IceStorm 98 Study

Rita Byvelds normally works with the agriculture and rural communities in Frontenac and Lennox & Addington Counties to identify issues and assist organizations to address those issues. She works with other agencies to make sure that there are training programs in place for farmers. She responds to requests for technical information about agricultural production.

Significant event:
Rita Byvelds' first inkling that a major event was happening came on Wednesday January 7th, when she was working in the Brighton office of OMAFRA. She received calls "from people further east" requesting electrical generators for farm use. She was supposed to attend a meeting of a client group that evening outside of Brighton. At 6:30 p.m. she learned that the meeting had been cancelled so she left for home in Kingston. The drive home was slow, mostly in rain but also some icing was encountered.

On Thursday at noon, after she had been without power personally, Byvelds realized, as she looked out her window at the damage to the infrastructure, that this was a major event, not "a typical two-hour power outage". She also knew that it extended to the eastern border of Ontario and further. The sights and the sounds of branches breaking and ice hitting the ground impressed her as a sad sound. On Thursday she knew it was bad. Friday it was worse and Saturday it was worse again, as the trees and poles were still coming down. And more and more people were losing power. She knew that some farmers had generators "but no one, really, is prepared to deal without power for that long."

By Thursday noon, Byvelds, recognizing the scale of the storm damage, booked into a local hotel, which continued to have power. From the hotel she relied on the hotel phone and fax and her cellular phone to communicate with OMAFRA. On Friday, at her hotel room in Kingston, she received a call from her Ministry's office in Guelph informing her that the Ministry was mounting a full-scale effort to try to support the farmers. She was asked to get to Brockville, as soon as she could, where she would be heading up their generator depot. OMAFRA set up five or six depots in eastern Ontario. Guelph was gathering generators from farmers and rental agencies in western Ontario and the United States. She would cover Leeds-Grenville and Frontenac Counties from the depot in Brockville.

In addition to calls from her Ministry, Byvelds received a twelve page faxed list of farmers who had called in to OMAFRA for generators and she was making calls to get generators to Brockville for the farms. The Ministry's emergency command centre in Guelph was taking calls from farmers seeking generators and farmers offering to lend their personal generators. All of the OMAFRA offices from Kingston and east were out of power with the exception of Renfrew. The other offices are located in Kemptville, Alfred, Avonmore, Perth and Nepean.

With the local offices out of commission, Guelph somehow got the information out that farmers could contact Guelph directly by calling an "800" number. The media, including radio, was one way that the assistance was made known to farmers. With so many phone lines down, it was sometimes a challenge to even make a call. One veterinarian in Gananoque helped by phoning Guelph and giving the names of seven farmers who needed generators but who did not have phones to make the calls themselves.

After she left Kingston to work in Brockville, Byvelds stayed at her brother's farm which, even though in the heart of the emergency area, had regained its power. Her brother also had a fax machine so that she was able to continue to get the names of the farmers who needed generators.

On Saturday and Sunday January 10th and 11th, she was in Brockville, working at the generator depot which was set up at Weagant's Farm Supply, just outside of Brockville. From there, she called farmers who needed generators and called Guelph to supply the generators. Once generators started to arrive, she would call farmers and explain to them that the generators had to be shared, and once power was restored, the generators had to be returned so that they could be sent to other places where they were needed. This communication was a challenge as all they had to work with was one phone line at the farm supply place and her cellular phone that she had to run only on battery because the farm supply dealer did not have electricity.

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) was great. Their field staff and executives were quick to check on the farmers in their area and identify their needs. So even though telephone communication was down, the sense of community and checking on each other was incredible. As long as she was able to get in touch with one dairy farmer in an area, he was able to let her know about several others and help was sent accordingly. The OFA was out visiting the farmers, assessing needs and making sure that if they needed generators, that they were on the Ministry's generator list. They were a good communi-cation network among farmers and with the Ministry. The Ministry, the OFA and the Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO) were all trying to get generators from western Ontario to Eastern Ontario. Dairy farmers, initially, had the greatest need for generators. They had to get their cows milked.

