IceStorm 98 Study

Mr. Brydges was the MTO's designated Emergency Co-ordinator for the Eastern Ontario Region during the Ice Storm. In this role, he was responsible for directing the day-to-day response to the emergency. Mr. Brydges is normally responsible for "day labour programs" which includes minor road construction and small projects, corridor control and corridor management. He is responsible for issuing permits for signage on highway rights-of-way and permits for utility companies that are putting utility plant on highway rights-of-way.

Last year, Wayne Brydges was assigned to a four-person workgroup whose responsibility it was to re-write the Ministry of Transportation's Emergency Plan. The plan had not been re-written since 1990. The group worked on the plan one day a week from September1997 through April 1998, re-writing, seeking approval and testing the plan. A draft was sent to the Deputy Minister between April 13 and17, 1998. The draft included changes and additions that arose from knowledge gained from the Ice Storm experience.

One of the things that the workgroup did was present the draft proposals in each of the Ministry's five regions. The first three presentations, to the Southwest, Central and East regions, took place prior to the Ice Storm. They were low-key, lacking in feedback and little buy-in (i.e. lacked enthusiasm from the audience). The presentations after the Ice Storm, to Thunder Bay and North regions, were well attended with "excellent buy-in". Following the Ice Storm, the three-hour presentation has improved with slides and videos and had the advantage of being more realistic. Brydges feels that the workgroup should go back and re-present to the first three regions.

Brydges recalled that on the morning of Monday January 5th, Maintenance Supervisor, Dave Norlock, reported on how horrendous an ice storm was being experienced around his home near Perth. Reports of freezing rain started and continued to come in from areas east and north of Kingston. By the evening of Wednesday January 7th he knew that the region was in for "major, major problems". Throughout this period, authorities in St. Catherines, which is headquarters for MTO, were being updated but not formally, to Brydges' knowledge.

By the morning of Thursday January 8th, they knew that they were in dire straights. At 9:30 a.m. he received a call from St. Catherines and was told that a state of emergency had been officially declared. Of the 700 people normally in the Kingston regional office, three managers and thirty staff, including the radio operator, had come in to work. After speaking with his immediate supervisor, Dave Kimmett, who had also made it in that morning, Brydges immediately gathered up his copy of the Emergency Plan and set-up an emergency office. The Emergency Plan calls for a room to be (permanently) set up specifically for the Regional Action Group (RAG) with LAN systems, direct phone lines, radio and other communications systems but this had not been done prior to this event.

Brydges started working in his own office but moved to his secretary's office because it had a multi-line phone and calls were coming in "fast and furious" from all over the region but mostly from Kingston through Westport. Dave Kimmett took overflow calls in his office. Hydro was off all over the city but the MTO office had electricity virtually all of the time. However, phone communication became sporadic at best. Brydges and Kimmett continued to work for 48 hours straight to Friday night at 8:00 when they were able to get a couple of other managers in to spell them off and work 4 hour shifts throughout the weekend. The Emergency Plan calls for constant coverage when there is an event on but the inability of many staff to get to the office meant that a few people did a lot of work in a very short period of time. After day three, more people were able to get in to work and the pressure was relieved a bit.

The Kingston MTO emergency response was up and running by 9:30 a.m. on Thursday. By 3:00 p.m., Brydges realised that the task was more then could be handled from their secretary's office. Calls were coming in from the Ministry Action Group (MAG) in St. Catherines requesting road updates and other technical information for various ministers and deputy ministers. They realised they had to be closer to the radio room and were fortunate to find one adjacent to it. This move meant that the RAG operations centre could communicate with the radio room by simply calling through the doorway. It was also in a position to see who was coming and going through the main entrance of the building. And while the regular operational parts of the building were virtually shut down, it was available as a shelter. But few other than staff used the shower facilities.

Ministry Action Group (MAG) is centred at the ministry's head office in St. Catherines but also has a seat at Emergency Measures Ontario (EMO) in Toronto.

Because he was party to the development of the emergency plan and since he was working so closely with his immediate supervisor, Brydges felt that he had the authority to carry out what needed to be done. He recalled that the emergency plan was intended to be empowering, that it would empower those who find themselves in a position that requires decisions and actions to apply its provisions. Nonetheless, he felt it would have been nice if there had been someone to greet each shift with an overview of everything that had happened and an explanation of why things happened as they did in the previous shift. But this was not possible because the number of available managers was so few. Some way of briefing each new shift would be a preferable way to manage the people who are responding to things as they unfold.

Decisions were made in one of two ways, depending on where the request for action originated.

