IceStorm 98 Study

Lt. Col. Mike Shultz is the commanding officer of the Princess of Wales Own Regiment and has been actively involved with the regiment for 30 years. His “other” job is a City of Kingston Police officer.

For Lt. Col. Mike Shultz (MS) of the Princess of Wales Own Regiment, his recollection of the Ice Storm began with him having to fight his was out of his driveway on Thursday January 8, 1998. He had to get to his civilian job, a City of Kingston Police officer. After cutting his way out of both his driveway and country road with a chainsaw, he finally arrived at the City of Kingston Police Head Quarters at 1100 hrs. MS put in a full day in his role as a police officer. It wasn’t until the Friday morning (January 9th) that his role as the Commanding Officer of the PWOR came into effect. He had been in contact with the Kingston Armoury and knew that there had been personnel in the Armoury on the Wednesday night because of power outages. The main concern for the PWOR at this moment was the lack of fire and security alarms. The Armoury has a weapon storage and it required a security watch posted for 24/7 periods until the power went back up. MS said that nothing had really happened at the Armoury until the Friday afternoon because there had been a decision on the Thursday evening, their normal training night, to shut everything down. MS explained that in order to inform their members of the stand down, they used the telephone and radio media to get their message out.

On the Friday afternoon, the PWOR received their orders from 33 Brigade via the Land Forces in Toronto that the militia was being called out to assist in the civilian emergency. The PWOR began to receive minor tasking. The officer on the scene was Captain Harold (Rock) Weigand who manned the Operations Centre and maintained it on a 24/7 period. The PWOR by Saturday, at the height of the emergency, had approximately 70 personnel from the unit manning the armoury. The PWOR’s full strength is approximately 150. MS believes that during the weekend there was approximately 100 personnel manning the armoury. The regiment has on their books approximately 130 members that have “paraded” in the last month. It was these members that the regiment was heavily relying on.

MS explained that the PWOR had been given orders by their higher command to look after the area north of the City of Kingston. They had been assigned quite a large area going as far north as Sharbot Lake. By the Saturday afternoon, the PWOR had officers, SNCOs, NCOs and ranks deployed up to Sharbot Lake, Arden, Perth and close to Smith Falls. Their tasking included checking on the situations in the rural communities because there was little intelligence coming down from those areas. There was little information with respect to the power situation and what they (the communities) were lacking in essentials. As MS put it, “We were sent out to get a shopping list of what was going to be needed.”

The PWOR was put under command of CFB Kingston and their tasking was vague at the beginning. The command at CFB Kingston had little knowledge of what was going on outside of the city and the PWOR was asked to get out and check on these rural communities and give their assessment back to CFB Kingston. The PWOR’s area of responsibility was quite large in the initial stages but as other troops were brought in, the area became much more manageable.

MS commented that one of the difficulties that faced the regiment was the lack of vehicles to transport personnel and equipment to the rural areas. He explained that the regiment does not have a large vehicle depot and that the vehicles that they could have used were sitting in Meaford, Ontario. MS couldn’t explain why the vehicles were in Meaford only that they “were just there”. What the regiment had to do was utilise vans and station wagons from CFB Kingston. According to MS, this worked out well because the roads were clear and the unit was mainly travelling on hard-top. On the down side of this, was the inability to transport large amounts of supplies to the rural communities.

What the regiment did was send a vehicle with a driver, an officer or SNCO and a “rescue kit” that included water, fuel, candles, food, batteries and emergency commodities. They would as MS put it, “stack the vehicle to the gunwales and send it off.” These efforts were viewed as a gesture rather than real relief because of the lack of adequate transportation. MS would have rather sent up 3 tonnes of supplies than the 300 pounds of relief supplies that were sent up in a van.

The relief supplies began arriving at the Armoury on the Saturday from places as far away as Timmins. The Red Cross was instrumental in bringing in these supplies. One of the issues for the regiment was having the ability to look after themselves in the beginning, MS pointed out that the regiment appeared to be in better shape than CFB Kingston with respect to having supplies to get the regiment rolling. But he added that the members of the regiment were facing power loss and ice damage in their own homes and needed to be able to take care of it. The regiment is made up of volunteer soldiers but as MS added they are part-time paid professional soldiers.

