IceStorm 98 Study

Ruth Archibald lives in the Waterloo Village area, where there are no trees and the hydro wires are buried underground. On the morning of January 8th, she simply noted that it was very icy outside (she still had power) but did not realize until 8:00 a.m., when the Salvation Army store supervisor called her, that the City of Kingston had experienced such a major storm.

The Salvation Army had had a Disaster Committee at Family Services for the past two years. Until this year, the Salvation Army's responsibility for any part of an emergency plan was under Red Cross direction and the Salvation Army felt it would be better to have their own portion in the Emergency Plan. Mrs. Archibald, Mike Stoneman of the Red Cross, and others formed an ad hoc committee to determine what their possible moves might be in the event of an emergency. Mike Stoneman (who has had emergency experience in the storm in Florida and in the Manitoba Flood) and Ruth Archibald had met several times.

To backtrack, Mrs. Archibald took this job in October 1994 and in January 1995 received a telephone call from the City to say that they were having a meeting to revise their Emergency Plan. That is when Mrs. Archibald and Mr. Stoneman started their ad hoc committee, which included many people including St. John Ambulance, VCARS (Victim Crisis Assistance & Referral Service) and many more. They talked about all of the possible situations they might encounter "but never once did we think of an ice storm".

Although the Salvation Army Family Services' emergency committee had been meeting for about a year and half, "the players keep changing" because Salvation Army officers are subject to being transferred, so each time that happens everybody has to be updated again.

By this time the committee had amassed a list of names (volunteers) from their church and there are many people from the community who come in to assist the Salvation Army in a volunteer capacity doing such things as Christmas kettles and preparing Christmas food baskets so there is a master list to draw on.

Bunny McCourt, the store supervisor, updated Mrs. Archibald the first morning of the storm. Mrs. Archibald immediately got on the phone and contacted the major players from their committee. The problem was a lot of them didn't have phones (or lights or radios)! She was in her pyjamas until 11:00 in the morning making phone calls from home because she knew there was no phone line or electricity at the Salvation Army store or offices. The Harbour Light Centre, next door, was also without power.

At 11:45 a.m., Mrs. Archibald got a call from Dave Morgan (from the City) to say, "We're having an emergency meeting at 12:30. Would you be there?" This meeting was held on Counter Street. It was difficult for many people to get to the meeting because of their own problems with flooding basements, no power, no phones, etc. They ended up trying to work with cellular phones but most of them had not been kept up in regards to power. Lance Thurston read a statement at this meeting that the Mayor wanted to know by 2:00 p.m. that everybody was in a state of readiness because they were trying to put together a statement that the Mayor could read on the radio. They were also told that the shelters were to be open at 4:00 p.m.! The shelters were going to be at Frontenac School, L.C.V.I. (Loyalist Collegiate & Vocational Institute) and Q.E.C.V.I. (Queen Elizabeth Collegiate and Vocational Institute). It turned out that Frontenac had no power so they ended up opening Q.E.C.V.I. and L.C.V.I. that first night as the major shelters for the City. Anyone who had any kind of health problems who needed to go to a shelter would be transported to Hotel Dieu Hospital. Mrs. Archibald immediately left the meeting because of her responsibilities in getting the shelters opened. These responsibilities had just being outlined in the new Plan on January 1st! Mrs. Archibald had been in New Brunswick until January 5th, arrived back in her office on January 6th and the ice storm hit the very next night. She hadn't had a chance to look at the Plan yet.

The Salvation Army was responsible for emergency clothing or covering until other sources could be made available. They were also responsible for "emergency food services to feed evacuees, emergency workers and volunteers. This will include provision of volunteer workers, technical advice for food preparation, and organization of food operations, arranging sources of food and food preparation equipment, arranging for transportation of supplies and prepared food and equitable distribution of prepared food."

In their Disaster Preparedness Committee meetings, Mrs. Archibald had questioned where they were going to get the equipment they would need to transport the food and noted that they had no idea where the shelters would be. She was told it would not be a problem because the Armed Forces "have all that stuff and we would just have to give them a call". But, of course, the Armed Forces had no phone! She recalls that they were wonderful once they were back in operation but that took two days.

Mrs. Archibald recounts that they prepared a hot meal that was flown by helicopter to Battersea on about the third day of the emergency.