First, a request from the MAG. For example a request came from the Ministry of the Attorney General through EMO through the MAG to the RAG, that MTO Kingston respond to a problem at L'Orignal. The L'Orignal jail was experiencing a crisis. It only had a fax machine for communication. It was running out of food. It had no electricity, no heat and no relief staff. And it had a road that was impassable because of the ice. The request was for MTO to do something about the ice on the road so the facility could be supplied and staff could get in. The RAG was able to communicate with the Ottawa office by cell phone. (This was possible early in the emergency but failed later.) They spoke with the radio operator and services supervisor, Rick Perreault. They managed to arrange for an OPP cruiser and a sander to get through to the jail. But once the road was sanded, they discovered that they had no way of pumping diesel fuel into the trucks to then fuel the jail's diesel generators. Brydges went through six diesel contractors until he found one who agreed to deliver 1000 of the 2000 litres that he had on board his truck. It was done. What was done was reported back up the chain.

Second, requests from the local area received by phone, in person and through staff and other contacts. For example, a woman in Westport with a 6-month-old baby and a father dying of cancer called in requesting a generator. Within two hours, MTO staff had found a generator, a truck and a driver to deliver it and set it up. Similarly, they were able to supply farmers who agreed to share a generator. Decisions on these matters were made locally and depended on the availability of resources.

Where local resources were not able to meet the need, requests would be forwarded to the MAG who was able to cast a wider net for the resources. For example, to clear roads of the heavy layer of ice, many municipalities requested that the MTO find grader ice blades. These requests were received by the RAG who sent it to the MAG who found the required number of blades by searching in Canada and the United States. The same was true for large numbers of generators. Whatever could not be supplied locally including chainsaws from all over Ontario, bucket trucks, chippers and staff and volunteer drivers to get the resources to Eastern Ontario were sought from the MAG.

Communications: MTO's Eastern Ontario Region is covered by a two-way radio system with base stations in Ottawa, Bancroft and Kingston. Virtually all towers can be linked together. The Radio room is staffed 24 hrs. per day from December 1st through April 1st. It is the communication link for field staff in snowploughs, sanders and patrol inspectors. The rest of the year, the radio rooms are staffed 8 hours per day except for emergencies. The radio room is a mini-communication centre with a multi-channel base station, a portable back-up radio with a power pack, computer-satellite links, conventional and cellular phones, two LAN lines, a facsimile machine and a back-up generator. It uses computerised weather information and normally updates road information every four hours. In a storm, it can update the information as frequently as every 15 minutes.

A power spike damaged the console of the base station. So for 24-30 hours, while the console was being repaired, the RAG had to use the portable radio.

The ministry's radio equipment is maintained by a private firm. Brydges thought that the company was very effective. It conceived an imaginative solution that brought power to two of four radio towers between Kingston and Ottawa. The towers in question were located at high, isolated locations. The locations were so icy that they were inaccessible by normal means such as snowmobiles. Necessary generators were not available until the company recognised that there were powerful enough generators on the large "arrow " sign trailers used to direct traffic around hazards or construction areas. To get the generators up the hill to the towers, the company used backhoes. The generators were carried in the wide, front bucket of the backhoes and the narrow, back, clawed scoop was used to pull the backhoe up the hill. Until the radio system was up and running again, the patrol crews worked without communication. Had there been an accident or other catastrophe, it would have been impossible to communicate about it.

During the emergency it was discovered that Ministry of Natural Resources had satellite phones and that in an event like this, they would be prepared to share them with MTO to avoid the problem of cell phone "clutter". Brydges also suggests that the military be asked to set-up a communication system. These two improvements would go a long way to improving the response in a similar emergency.

The inability to communicate was the most serious problem that the MTO faced as part of the Ice Storm. Ontario requires dependable transportation and knowledge about road conditions so that vehicles are not sent down roads where they may get into trouble. The inability to communicate with remote patrols deprived the RAG of that knowledge. They felt uncomfortable assuming that the highways were safe because they did not know.

Concern for the patrol staff was also a major concern. After day-two, Dave Norlock was able to inspect conditions east of Kingston. He found the patrollers cold, wet, hungry and tired. They had no water. They had no light. They had no way to dry their clothing. And they could not use the toilets. The RAG quickly got generators to the patrol yards and, through the MAG, got relief patrollers to volunteer from other all over the province. The patrollers from Summerstown worked five, straight, 24-hour days before they were relieved for three days, after which they returned to work. The command centre staff were unnerved to learn that the patrollers were working in such terrible conditions, trapped at work while their families were trapped at home. Many of the patrollers were also farmers with livestock to worry about.

The maintenance patrol workers are hourly-rated Ministry employees who are expecting to lose their jobs when the maintenance function is privatised. Some of the staff had already received notices that their jobs were redundant last year. Government was unable to satisfy the "reasonable efforts" clause of the last collective agreement that was a commitment to make efforts to find jobs for those it was letting go. The contract required wages within 85% of current wages and jobs that were reasonably similar. Apparently the private contractors were not interested in the current patrollers, at least, not at the required salary. The government was judged to have not met the "reasonable efforts" provisions. So the notices were rescinded but the patrollers were left "dangling on the end of a very thin rope. When the storm happened, they just went about their business as if their life depended on it. They never looked back. It was just 'I have a duty to do and I'm being paid to do it. I'm going to do it' and they did it. And they are still doing it."

