IceStorm 98 Study

Give me your recollections of Wednesday evening? At what point the next day, did it hit you that there was a major problem?

I remember I phoned my daughter who has a rear-wheel drive van and told her to stay off the streets. I live in Kingston West and I have a front-wheel van. My son came to pick me up that night and I mentioned that if this storm got any worse we were going to be in trouble. We got home safely and without any problems but we noticed that cars were starting to slide and there were a couple off the road on Taylor-Kidd. On Thursday morning I headed for work. It was my job to get buses out on the street. The buses went out at 5:30 or 6 all right but they couldn't get down any streets. My first reaction was to say, "If you can't drive on any streets, get back here and we will have a look and see what's going on." I could very well have gotten my fingers slapped because it is not my call to make, but I was not about to hurt people. My job is to make sure that everyone is safe first. Whatever else happens after that is a minor problem. I called all the buses back in and then I went out in my van and had a look around. There wasn't an area that we could get a bus on in the city that was anywhere near a normal route. I came back and I called Mr. Giles and I told him what I had done. Understandably, he was quite nervous because he was new also. He came in quickly from home and we went out and did a tour around the city. There was no way we could get a bus around the city. Slowly the city began to respond to the dilemma that it was in. At that point Mr. Giles was down at City Hall and he decided that we should move our base of operations down there because everything was being run from there. So I packed up radios and such and moved there. The Kingston Police came looking for our radios because we could reach every end of the new city at that time, even Unity Road to Brewer's Mills Road, with our little portable radios and the Kingston Police couldn't get outside the city limits with theirs. So they used our radios to get emergency dispatches through.

Was the normal chain of command disrupted?

Yes. As I came along Taylor-Kidd and then down Counter Street about 4:30 a.m., I didn't grasp the enormity of the situation at the time. The bus drivers come from many different parts of the city, but not one was late for work that morning. I got the buses organized and ready to go out. As they began to get to their starting points, they were telling me that they couldn't get down many of the streets. At about 5:45, I made a decision to take the buses off the streets. I should never have made that call on my own, but at that time in the morning I didn't want to get my boss out of bed. However, there were no consequences.

Were communications and decision-making pretty fluid and informal?

Yes. As a personal observation after working in City Hall for so long, we probably gained ten years in five days because everybody who was anybody was at City Hall. All of the petty differences between Kingston East, Kingston West and Kingston Central were set aside for this time. Personally, I think we gained a lot of space in that time frame and we probably would still be scrapping over boundaries and that type of thing.

What do you think worked well and what didn't?

Originally, nothing worked well. Speaking for myself and looking over what happened, I think the police really had their collective act together. The fire department was not disrupted as much as anyone else. In our circumstance here at Kingston Transit, I am not afraid to say that originally it was somewhat disorganized. I was in a brand new job and I had a brand new boss. I didn't really know what was going on at the time. I made decisions, Aubrey Decker made decisions, and our other supervisor, Ed Hickey, made decisions. John Giles made decisions that we weren't sometimes comfortable with. Decisions had to be made and regardless of the consequences we made them. I can't say enough about our staff. They were ready to do what we asked of them. The same applied to the garage staff. The union 'threw the book out the window' until the crisis passed.

Could you identify the biggest problem that you faced?

The biggest problem was lack of preparation because as much as you prepare (the fire department and the emergency people have little exercises that they do from time to time - usually during the summer, a train wreck or a large car wreck, etc.) nobody was prepared for this storm. It was not uncommon to see Mayor Bennett at City Hall at odd hours of the night.

How about the stress factor? How was it handled by yourself and the people you work with?

There wasn't any. I suppose maybe there should have been. Speaking for the drivers at this point, their professionalism and their skill as drivers really came out. Stress was really alleviated by the families of our drivers. Any time you called a driver at home to say we needed them, they were here. When I personally took this job over, it was with the blessing of my family. They were used to my working long hours. I haven't heard any of the drivers say that their wives were complaining. Some said their wives were a bit lonely, so they were told to bring them to work and they could drive around in the buses with their husbands. Some of the drivers did.

What were the main priorities?

I don't think the thought of money crossed anybody's mind. I know it didn't mine. My priorities on the job were the elderly and disabled first and then the ones who were able to take care of themselves would get moved as soon as we could. I feel that if all of the senior's residences had a backup generator, especially for the heating system, half of the problems we had could have been alleviated. I believe Gardner Church is working on a new disaster plan. However, I believe the plan is already in place but the right people just haven't been asked to help out. I was in the military for 25 years and Base Kingston has an Aid to Civil Power Plan I suspect somewhere in the system both for force and for assistance. They have the facilities, staff and available manpower. I feel the city just hasn't asked the right people.

Do you think the city, the military and RMC will be more tightly knit because of this?

Probably not. The civilian mind does not comprehend the military mind and vice versa. That's probably the way it should be because you don't want to know what these people really do for a living. It's just a fact of life. You have to take into account the fact that mayors, reeves, and other top-line civil servants want to do for their city because at election time people will remember who did what, rather than just sitting back and calling in the military.

Do you recall any amusing anecdotes that stand out in your mind?

When we sent people out to see people and ask them to leave their homes and go to a place where it was warm and safe, the younger people would generally go, but sometimes you would find an elderly person who would say, "No. We're not going nowhere!" They would be bundled up in almost everything they owned in their house. My daughter's ex-mother-in-law lives just off of Sir John A. MacDonald and all but four people moved out of her apartment building. She was one of the ones who stayed. They had a barbecue which they used outside for cooking and heating water. They would fill up their hot water bottles, throw them in their bed and then hop in with them.

Did you hear of any close calls or scary moments for drivers, for example?

A couple of our drivers were called to an apartment building with no elevator where there was a large, non-ambulatory lady on the seventh floor who had to be dragged to get her out of the building. We had another call from the Hotel Dieu where we had to take a lady who weighed 700 pounds back to her house so I called the armouries and asked for four of the biggest men they had. I sent a van and got these fellows and they got the woman home successfully. I am surprised that we didn't have any real close calls. Our drivers are always super careful.

Did you go out on the streets in the buses?

I was at City Hall for most of the time. I did get a chance to get out and about and check some of the routes. We were making routes where none existed originally. If a street was cleared we used it. A call that should have taken 5 minutes would end up taking a half hour or so.

Is there anything I haven't asked that you think is important?

I will say that personally I am proud of 90 percent of the people in this city. The way that they reacted to adversity and the way they reacted to people who were worse off than they were was incredible. There are many tales of people who did wonderful things and never even waited for a thank you - driving people to the hospital and the shelters, taking coffee to people, etc. Tim Horton's donated lots and lots of coffee and donuts. Other Kingston restaurants donated large quantities of food for the workers. I can't say enough about the military. Out on Highway 2 east, there was a fellow going around cutting down trees and charging $100 to $150 a tree and the army was on the other side of the street cutting them down for nothing and doing a better job. There are always some people who will take advantage of a situation. The same happened with generators. These instances were minor, however, when compared to the large scheme. I felt sorry for Wolfe Island. They didn't get much help until 2 or 3 days after the storm hit. I am very proud of the residents of Kingston because they did without so much and gave so much and never asked for anything in return.