IceStorm 98 Study

Chief Rob Layng runs the Athens Volunteer Fire Station with up to 8-10 people on call. His area of responsibility includes the Village of Athens and the Rear of Yonge and Escott.

Late on the evening of January 7th, the Athens Fire Department had received a mutual aid call to assist in suppressing a fire which had broken out at the lumber yard in Lynhurst. At that time “it was slippery and icy and terrible then”.

When he got up on Thursday morning he was told that power was out, lines were down and there was ice everywhere.

The station is equipped with a generator which was up and running when RL arrived there on Thursday morning.

On the morning of Jan 9th, Ray Craig, the reeve and David Robeson a local minister requested a computer list which indicated who had alternative sources of heat, in particular wood stoves, in the village. This was done so that they could move some of the seniors in the village to homes with heat.

The residents at Valleyview Court, an old age home located in Athens, were evacuated by the administrator to homes of friends or relatives.

The Athens Snowmobile Club was designated as a shelter on Thursday morning. The chief was “surprised” that not many people took advantage of the facility. It was quite common that people would come out for a hot meal and return home for the night.

The Fire Station was set up as a command post and information centre and starting on Thursday, morning manned the telephones 24 hours a day until January 18 at which time they cut back to a 12 hour day.

Surprisingly, Athens had telephone communication throughout the storm with only a few brief interruptions. The phones in the station were busy until 7:00 at night.

Since the station had a generator, they were able to pump water for the local residents. They also delivered water to a couple of farms for the horses and other livestock.

The station also circulated through the village and rural areas with three or four generators pumping out basements. At first they were overwhelmed by calls for generators, but as the county got organized, the calls began to die down. Friends and neighbours began to share generators.

The military set up a command centre at the Athens District High School and reported daily at the Fire Station. Door to door searches were assigned to the military. The Fire Station would provide them with computer lists of residents and roadmaps of the area and they would set out with a member of the community who knew where the roads were located. In addition to checking for residents, the military would also determine levels of CO2 if people were using wood stoves. After a period of time when the door to door searches had been completed, the military acquired chain saws and started to clear the roads of fallen trees and other brush.

Food was supplied by the local community. The local grocer provided meat and other supplies that would have otherwise gone bad since his power was out.

Power was out in the village for a duration of 4 days. It went down on the morning of January 8th and was back on Sunday January 11th at 6:00 p.m. It remained down in the outlying areas for up to another week

The chief stated that Athens “was very very fortunate compared to some areas around us”. He was very impressed by the way in which people handled themselves and their neighbours. “People really got together and moved in together.. it was excellent that way and I was very surprised”.

RL experienced no difficult situations that he could not handle. Calls would come in from Toronto wanting information on relatives in the area. Some of his men helped remove ice from the roof of a building which might have collapsed under the weight.

The volunteers paced themselves and did not appear to suffer from” burn-out”. RL would go home at 7:00 at night and return at 10:00 to check on things and then return home for a few hours of sleep on the couch by the fire and return to the station at 7:00 the next morning.

He was frustrated by the fact that there was the odd person who didn’t help themselves but would “sit back” and wait for the fire fighters to do it for them. In one instance his men encountered a situation at Charleston Lake where three or four guys had requested wood, gas for the car, three pair of winter boots and three coats, and food. No effort had been made to help themselves at all. This was an isolated incident.

The Petro-Canada gas station in Athens had a generator which could run one pump so that gas was not a problem for the village. He was supplied sufficiently to meet their needs.