The Harbour Light Centre, next door, has a full kitchen and, because they are used to preparing meals, it was decided that they would be responsible for making meals. They ended up preparing 11,270 hot meals, cooking everything on site and delivering the meals to the shelters. The first night they made soup and sandwiches and Salvation Army volunteers were delivering food by 5:30 p.m. that first day.

Bunny and the store manager were selected to look after the clothing end of their operation, should it be required. Bunny and Mrs. Archibald went directly from the Counter Street meeting to Q.E.C.V.I. because they had no access to telephones at the Family Services office or at the Harbour Light Centre. They had to use the fax line for a phone line. The second day, the electricity came on. "We were fortunate from that time on and we didn't need a generator."

Q.E.C.V.I. was the command post for the Salvation Army that first night because they had no other means of communication. Jim Goodale, the store manager, went to the L.C.V.I. shelter with a group of volunteers. There was also a shelter at St. Martha's school, at Holy Cross, and there was one at Bartlett gym at Queen's University. They also sent some food the first night to Hotel Dieu Hospital.

The Salvation Army pastor was in Toronto. The divisional office for the Salvation Army is here in Kingston down on Cataraqui Street but they had no heat or electricity either. The second day of the "disaster", they changed their command post to Harbour Light and they had somebody stationed on the desk all the time taking calls and directing people. They continually got phone calls from people saying such things as, "we want a volunteer, we need...", etc.

Mrs. Archibald received a couple of phone calls from senior citizens who were in eight floor apartments, no elevator, and couldn't walk downstairs. So the Salvation Army didn't even have a way of getting them out. At that point, they weren't prepared to deliver meals to anywhere except the shelters. "As luck would have it, we had just hung up from them and some woman called and said, ' I've made a great big pot of clam chowder. It's here. It's hot. What can I do with it?'. And I said, ' Take it to [this senior citizen's place]'."

One of the biggest problems they had was that people were bringing in casseroles and food that the Salvation Army couldn't use because there was no way to ensure that the food was clean and good to eat and, especially two or three days into the emergency, food in people's freezers was beginning to go bad because of the loss of electricity. Mrs. Archibald laughingly recalls phone calls such as, "We have 500 pounds of meat. Would you like it?". The Salvation Army could not accept it because they had no place to put it themselves. It was also too much of a risk to accept baked goods. Some of the donated food went to the P.U.C. building where they were feeding workers.

The first night they had about 350 people in the two opened shelters. Mrs. Archibald called the McDonald's Restaurant on Division St. and asked if they could make Egg McMuffins for the next morning and McDonald's came through with 350 of them! She also contacted Country Style Donuts who contributed muffins and doughnuts. Remarking on how helpful so many people were, Mrs. Archibald uses as another example the day Schneider's Meats took portable barbecues to all of the shelters to provide a meal. Weston Bakery provided the Salvation Army with all of the bread they needed. All of these companies donated their food and delivery services.

And then truck loads of donations began to come in from all over. Some of it reached the Salvation Army, some of it went to the Armoury where it may have been shipped elsewhere. The Salvation Army also shipped food to Wolfe Island and elsewhere.

"It was enormous. I've never been [involved] in such an undertaking in my life." She laughs and says, "I hope I never have to do it again."

Once the shelters began to close down, people discovered that all of the food in their refrigerators and freezers was spoiled. Social Services called the Salvation Army on Monday, January 12th, to ask for help in distributing food. Social Services, Family Benefits, and Disability have approximately 7,500 cases (Mrs. Archibald says she does not know the exact number) and Mrs. Archibald said she could help out. One of the problems was that Social Service recipients receive their cheques earlier in December (before Christmas) and, at this point, it would be another two weeks before they received another cheque so they were basically out of money as well as food. They had to estimate approximately how much food to give to each person or family. The Salvation Army usually gives out groceries valuing approximately $20.00 per person in the family to last for three to five days in emergency situations, so they decided that Social Services would give vouchers to people valuing $20.00 per person, the people would take the vouchers to the Salvation Army and the Salvation Army gave them bags of food (double bags because it was for two weeks). Normally the Salvation Army does not give out eggs or potatoes or fresh vegetables but this time they gave out everything. In addition, people were given $20.00 worth of vouchers to buy fresh meat.

