IceStorm 98 Study

Edmonds says that it was obvious to him when he woke up that there had been a serious storm in the night and it would be difficult getting to work. Mark lives in the Township and had power. Power wasn't a problem--getting to work was going to be. He couldn't take his usual route to work from the Township into the City. He had to take a "circuitous" route through Queen's University. A lot of streets were blocked and a lot of power lines were down. It took him one hour and 20 minutes for a 20 minute drive to the hospital. He says during the drive in it became very obvious that the situation was serious and was going to require some response.

He says that he "wears three hats" at the hospital. As an administrator at the hospital he is a planner. In addition, up until January 1, 1998 Edmonds was on the disaster planning committee for Kingston Township and had been for about 5 years. This gave him a background in disaster planning at the municipal level. He is also a graduate of the Canadian Disaster Preparedness College in Arnprior. Hat number 3 is that Edmonds was also the Chair of the Emergency Services Committee for the Branch of the Red Cross.

He says his first role started when he got to the hospital and realized that the hospital needed to respond to its community's needs. He realized that the hospital was going to be required to assist people that needed shelter. He says the first two groups of people that the hospital assisted were the hospital's own Sisters from across the street. One side of Johnson Street had no power and the opposite side (the side where the hospital is located) had power almost throughout the storm. The hospital lost power twice.

Thursday morning the hospital got a call from Elizabeth Cottage. They had no heat or lights. They asked if their residents (10 in all) could be accommodated at the Dieu. The Chief Executive Officer of the hospital called the Senior Management Team together and contacted City Hall to ask what they were doing in terms of shelter, etc. The first response from City Hall was that "yes" they were setting up a shelter and it was going to be at the YMCA. The senior managers said that anyone who called for assistance was to be directed to the Y. Edmonds, because of his involvement in municipal disaster planning, knew that the Y was not part of any disaster plan. All of the shelters that municipal disaster plans talk about are in public buildings such as a school or arena, etc. He informed the senior management group that the City was not following their own disaster plan. The C.E.O. said this should be looked into. Edmonds says his partner was asked to contact the YMCA to see what they were doing. The people from the Y were a little taken aback that they were to become a shelter. They were willing to help but it became clear to the hospital that there would be a number of people that would not be appropriate to be sent to the Y in the first place.

Edmonds says it was rapidly decided that the Hotel Dieu would offer itself as a shelter. This was not in anybody's disaster plan but this was a role they could play. The City was asked to provide the cots from the military and was told that the hospital had "pretty much an unlimited capability". It was also decided very early on that the frail and elderly would be focussed on. Other shelters were being set up at schools. QECVI was one of the first to set up. The Red Cross was already involved. Nobody was focussed on the frail and elderly except the Dieu. Nursing staff was available.

Various members of the senior management team were dispatched in different directions to get ready. Nursing staff were sent to inventory the number of staff available. Facilities were checked on. He says the Dieu has two generators. They both run on diesel fuel. The company who provided the diesel fuel to the hospital said they would park a truck next to the hospital and keep the fuel topped up. This worked out well.

On day 2 the City called and offered the Dieu another generator. They got priority because they were a hospital. A movie set generator from Toronto would be sent to Kingston if needed. Edmonds says once the hospital was up and running as a shelter, the City made it their priority to keep them in heat and lights, water, etc.

Edmonds recalls that the shelter had about 250 people the first night and within 3 hours the whole paediatric wing was ready to use. This provided another 57 beds for the people who were most frail. He says people started coming in almost right away. A triage system was set up in the main lobby. It was determined how many people were to need a hospital type bed versus the number of people who just needed some place warm and dry. The cafeteria had been turned into sleeping quarters as well. Some beds were just mattresses on the floor and some were army cots.

