IceStorm 98 Study

Stephen Knechtel [SK] realized on Thursday, when he was one of the few to come into the office, that something serious was going on. His main concern related to potential flooding throughout the CRCA jurisdiction.

When checking the water levels through their telemetric equipment he noted that he couldn’t access anything eastward, towards Brockville area. Once other staff came into the office he knew he wanted to drive east and see what was going on with water levels. Some information about the storm was on the radio but it wasn’t until he started driving towards Brockville that he realized how bad things were.

The CRCA has an obligation to monitor stream levels and to provide information to the municipalities on potential flood problems. They had been doing this and on Wednesday had issued a bulletin to the municipalities to watch for problems if the rain increased. In the end it turned out to be more ice than rain so the flood problem did not materialize.

On Thursday his main concern was finding out why he couldn’t access their telemetric equipment. There was concern for the Brockville area since they have some history of flood problems. He knew either the lines were down or the power was out. CRCA has a telephone computer system to monitor water levels, but he didn’t know what the problem was since there is a battery backup system and the batteries are usually good for several days. But, as SK notes, these things fail sometimes and the batteries hadn’t been checked since fall. Ultimately, it was determined that battery failure was the problem at one of the stations. In another case it was a downed telephone line.

Initially, SK’s priority was to check streams to the east that couldn’t be monitored from the office. The next concern was dams and reservoirs or lakes. SK wanted to know how high the water was getting and if adjustments [at the dams] were necessary. This task raised the question of access. Many of the dams are down wooded lanes.

Fortunately, many of the dams also have a gauge measurement system near the main road so it’s not always necessary to get down to the actual sight. Most were ok. A couple were close to critical but the decision was made not to do any water level adjustment operations. This decision was taken, at least in part, because of safety concerns around getting down to the dam sites in the icy conditions. The CRCA had no follow-up complaints regarding their actions.

His next concern was the amount of tree debris in the streams and whether this would promote flood risk problems. In the end, although many trees were down, not so many were in the streams. Brockville was an exception. They have a stream system that responds fairly quickly to flooding. It is also a more built-up area, meaning a greater number of people would be affected very quickly. Brockville also has an established greenway running through the city along the streams. This means a lot of mature trees which were hit fairly hard by the storm. This resulted in a higher density of debris in the streams.

By Friday morning the flood risk issue was set aside as not being a major concern.

The next priority of the CRCA was ice. Since the authority owns and manages a great deal of property, and a lot of it is covered with trees and has public access, there were safety concerns for people venturing onto properties in their jurisdiction.

SK’s focus, however, remained primarily on the water levels and debris in the streams.

The communications problems during the crisis had two aspects. First, they provide information to municipalities regarding flood problems. Once the information is relayed, it is essentially up to the municipalities to respond. After the Wednesday warning bulletin about potential flood conditions, a lot of communications systems came down and by Thursday they were having trouble establishing direct contact with municipalities in order to provide updates.

An alternative line of communication is through the media, so the various media outlets were advised of the flood bulletin and got the message out. SK observed that, although the media was also dealing with limitations, “they are an effective way of getting out current information.”

The second part of the flood warning system is through the provincial Ministry of Natural Resources. All flood response information is funnelled through the MNR which in turn has a liaison with the Attorney General’s Office - which is the EMO office.

The CRCA also had contact with the forecast centre in Sault Ste Marie which monitored things and passed along information if they got calls from other jurisdictions.

The CRCA office had one phone line throughout the crisis. Their main phone system went down when they lost power, but the dedicated line, which isn’t dependent on power, stayed on.

Unfortunately, the portable battery powered computer was in the repair shop because the battery system didn’t work. It was needed to continue to monitor the stream gauges. To solve this problem SK called the neighbouring conservation authority [to the west] to see if they could monitor levels for them. This worked out well.

The whole experience was a good test of emergency response systems. SK notes that “with municipal restructuring, there were a lot of potential problems, but I was surprised how quickly things came together in response.” SK felt that the issues were dealt with “pretty expeditiously.”

Asked to identify his biggest problem, SK said, “it was not knowing the extent of problem.” Adding that it was also difficult to monitor stream debris and guess how it might affect the flood risk.

Eventually, they were able to arrange for a flight to assess the situation on various water courses. SK had been criss-crossing their watershed area by vehicle already, so he had a sense of where there were a lot of trees down. From talking with other people, like road superintendents and county engineers, he was able to gain additional information.

SK notes that it took a week or maybe two weeks to “feel comfortable about the issue.” It was something to deal with but not really critical.

As a result of the storm, CRCA will probably increase the frequency of monitoring its telemetric equipment maintenance to ensure, for example, that the battery backup system is in order. SK feels that they may also explore alternatives to the power dependant land and cell telephone systems. The CRCA should also consider documenting all the equipment, protocols, settings, etc. among all of the conservation authorities. Then the information would be at hand if one jurisdiction needs to support another with taking readings, using water gauges or other equipment.

Looking at the longer term issue, SK suggests that we have to try to put the weather aspect of the ice storm in perspective and ask, what is the likelihood of an event like this happening again? “Once you have a sense of the likelihood then you can determine the sort of backup system you should have. The question is how much was this a fluke situation or a trend we’ve moved into. Maybe we need to look very seriously at the criteria for defining flood risk.”

Stress was not really an issue from the flood monitoring point of view because there was always enough time to deal with things. There were concerns about safety in the public areas though.

From a personal standpoint, SK was happy to be on the road for most of a couple of days since it meant he was able to keep warm. There was no power at work or at home. His wife and daughter went to stay with neighbours who had power. They got involved with doing ‘meals on wheels’ work by bringing food to a number of elderly folks in the neighbourhood.

The provincial EMO was contacted at their Brockville office regarding the tree debris in streams in Brockville. They were contacted regarding the use of military help to clear some of the streams in the area. The military assisted for a day or two.

SK thought that the EMO was probably monitoring CRCA’s water level information through the Aviation, Fire and Flood Management Branch of the Ministry of Natural Resources in Sault Ste. Marie. This is the central location for sending information. They monitor water levels based on the information sent from organisations like CRCA, and track forest fire conditions etc. They would have a direct contact with EMO. CRCA had been sending their information to Sault Ste. Marie, so EMO would have gotten a sense of flood conditions generally across the area. They also monitor weather information from a variety of situations -which is useful for determining local conditions.

In conclusion, S.K. felt that people really came together with little duplication of effort. The municipalities in particular appeared to get organized very quickly. Since no-one seemed to get too uptight, “it was a pleasurable experience when you stepped back from it all.”