The Salvation Army ended up giving out 2,600 bags of groceries between January 13th and January 23rd at the cost of $123,000. The City reimbursed them for some of that, as per their agreement, and the Salvation Army had also received many donations of food and other items.

"Because the Salvation Army is everywhere, although not big in any one place" (the Kingston congregation is about 100 people), Mrs. Archibald received help from the Salvation Army from elsewhere. The Family Services Director, her husband and two of her staff came to Kingston and helped in the distribution of groceries. They also had 275 volunteers helping out including people from Toronto, Picton, Trenton and elsewhere.

When asked if stress had been a concern during the emergency, Mrs. Archibald says, "I kept saying that I can't imagine that people are getting along so well.... It was just a lark. Most of the time people were just coming in and having the greatest time, working together (working like dogs)."

Jim Goodale was the coordinator at L.C.V. I...... and Bev Webster at Q.E.C.V.I.

Once the L.C.V.I. shelter was closed down, they opened Penrose, "which was a whole different experience". Penrose had been closed down and was "literally full of moth balls", although the Red Cross had already arrived there and was very supportive.

Kingston Social Services was responsible for calling the Salvation Army to let them know that they were required for food services at all of these shelters. Cheryl Mastantuono, Community Development Coordinator for the City [Social Services], "is one doll to work with". And Tanie Steacy, the Administrator for Social Services, "did one fantastic job". Everybody worked together so well even though everyone in the new City of Kingston was new and many people didn't even know each other yet.

As far as whether things worked well or not Mrs. Archibald comments, "From our point of view, we did the very best that we could do. Not everything was perfect. For instance, our Thrift Store had to be closed down for two weeks because we were warehousing food here... so we really lost quite a bit of money." A small portion of their Disaster Preparedness Committee has since discussed their role in this emergency and, among other things, is trying to determine how they might assist people in private homes in the event of another disaster as some people could not leave their homes and their animals.

Mrs. Archibald recalls hearing that the food provided at the shelters was, for many people, the best food they had ever eaten. Captain Fred Butler-Caughie is the Administrator at the Harbour Light Centre and Captain Ilene Butler-Caughie oversaw most of the food preparations. The residents of the program at the Centre pitched in helping out and making sandwiches. Since that time Mrs. Archibald has heard the men say that being needed during the Ice Storm has helped them turn their lives around.

The Salvation Army had some television coverage during the Storm and "Huntley Street" came to Kingston to interview them. Mrs. Archibald has since received an invitation to personally appear on that television show. Jack Chiang, who is a big promoter of the Salvation Army Christmas food basket program, also interviewed them.

Everything was filtered through City Hall including such things as notifying people to please not donate homemade casseroles.

The third part in the Agreement with the City presently states that the Salvation Army will provide personal service and pastoral care and emotional support for those having personal problems created by an emergency. Pastoral care is normally the number one issue for the Salvation Army but Mrs. Archibald is concerned that that portion of the Agreement may be changed. The City is presently conducting a psychosocial study and Mrs. Archibald has been invited to be on the steering committee. The "Personal Services" booklet from Health Canada currently outlines what constitutes personal services and she feels they have left pastoral care "out of the mix". "At this point when people's lives are so...just at the verge of not knowing what to do.... And we were lucky because there was no loss of life. If there had been a loss of life the whole tenor of the exercise would have taken on a different implication altogether." They want the Salvation Army to take out the "emotional support" aspect in the new Agreement. While they may have to do that, Mrs. Archibald says, "Pastoral care will always be what we do." She is presently involved in planning for a fact-finding community-based meeting where they will be talking about not only food delivery and shelters but also pastoral care and Mrs. Archibald hopes to involve more of the overall faith community in Kingston to get people from other churches on a volunteer list so that if there is another emergency they will have even more people to call.

Regarding the importance of pastoral care during an emergency or disaster, Mrs. Archibald says, "At that point, people's lives are so fractured that they really need the comfort of pastoring whether they have a faith or not." With her delightful laugh, she adds, "You know, we're the first people that people come to. The survivors that got off the boat from the Titanic, Evangeline Booth was there to welcome. We have a long history of [pastoral care]."