The army cots arrived late the first night. The City delivered them. The cots came from an emergency supply depot in Cambridge, Ontario. The cots arrived in Pittsburgh Township. They came packaged in crates. RMC students uncrated them and they were sent on to the hospital. The blankets and pillows that came with them smelled of mothballs. Some people couldn't sleep in them because of an allergic reaction and some people couldn't use them because they were too high off the ground. Every spare bed was used. The surgical suite was even opened. It provided another 12 beds. Edmonds says "the comfort of the bed was related to the infirmity of the patient". The child development centre was used for families with small children.

The second night there were 370 people in the shelter. This was the peak. Everyone was being fed out of the main lobby. There was no charge for the food. Edmonds says there were at least 2 volunteers for every person in the shelter. Fourth year medical, nursing, and rehab students arrived. They were deployed to the other shelters. Queen's reacted very quickly. Edmonds says RMC sent "squads of people". He says they were very distinguishable in their red and black track suits. He says they were fabulous workers. They did a lot of setting up of the cots for the hospital.

At this point in time, Edmonds was attending the emergency briefings at City Hall on behalf of the hospital and the Red Cross. At this point, the City was talking about the potential of running shelters for the next 3 to 4 weeks. The news on the power grid was very grave. It was going to have to be rebuilt. The hospital had to decide how it was going to function as a hospital and a shelter at the same time. All of the clinics and elective surgery had been cancelled. The emergency department that had been only open for 14 hours a day for the past year was taken back up to being open for 24 hours a day. He says one emergency physician said the fact that the Hotel Dieu became a shelter probably reduced the storm's impact on the emergency department because people were able to come and be warm and dry and comfortable. It prevented them from getting sick.

Once the peak of 370 people had been reached, Edmonds says they began decanting people out. Hospital staff went through bed by bed and anybody that didn't require a hospital bed and the kind of nursing care that the Dieu was providing was asked to go to other shelters. He says the sole focus of the Dieu was now people who required oxygen and nursing care. He says they estimated that within 2 days of doing this, the Dieu would be able to get back up to being both a shelter and a hospital. The people who required high level care were on the paediatric wing which wasn't being used at that time for any patient care activity.

Edmonds says that on the first and second days of the ice storm, the Dieu was put on standby to take entire nursing homes. The City called and asked if 100 of the most frail of Rideaucrest's patients could be sent to the Dieu. They were told that they could and an area was cleared for them. However, this didn't happen because Rideaucrest got their power back before sending the people over. The other call came from Pittsburgh Township. The seniors home there had been without power overnight and they were getting ready to evacuate if the temperature in the building dropped as low as 60 degrees. This would have meant an additional 54 people at the Dieu. As it turns out, the home was able to get a generator and the people did not have to be moved.

Edmonds says there is legislation in place that requires hospitals to have a back up system of power in place. There is no such legislation concerning nursing homes or homes for the aged. He says interestingly enough, these were the first people to be disadvantaged because of the storm. It will be interesting to see if this changes. He says if these homes had sent their people, the Dieu would have ended up swamped.

The media relations officer for the hospital worked very closely with the City and was in close contact with the media.

He says the two largest shelters--the Hotel Dieu and the Psychiatric Hospital had no real affiliation with the City at all (i.e. the City had not written them into their disaster plan, it had never been contemplated by the City to use these two locations as shelters). Both of these shelters were operating very effectively on their own. He says they followed all of the rules and kept an actual list of all people who came to the shelter. This list was computerized for easy access. This was regularly faxed to City Hall. By Sunday the hospital's census dropped. After 5 days the Dieu was no longer a shelter.

Edmonds says he doesn't know off the top of his head what the storm cost the hospital but can get these figures from Jim Kennedy at the Dieu. Edmonds says early on in the storm the hospital was contacted by the Ministry of Health and was told to keep track of what was spent and the hospital would be reimbursed.

Mark Edmonds says that even though the Dieu has their own disaster plan, the ice storm was not a scenario that had been contemplated. However, because the Dieu is a hospital and has an infrastructure, it was able to deal with the disaster.