From Saturday through Wednesday Byvelds organized and ran the generator depot in Brockville. Additional OMAFRA staff joined her from Sunday. And by Wednesday she needed to have a break. She was not certain of the actual hours that she had worked but she did recall one day making calls until 9:00 p.m. then sorting and checking information to midnight and waking up at 5:00 a.m. to meet a truckload of generators.

Operating the depot involved sending in the requests for the generators, tagging them when they arrived, checking the size, notifying farmers that they were in, helping to load them on trucks, making certain that farmers shared the generators, tracking their location and getting them returned to the depot. When the crisis was over, she coordinated the return of generators to their places of origin including farms and rental companies in western Ontario. She was getting generators back to western Ontario in February. The number of generators that she worked with was over 70. Hers was the smallest depot during the ice storm response.

There was no prescribed method for tracking the generators and when they numbered only five, tracking them was not a problem. But as the numbers grew, a system of numbering each generator and placing correspondingly numbered pins in a map was how she kept track of their whereabouts. Byvelds credits the manager of the farm supply dealership with devising the system.

Exercising authority:
The difficult decisions involved deciding which farms the generators would go to. "It was difficult to say to a beef farmer, for example, 'Sorry, you don't fit the priority right now. Right now we are trying to get generators onto dairy farms'." The occasion when she had to go and talk to a farmer who was refusing to give up the borrowed generator was very difficult. The farmer was an older man and he wanted to keep the generator overnight for his wife.

Early on, when generators became available in Brockville, they were shipped east because their supply did not meet their need. However, later on, Byvelds exercised her judgment and authority in ordering cartage to ship the generators in Brockville back to their farmer/owners in western Ontario. She felt that since these particular generators were no longer needed in eastern Ontario, she should return them promptly rather than wait to accompany the ones from locations farther east, which were needed longer.

The authority was circumstantial rather than based on written policy.

Decision-making:
was based on the need of the client and the information that she was able to gather. Agriculture and Rural Representatives, Stuart Leyenaar and Howard Giles, who were more familiar with the area, helped make decisions. They also spent a lot of time on the road and knew what was happening on the farms.

Costs: Byvelds said that she had no idea what OMAFRA's costs were to deal with the ice storm. She commented that the Ministry invested a lot of money renting generators "from all over the place. Ontario, the States, Texas." The Ministry also sent a lot of staff from central and western Ontario, paying for their travel and accommodation. She also thought the cellular phone expenses would have been high. She did not make any expenditure accountable to the ice storm except for food at the generator depot.

On the first Saturday, Byvelds was setting up the generator depot at Weagant's Farm Supply near Brockville. There were no generators. They were on the way. The dealership had no electricity. "The staff from the dealership were incredible. They worked so, so hard." There were a couple of the staff there and a roomful of farmers waiting for generators. "We hadn't eaten all day. didn't even think of it. All of a sudden at five o'clock someone says, 'Jeez! Has anybody had anything to eat?' So I offered to buy pizza for everyone, if we could find a pizza place that was open."

The cost to truck the generators back was billed to Guelph. The farm dealership paid for electricians to test the generators and were compensated by the Ministry. Farmers came in with the wrong kind of hitch on their trucks. The farm dealership gave them the correct hitches and said 'Pay us later'.

During the actual crisis Byvelds was not conscious of the costs "because the cost of doing nothing would have been incredible. The agriculture and food industry is the second largest industry in Ontario and is a really important part of eastern Ontario. Milk production is worth millions of dollars. The impact of no power on the industry would have been incredible. So getting generators on to farms was really critical." She supposes that the managers and directors in a Guelph were more cost conscious than she was.

It was important to maintain communication with the Command Centre in Guelph. "And that was a real challenge because they were relying on fax and e-mail. E-mail we didn't have because we didn't have power to run our computers. I was fortunate to have access to a fax machine through most of this." Telephone was also important for communica-tion with Guelph, with the farmers and with the other depots. Frequent contact with the Diary Farmers of Ontario representative was an example of the communication that took place by networking. The DFO rep kept a list of farmers who needed generators and he had generators, which had been obtained by the dairy organization. Networking worked very well and people responded regardless of the time. The 8:30 to 4:30 workday did not exist.

