IceStorm 98 Study

Much of the original tape of this interview was accidentally erased.

Major General Jeffery is the Commanding Officer for the 1st Canadian Divisional Head Quarters which is based out of CFB Kingston. During the Ice Storm, his unit was deployed to the South Shore of Montreal.

Major General Jeffery (MJ) began his interview by explaining who and what the 1st Canadian Division HQ is. They are an operational, deployable unit and joint land force that has the capabilities on short notice to be able to be deployed anywhere in the world. They have in the last 18 months been deployed to Zaire, Uganda, Winnipeg and Montreal. The HQ has a staff of approximately 100 personnel, an intelligence company of about 40 personnel and a signals regiment with about 400-450 personnel. The unit is not under command of the Base.

MJ’s recollections of the storm begin on January 7th. He remembers waking up on the morning of January 8th around 1230 hrs and looking out into his backyard and seeing all the trees lying on the ground and there was no power in his home. He recalls thinking about the children’s story about Chicken Little that the sky was falling as it looked like everything had fallen to the ground. MJ lives on Base in the PMQs.

MJ made the decision to have his unit stand down because of adverse road conditions. He said, “There was no point in trying to get my people in when the roads were so bad.” He said that all the troops stayed home with their families as there was little they could do on Base as it had no power. MJ said that there was a request from the Base Commander to assist with supplying some generators and some personnel to do a door-to-door in the City. The 79th Signals regiment was assigned to this task.

MJ said no one knew the magnitude of the storm on the morning of January 8th. MJ said that in the beginning, his unit was not actively involved as it was felt that the Base had resources of their own to cope with the problems. His instructions were simply to keep his personnel off the roads. The unit has no responsibility to provide support to the local community and it was felt that even though the power was off at the Base, it could be dealt with. If the unit’s assistance was necessary then there had to be a formal request issued. It wasn’t until January 9th, that the unit was requested to assist.

MJ, said that the events took a turn for the unit when he was at his home, on the evening of the 9th, standing in the dark and received a telephone call at 1755 hrs. from Major General Flourin of HQ in Montreal. Major General Flourin briefed MJ as to what was going on in Montreal and effectively gave the HQ and Regiment a warning order that they were to expect to be deployed to the Montreal area. MJ, smiling, said, “Here I was speaking to Montreal HQ, receiving orders and in the dark trying to find a sharp pencil to write everything down.” MJ explained the difference between a warning notice and an order to deploy is basically that a warning notice is a request to stand by.

MJ said the first task was to get the HQ up and running which proved to be quite difficult. He said that they had to hook up the auxiliary power to bring minimal power into the building. MJ said that it took from the time he received the call from Montreal until 2000 hrs to get the Duty Officer in and recalling the essential troop personnel. MJ said, “Just walking around the Base was treacherous as it was like a skating rink with marbles on it.” By 0100 hrs, they had managed to get basic power to the building and the operation was underway by 0300 hrs of January 10th. Once they had got past the internal problems of trying to get a unit ready for deployment without adequate support from the HQ (no power), the unit had to deal with the situation facing the personnel’s families.

MJ said that the unit was careful in this respect. MJ understood the tremendous pressure and stress that the personnel were facing at having to leave their families while they were in a crisis as well. MJ said that they went through each personnel’s situation and if it was felt that it would have caused additional problems by having that particular personnel deployed then they were relieved. This was also taken into consideration while determining who should be going. In the end approximately 50% of the personnel were left behind. MJ also commented that at this particular time in the Canadian Military’s history, there is a lack of confidence in the senior officers by the ranks. He said that there is a real break down in the chain of command because of the recent troubles that have occurred with very senior officers. He said, “There is a real mistrust between the ranks and their officers and morale is at an all time low. What we wanted to achieve was not putting the troops into a further state of low morale by demanding that they leave their families who for the most part were experiencing the same crisis as those who we were going to be sent to help.”

MJ commented that for the most part, any time the unit has been deployed, they themselves were not in a critical situation. He gave as an example the Manitoba Floods. “The unit was here in Kingston and the flooding was in Manitoba. We were able to quite effectively ready our unit for deployment without having to deal first, with an internal situation. This time, not only were we being deployed but we also had to deal with a crisis here on Base and in the surrounding areas.” MJ said that the unit itself, does not have an emergency plan, but that situation is being rectified. He said that situation is being rectified.

On January 11th, the unit sent a small recognizance group by helicopter to Montreal. That unit consisted of 15 officers and Chief of Staff, Col. MacDonald. Their task was to find out what they would be doing in Montreal and what equipment they would be supplying.

MJ said it got very interesting at this point as he and Col. Aitken had to have a lengthy discussion with respect to the movement of a generator. The generator was being used by a shelter in the City but the unit needed to take it with them in order to carry out their duties and job effectively. When asked, ‘Who would have had to make the final decision if the two of you could not come to an agreement?’ MJ said it would have had to gone to the Deputy Chief of Defence staff for a final decision. The generator ended up staying at the shelter.

On January 12th, the main body of the unit deployed to Montreal. It left Kingston with 47 vehicles and 108 personnel. Those personnel who left were those whose families were relatively taken care of by either having power or having the situation at home under control.

When the power was restored to the Base, it made a significant change in the troops. They were relieved that they could leave their families and now concentrate on assisting the citizens in Montreal.

What also assisted the unit was that Col. Aitken tried not to put too much demand on the unit with respect to assisting the Base. Where possible, the unit did provide support for the Base.

On January 17th, the unit held a “Family Briefing”. This was to provide information to the families on how long their family member could be expected to be away for and to answer any questions that the families had. It was also a means to keep in touch with those families who may have developed a critical situation at home from the fallout of the storm.

What worked well? MJ said it the ability of the unit to act as an emergency response unit and do their jobs as they were trained to do. MJ said he is pleased that the unit has had opportunities to assist within the borders of their country. He said that this type of operation within one’s own country helps to repair the damage that was done and tends to boost the morale of the troops. What also worked well was being able to set up a satellite link to Montreal (79th Communications Regiment) and get the necessary information that was needed.

MJ said that as other means of communication, the unit relied on telephones and digital radios. He said that the computer network remained functioning but in some instances it was the lack of power that prevented them using it.

What didn’t work well? MJ said that to start with the unit has no emergency plan of it’s own. The unit has never been asked to assist in a situation while at the same time attempting to deal with a crisis in the HQ. He said, “Even during the day we needed lanterns and candles as the building’s design has no external windows except for these few offices. The fact that we had no power meant that we couldn’t even turn on a computer to get our mapping system or even telephone numbers for the personnel. What we faced was an emerging emergency within our unit.” He said, “At one point I tried to walk across to the vehicle compound, which is normally a two minute walk, and this particular night the Base was in total darkness and the distance between here and the compound was covered in thick ice. It took me almost 20 minutes to make that walk.” He also added, “Once I got to the compound, I looked at these vehicles and they were covered in what looked like 2-3 inches of ice. The guys were busy chipping away just to get the windows cleared.” MJ said, “Just trying to get the vehicles loaded was becoming a real chore. With the ground conditions, movement between the buildings was taking longer than usual.” MJ said that besides the family situation the unit really had no other problems.

As to monetary concerns, there were none. The unit had been deployed and whatever it took to get them to Montreal was what it was going to cost.

When asked what changes the unit would make, MJ replied that the first thing would be to develop an emergency plan for the unit. He said, “It’s all nice to know that we can be deployed at any given moment but it was a real eye opener to try and do that within a crisis. The time that it took to get the HQ operational was somewhere in the area of 9 hours and that was before we could make any plans with respect to the deployment.”

The other item that is on the agenda for the unit is a Command Post exercise that will address the issues of attempting to get ready for deployment while having an internal crisis. MJ said that it will be based on a Year 2000 problem. MJ explained that it is not only the functioning of computers that will be affected by the Year 2000 (which the military rely very heavily on) but also everyday items that no one seems to remember about such as gas pumps, ignition systems in vehicles, radio equipment, cash registers, and banking machines. MJ said that this scenario would test the unit’s ability to deal with a widespread crisis that is not in someone else’s area but affecting the way the unit can even begin to help.

Part of the unit is the section that publishes the Lessons Learned booklet. They will be going over all of details of the operation and if there are any “lessons” that they military learned they will be included in the booklet. MJ said it would be quite interesting reading. The Ice Storm Study will make their information available to the unit.

The unit remained in Montreal until January 27th. MJ and his Divisional Staff remained in Kingston during this time period.

MJ suggested that the study may wish to speak to Lt. Col. Rosseau, Col. MacDonald and Lt. Col. Weicker with respect to their involvement with Operation Recuperation.

Attached is MJ’s post-operations report.