MS explained that in the first days of the Ice Storm, the supplies that were available to the PWOR were quickly used up and/or deployed out. It wasn’t until Monday January 12th, that large shipments of commodities began to arrive. He recalls that among these first shipments, was a transport of approximately 300 stretchers/cots and some army blankets that appeared to have been packaged sometime in the 1950s. He assured the writer that the blankets were useable as they had been wrapped in brown paper with a “tar-like substance sealing them” and “were fresh as the day they had been sealed”. These items he believes were sent down from Emergency Measures Canada in Ottawa.

The Armoury was selected as a clearing house for in coming supplies in agreement with Dave Morgan (City of Kingston), G3 Ops (CFB Kingston) and Lt. Col. Kirk Thornton (CFB Kingston). As mentioned earlier, the Armoury had begun to receive supplies on the Saturday and by Monday the regiment’s personnel had been augmented with staff from the Red Cross. The regiment had received orders to act as a warehouse for the supplies coming in from across the country. Eventually, the Armoury was taken over by the Red Cross who had come to Kingston to look after the supplies and dispatch them where needed. The role of the regiment’s personnel was simply to off-load the trucks and organise the supplies in their storage and then deploy them onto their own vehicles to the rural areas. Other supplies were shipped to the civilian shelters by civilian crews and vehicles.

MS recalls that there was an increasing number of personnel being sent out to re-supply the areas. What was a great assistance was the arrival of two Griffin helicopters from 427 Squadron from Petawawa. The helicopters were with the regiment for several days and were primarily used to scout out areas that had not been reached as yet. Captain Diaz, was one of the officers that went with the helicopters and his role was to liaise with the reeves in the outlying townships. It was through this liaison that these areas were re-supplied as quickly as possible.

MS commented on one of the unique things that the regiment did with the helicopters was to take about 300 hot meals prepared by the Sally Ann (Salvation Army) in Kingston to Battersea and another 80 meals to Parham. He laughs as he recalls that the helicopter landed in Victoria Park (which had conveniently lost a fair amount of tree canopy in which the helicopter could now land) and loaded up the meals and the fact that the delivery charge was probably more than any regular take-out place.

After a few days, the use of the helicopters became an inefficient means of carrying out the regiment’s duties. The expense for the helicopters was becoming quite high and MS felt that the same tasks could be carried out using vehicles. The helicopters were turned back over to CFB Kingston to be re-deployed elsewhere.

On the issues of costs, MS commented on the need for the unit to remain accountable for its expenditure. The pay for the regiment was increased to a Class C (from the regular Class A pay scale) which made MS’s job of accounting for the largest portion of expenditure easier. A Class A pay scale is what the regiment’s personnel receives on a normal weekly rate. A Class B is where a person is deployed full-time and a Class C is when a person is called out to somewhere like Bosnia. The reason the unit was put on a Class C pay rate was because of the dangers that were present. The Class C covers the personnel for all benefits and liabilities. The decision to put the regiment on a Class C pay scale came from Ottawa. As MS explains, the remaining costs of supplies were out of realm of responsibility as they were largely coming from the private sector.

MS was requested by CBC Radio on the Monday morning to go on the radio and explain exactly the kind of donations were needed in the area. This area had reach a saturation of sleeping bags and blankets but needed cash to continue purchasing necessary supplies for the communities. MS commented on the need for further supplies of fresh water and camping stove fuel. He asked the writer to imagine what the Canadian Tire Stores must have been like with respect to stocks of camping fuel in January. He laughed as he commented on the camping season being “out of season”. MS made an appeal to the CBC listeners to send Naptha fuel. As a result of his appeal, MS received a phone call on the Tuesday morning at his home from a fellow from Brantford. This man and his friends had visited all the stores in his area and gathered up about 300 gallons of Naptha fuel and brought it to Kingston. This gentleman also brought candles and other needed supplies.

MS, along with being the Colonel of the PWOR is also a City of Kingston police officer. When asked how he managed to wear two hats during the emergency he responded as follows:

I counted up the hours I spent with the police and I think they were around 96 hours in five or six days. I can tell you though, there were a lot of people who put in longer hours. On Thursday, I never got home at all and ended up spending the night here in this office. I worked with the police on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday and finally on the Monday, I asked if I could go and put on my other uniform and come down to the regiment to see what I could do here. Not that I was terribly needed here as the unit was in capable hands. Our Operations officer (Captain Weigand) is an extremely capable fellow along with Captains Diaz and Peirog, the unit was in good shape. Supporting these officers were extremely capable NCOs.

