farmers more than maple sugar operators. The MNR supports equal compensation based on the concept of maple sugar harvesters being tree farmers.

Wood chips are a major concern. The Ministry of the Environment (MOE) considers that wood chips are waste material therefore cannot be used for such purposes as cover for walking trails. Stockpiling is a concern because if it should catch on fire it would be, like a tire fire, impossible to put out. MNR, MOE, the Ministry of Transportation and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing are getting together to decide what to do with the chips.

Ms. Bernier feels that research is needed on the long-term impact on wood productivity, maple sugar productivity, etc. MNR has the proposals but no money. Queen's is the first university to contact her about any kind of research.

About provincial parks: Ten Provincial Parks sustained a lot of physical damage. The public areas will be cleaned-up and made safe but much will be left alone to study the long-term ecological impact of the ice storm as an event that will benefit some species and hurt others. The ice storm is a research opportunity.

Documents: Ms. Bernier will review what is available and will forward what she feels is appropriate. She also referred to the Ministry's web page: http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca