IceStorm 98 Study

Trevor Hutton took on the position of area superintendent of the St John’s Ambulance in Brockville just last September. With six volunteers and an ambulance, his area of jurisdiction extends north to Perth and west to Lansdowne. Since his agency falls under the direction of the Social Services Department of Brockville his activities were therefore subject to their requirements. He was unavailable for this interview, so his wife who was at his side during the emergency, volunteered to be interviewed.

Shortly after the announcement that Brockville had been declared a “state of emergency” was made over the radio, Trevor Hutton (TH) called Dorothy Theobald to inform her that their vehicle and volunteers were ready to assist her. He was told that she would get back to him in an hour. After a return call had been made, transportation was organized with the St. John’s Ambulance (SJA) vehicle to transfer seniors which had been identified by the social services department. They were transferred to the Brockville Psychiatric Hospital.

On Saturday, January 10, TH was informed by Social Services that an evacuation of all the seniors from the homes in the Brockville area would have to be accomplished. Realizing that they would need help they contacted William Saunders in Belleville who is the area commissioner for the (SJA). He in turn contacted the Toronto headquarters to request assistance.
Susan Hutton (SH) estimated that during the month of January, 35 divisions came into Brockville with a total of 80 ambulances. After they had taken care of the city and power was restored, their assistance was requested from the county.

Volunteers who had come from outside the city had been billeted at the Salvation Army.
“The Salvation Army was wonderful... they fed us and it wasn’t just casseroles, we had pork chops and you name it... it was incredible.”

At the beginning of the emergency, the (SJA) was at the Gord Watts building on North Augusta road. After the city had returned to some semblance of normalcy, they moved to the county building on Victoria Street.

They moved throughout the county distributing food and bedding to the various shelters which had been set up. Supplies of cots and bedding came from the Red Cross and the armed forces.
Door to door inspections were made in the county and SH was directing the campaign in Lynhurst. She experienced some difficulty in evacuating seniors from their homes but “they came for the turkey dinner”. Once they got to the shelters and met their neighbours, it became much easier. It was just getting them to leave their houses that was difficult.
While the army was conducting door to door checks, an ambulance followed them in their search in case it was needed. This was maintained on a constant basis, 24 hours a day.

The fire fighters also had (SJA) accompany them on their inspection tours.
In North Augusta the SJA became the resident medical facility especially after the tragic fire that took a young man’s life. The effectiveness of the North Augusta Fire Department evaporated after the tragedy and other units were sent to help. The SJA remained in North Augusta until the end of January.

The SJA had conducted many drills as part of their training yet no training could have prepared them for the storm which visited Brockville. At a C.A.R.E. committee meeting SH told them that “...in all seriousness, in all honesty, we have practiced all different disasters over and over and over again and nothing could have been practiced to prepare us for this...it was worse because everything was gone...”.The lack of telephone communication was a major concern to the SJA as it was to other organizations. The ambulances had phones which worked periodically, where “90% of the time we couldn’t use it, because we couldn’t get through”.

The Toronto division was trying to help out Brockville but at the same time they were getting requests from Montreal for assistance. Volunteers were moving back and forth between Brockville and Montreal on a constant basis.

An additional problem that was presented to the volunteers coming into the city was how to get to their reporting centres. With street and traffic lights out, they were told to drive towards a lighted area which turned out to be TISS . This was just off the 401 highway which was convenient for those who had never been to Brockville before. Confusion mounted as the crews came into Brockville. The SJA was at the Gord Watts building on North Augusta. Arriving at TISS assuming that SH and her team were there “we’re out in North Augusta and the police would say: we don’t need you, go home...every agency was doing their own thing ... and you didn’t have a meeting point that anybody knew about..”.

SH pointed out the difficulty with volunteers. Some of the volunteers “ worked all day, had two days off, or could only give twelve hours... some of these people came from Windsor, from Tillsonburg....they were driving for eight or nine hours and giving us four hours and leaving...”. The four hours was helpful, but then they would have to return home and go to work.
Interestingly enough, “and yet within our own area, past SJA people who had resigned for whatever reason, not once came forward”.SH theorizes that they were simply looking after their own families and had no time to help out.

Some of the teams that came from Windsor had arranged to take a week off of work in order to come down to Brockville “and stayed at North Augusta the whole time”. Among the people who came down were par-medics who were in great need here in Brockville.

The SJA personnel who showed up in Brockville had to be patient until a request for their assistance was made. “When you’ve never been in a real disaster before you really don’t know what to expect... now that we’ve been through this and if we get called to go somewhere we’ll prepare ourselves to sit for twelve hours...”.

As more SJA personnel showed up it was made clear that TH was in charge of his area. “ when people came that had a higher rank than my husband, they stood their rank down, even if they were paramedics, even if they had all the training in the world they always stood their rank down”.

As far as costs were concerned, TH was told that all costs would be taken care of by the provincial office. There was an incident where “price gouging” occurred and they certainly will not be getting any future business from the SJA.
The SJA received a bill for $ 400.00 for gas from the city. When the city returned to normal, they could no longer be supplied from the Gord Watts building. As efforts shifted to the county, gas supply became a scarce commodity. Ambulance drivers had to pace themselves and pinpoint locations where it was possible to obtain gas especially since large areas of the county were still without power.

The Brockville branch of the SJA sent a report to the national office which included 42 recommendations, most of which were adopted. One particular recommendation suggested that they consider obtaining 4X4 vehicles. During the ice storm, a vehicle ended up under a tree. A 4X4 would have been able to maneuver much more easily through the storm.
In many cases, volunteers utilized their own vehicles to travel long distances to get to Brockville. Some of these vehicles were ill- prepared for the journey.

As relief efforts began to focus more on the county, SH realized that they had a major challenge on their hands “we were into this huge thing out in the county..the county job was huge compared to the city... the city was nothing compared to the thing in the county”... Transporting people from point a to point b was problematic. The county had no power, no heat, no water.
At least in the city, there was water. Even the houses were warmer in the city than the county.

SH recalls a desperate situation where they came upon an elderly lady who had been locked into her house by the ice. She had run out of wood and was down to tossing cardboard into the fireplace, “and we had arrived just in time and we had to chop our way through her house and get her out because everybody thought that she had already gone off with her son and daughter not realizing that her son and daughter were on vacation”.
This was an important lesson for the SJA. No one could assume that everybody had left so they now planned to check on everybody regardless of what people thought.

Stress didn’t appear to be a problem at the time. It took a small incident where the power was out for five minutes in Brockville to shake people up...”you started hearing people say they cried,...I’m hearing people say: I absolutely broke down and cried just like that...”. As a somewhat precautionary measure, more people are using night lights than ever before.

Although it was stressful for the seniors to be taken from their homes, once they had spent a night at the shelters, they adapted to the situation quite readily. Friendships were formed and they began to come together as a community. They told SH about the great storm of ‘42, when they had coal furnaces – they stayed warm and kept their houses lit with oil lamps. So, “here’s a lesson for you young lady” not to rely on one source of energy to supply heat and light. This time however, everyone relies on hydro to heat and light their houses and the seniors, as well as ourselves, were faced with an even greater challenge.