How were the relief patrollers received? Brydges said that his conversation with a relief patroller who came from near Peterborough left him with the impression that the long working patrol was so tired and anxious about their families that they were "very appreciative to just walk away and say "Here's the equipment. You guys do what you have to do until we get back." As they returned to their own locations, the relief patrollers commented that they were somewhat euphoric because they felt that they had really accomplished something.

About his being relieved after 48 hours on duty, Brydges said that he was a little resentful. "You do take ownership of a part of that (the emergency response). It's not that you don't think that the other people can do that. I've been with different governments, federal and provincial, for 34 years. That's probably the first adrenaline rush I ever had. There was so much happening and it was so gratifying. that you were helping somebody that was beyond helping themselves. You tend to take the ball and run with it, maybe even more than you realize yourself, until somebody wants to take the ball away from you. (After the weekend off), I left home at 4:00 o'clock on Monday morning so that I would be here really early. I was glad to be back. I don't remember feeling like that for a long, long time."

Anything you would do differently? "There are things that we will do differently because we are better prepared now." For example, they now have documents to track manpower and equipment better and they know where their resources are. The ministry was supposed to have an exercise to test things. This time the test was the real thing. It was a real growth experience. They know what can be counted on and what can't. They know where the equipment is. And they know that, notwithstanding surplussing there are hundreds who would drop their stuff to come and help. They thought that the animosity as a result of downsizing would make it difficult to get help but it didn't in this instance.

There was no turf guarding within the Ministry. They experienced some of it when the City of Kingston turned down MTO electricians because they were not high voltage linemen, even after it was explained that they could do other jobs thus freeing up the high voltage linemen to do more of what they did best. The MTO electricians, who all operate bucket trucks, helped out in forestry instead. But some did feel a little annoyed that their skills, which were needed, were not used in their own community.

Anyone else? Dave Kimmett would have a bigger picture since he was in contact with Ken Kerchner, coordinator of the MAG and Brian Peltier, keeper of the MTO emergency plan, both of St. Catherines.

John Kenney looked after coordinating and training volunteers in Kingston. It was found that people were physically burned out from the tough, cold, physical, outdoor work. Kenney kept the volunteers rolling in by training and preparing indoor office workers for outdoor work. He brought back a retired safety training staff member who gave the volunteers the training to certify them as chainsaw operators, chipper operators and flaggers. The volunteers were also given winter coveralls to keep them warm. While everything was going on, they were training replacements. Flaggers, mostly clerks from the office, flagged for the forestry and other maintenance crews. They froze but they enjoyed the novelty and camaraderie of everyone so clearly working together toward a common goal.

About on going clean-up, Brydges recalled that on day four or five he received a call from St. Catherines asking for a cost estimate. It was still raining but they came up with a ballpark estimate, which he said had at least six zeros. The tree damage was estimated at 50,000 sq. kms. MTO has their own aborcultural and horticultural department headed by Andy Shankland. Brydges, Shankland and Aarron Kapur of Finance Branch toured the region and hired a crew for two days to work two sample areas in order to find out how much work could be expected per day. They then extrapolated that rate of work over the entire storm affected area. For the highways, for which MTO is directly responsible, not including those which have been transferred, the estimate was $5.2 million for the chipping of tree branches. Clean-up contracts started in mid-February in anticipation of flooding ditches, due to the ice storm debris. It turned out that this really was not a problem.

The next problem was what to do with the massive amount of woodchips. Ideas included the building of berms, covered with topsoil and sown with wildflowers, stockpiling the chips at patrol yards, importing (biomass conversion) plants to produce electricity and approaching industries that might make use of the chips. Burying the chips in landfills was discussed but was quickly dismissed. MTO decided that it would rather stockpile them as a resource rather than treat them as waste material. It is said that they will remain stable for 10 years or more but MTO is looking at a maximum two year stock-piling time.

There are significant environmental issues. The MTO's environmental officer has been working with the Ministry of Natural Resources and other agencies about the appropriate method of chipping and disposal by generating a useable product. There is concern about storage leachate. The call for tenders for the first stage of the clean-up work will be published in the newspaper on Thursday April 21st. There will be eight contracts for the eight different areas. The expected cost will be in the neighbourhood of $2 million. In the meantime, MTO staff has been on courses at Kemptville and Humber College to learn proper methods of pruning and arborcultural practices. This is in order that the Ministry can effectively administer the contracts. MTO will save as many trees as possible by closely administering the contracts. Brydges believes that the clean-up will go on for up to five years. Within three years, they will know what trees can be saved. The fatalities will increase next year because the trees this season will have a reduced capability to store the energy for the next year's growth. Following next year's die-off, an assessment can be made for the final cleanup.