On the Monday, MS loaded up a station wagon full of supplies and headed up to Seeley’s Bay. He assisted some of his neighbours with repairing their damaged property. He also felt that his neighbours and his community were looking to him to help organise the emergency relief measures. MS commented on the efforts of an officer named Chris Grandy from CFB Kingston who made a tremendous effort to help in his community. MS commented that according to his personnel’s reports that many communities were looking to the military to assist in organising the relief efforts.

MS comments on the lack of some communities doing anything to organise themselves until the military arrived. He goes on to say that in this kind of disaster, very few communities were prepared to deal with it. However, MS feels that the military were well received in these communities and commented on how everyone whether they were in uniform or not, responded to get things moving once the military arrived.

MS was pleased at the overall conduct of his regiment to make decisions on their own and carry out their duties. He credits this because of the military’s overall organisation and training and the level of commitment from his regiment. No one was watching the clock, the job was carried out until it was completed. Some of his personnel stayed at the Armoury around the clock.

On the issue of communications MS said that they relied very heavily on “land-lines” (while in the Kingston area) and cell phones (many of them personally belonging to the personnel). He commented on the Motorolas being ineffective because of their limited range and the distance his regiment were travelling. The Ops officer had requested that the personnel use whatever means to stay in contact whether it was a cell phone or pay-phone. MS said that his personnel were given a roll of quarters before they went off on their tasks. The PWOR found that some of the areas were becoming known as dead areas.

When asked what didn’t work well, MS replied, that the overall operation went well. He has some reservations on the shortage of equipment putting a strain on the regiment. MS commented that in any preparation for a disaster one can never fully hypothesise the events. In this case, there was no definite emergency plan on the part of the City of Kingston or most of the rural townships. What most people think of as a disaster in a city/town is a railway car overturning or a plane crash, in other words, a localised disaster that does not involve the entire environment/community. MS said, nothing could have prepared us for a disaster of this magnitude so the results could only be considered well done.

What he recommends is an operation by both the military and civilian authorities to stage mock disasters so that these agencies know what to do and what needs to be done. These recommendations have been included in the military’s after action report and MS hopes that they will be heeded. MS felt that there is a general consensus that the City and townships will attempt to follow through.

He commented that when he was sitting in the dark with his wife, that they both came to realise that they themselves did not have an emergency plan. MS has since purchased a generator (he lives in a rural area north of Kingston).

One of the hallmarks of the military is simply having a good set of orders to accomplish anything. The one shortfall was the lack of equipment. If they had the necessary equipment MS felt the regiment would have “been well away”.

On the issue of stress concerns, MS felt that the emergency was so short that there was no real concern. The only thing they kept an eye on was their personnel’s lack of sleep. In some cases, they had to order someone to get some sleep.

MS recounted some of the funnier events that occurred during the Ice Storm being that the regiment’s personnel called over to City Hall and respectfully requested that City Hall stop sending over pizzas, that they’d had enough and wanted some “real” food. The “personnel” were the 19 to 20 year olds who thought that they should be getting more salads. The other event that the regiment had heard about was near Ottawa. It appears that some troops were canvassing this rural area and knocked on the door of a resident (who was elderly). The woman insisted that she really didn’t need anything and that everything was fine but if the army who was counter-insisting they were there to help really wanted to do something, they could chop some more fire wood. After doing some of her chores, the woman invited the soldiers for a cup of tea. One of the soldiers asked her how long she had been without electricity? The woman responded, “About 10 years, last week”. Seems that in this particular farm house, they didn’t use electricity at all and to the resident, it was just another week.

As for other personnel whom we should speak to, it was suggested that we speak to Captain Weigand and Captain Diaz.

The costs to the unit, other than the pay scale (covered by DND) there was nothing to account for. MS recalls however, that some of his regiment displayed a lack of experience with respect to the use of chainsaws. He commented (while smiling and laughing) on the need for the unit to be shown how to assemble and gas up a saw. He also suggested to the unit that they learn how to chop wood safely.

MS additional comments were the importance of maintaining a military presence in small towns and cities. In the areas where the militia units have been disbanded, their absence was noted during this disaster. He commented on the high quality of training that the young soldiers receive today and it certainly showed during this disaster. He said that the regiment proved themselves and responded as professionals.