During the last week of January, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs announced the first level of compensation. Farmers in eastern Ontario could pick up a cheque for one thousand dollars as an initial payment to cover such losses as dumped milk. This program was promoted to the farmers by the Ministry from Guelph and local OMAFRA staff distributed the cheques.

Biggest Challenges:
Keeping up ones energy would have been a challenge were it not that everyone was running on adrenaline. The biggest challenge for the depot was getting enough generators. That was the corporate challenge. It was also a challenge to deal with farmers in desperate, immediate need when you didn't have immediate solutions.

What worked well?
"The way the different agencies in the agricultural community worker together. The farm business where we stationed our generator (depot) was incredible. They committed their staff, their phones, everything to support the project... The way the people in the Ministry worked all hours, the weekends, whatever, to help out in the process. You know you have a commitment to your clients when you make a huge personal commitment to help out and that's what was happening. The farming community was incredible. We relied on them to do a lot of the contact for us. I talked to a farmer in north Leeds. I counted on him to give me the situation of all the farmers in the area and I counted on him, when I sent a generator, to make sure that it was going along to all those farms. The commitment to help each other was what made it work."

The advantage of having OMAFRA staff who were familiar with the area was that when they got involved, they would look at the list of farmers who we had heard from and they would know who we hadn't heard from. They would then be sent out to contact these farmers and find out why we hadn't heard from them. It may have been that their phones were out, or they had a generator and were fine. They knew which farmers to visit because those farmers would have made contact with a broader community to know what was going on.

What could be improved?
An appreciation event and debriefing was held in Maxville, which is the home area of the Minister (Hon. Nobel Villeneuve). He was there all day. His wife was there for part of the day. The Deputy and Assistant Deputy Ministers were there all day. "It was just amazing that the political system and our senior management really appreciated the work that was done and was committed to try to come up with some ideas." It was decided that what was really needed is a communication infrastructure that doesn't rely entirely on power. The problem is how do we do that. A mobile emergency unit was another idea.

Learning from this experience, Byvelds mused that a direct, almost military style of leadership is best suited for coping in a crisis. She was impressed with a fellow with a military background, who took command at the Kemptville depot. He thought of everything that would be needed including food and nourishment for the workers. She suggested that a checklist would be useful if it were to happen again.

The Emergency Plan:
Byvelds was not aware of an Emergency Plan until after the emergency. There was some discussion at the debriefing. They said that the ice storm was a good test of the plan and it will be revised or at least revisited as a result.

Contact with EMO:
Byvelds did not have any contact but some of her collegues in other areas did and attended the daily meetings.

Media: There were some enquiries, which she referred to her manager.

Was stress an issue?
Stress on the farmers was tremendous. Some would breakdown and cry when told that there was a generator for them. The stress continues because of concern for the animals and having to dump thousands of dollars of milk because the chillers were not working. OMAFRA was great about addressing staff stress by bringing in relief staff from western Ontario.

More about the Depot location:
Weagant's Farm Supply, just outside of Brockville, was approached by the Ministry to be one of the depot sights. The manager, Laird Weagant was very accommodating and made his staff, equipment, supplies and contacts available to us. Weagant's was without power for the first few days but did have one telephone line which Byvelds was given access to. A fax machine was also available, once power was restored. Powering the depot was not a priority. But Honda Canada donated eight small gas generators that were small capacity for farm purposes. "they might have powered a water pump". So one of those generators was used at the depot to power two additional phone lines and a light, basic things that helped us do a better job.

Particularly memorable:
"There was one farmer, Bob, and his wife, who I talked to fairly regularly. They had a generator that they were sharing among seven farmers. And then when we were able to find a generator for them, their relief and tears was incredibly moving. When they called to tell me that they had their power back on, they said that someone had warned them that when they got their power back on, they might feel a sense of loss. He said 'I don't think I am going to feel a sense of loss at all. I'm just so exhausted!' Talking one-on-one to them over a number of weeks is something I'm never going to forget. They were so emotional, so appreciative and so committed to helping out their neighbours."

Who else to speak to:
perhaps Farmer Bob and his wife and the emergency coordinator in Guelph who would have an overview.