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Lessons in Emergency Preparedness and Response

Queen's University Ice Storm '98 Study 11/4

Mary Purcell, Mary Purcell and Associates

Kingston, Ontario

Stewart Fyfe, Department.of Political Studies

Queen's University Kingston, Ontario

EmergencysPrePâredriess Canada Noveinlier 1998

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• TABLE OF CONTENTS

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Page 1. Introduction 2

Background: The January 199_8 IceStorm in Eastern Ontario 4

III. Lessons 9

A. Training and Planning (i) Training 9 (ii) Planning Process 10 (iii) Emergency Plans — General 12 (iv) Emergency Plans — Specifics

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B. Organizing the Response

C. Communications

D. Media Relations

E. Shelters

F. Staffing

G. Emergency Operations Centers and Emergency Control Group Meetings

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H. Resources

I. Responses Specific to the Ice Storm Emergency

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J. Maps 49

K. Back-up Power 51

L. Generators 52

M.Canadian An-ned Forces 53

N. Vouchers 54

0. Ontario Hydro 55

P. Mitigation Measures 56

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Q. Concluding Remarks

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Appendix 'A' - List of Interviewees

Appendix - List of Acronyms

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Lessons in Emergency Preparedness and Response

Queen's University Ice Storm '98 Study

I. Introduction

Beginning in March, 1998, Queen's University, with funding from Human Resources Development Canada, studied responses by local organizations to the Ice Storm Emergency in the area of eastern Ontario from Kingston to Brockville.

Included in the study were the Cities of Kingston and Brockville, the Town of Gananoque, the Village of Athens, and the Townships of Frontenac Islands (Wolfe Island in particular), Front of Leeds and Lansdowne, Front of Escott, Front of Yonge, Elizabethtown and Rear of Yonge and Escott.

Represented are a variety of municipalities ranging from Kingston, the second largest city in eastern Ontario (population: 110,000), to the Townships which, typical of many eastern Ontario municipalities, are largely rural and sparsely populated.

Approximately 200 interviews were conducted with a variety of responders including municipal staff and politicians, police and fire personnel, members of the media and the military, staff of local volunteer agencies, and staff of various provincial ministries.

A list of interviewees can be found in AiiPendix 'A'. „

Interviewees were asked to recount what they did during the Emergency and to comment on what worked well, what did not, and what they would do the next time. More than 25 post-storm reports (from interviewees and organizations including Ontario Hydro and the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton) were also collected along with newspaper clippings, other Ice Storm-related documents and a variety of pictures and videos. All of the material collected is accessible through the Queen's University Archives. A written account of the taped interviews has been produced.

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• The original intent of the study was to preserve a piece of history and to provide material for researchers to analyze in the future. However, further funding from Emergency Preparedness Canada and Human ReSources Development Canada was secured to produce a report abstracting the hundreds of lessons in emergency preparedness and response contained in this material in a format useful to emergency planners and responders. The lessons presented here are not meant to be exhaustive, as they are based solely on the information collected and not on a survey of the literature available on emergencies. They have been grouped by topic and are not listed in any order of priority. Some lessons appear under more than one heading so each topic can stand on its own. It should be noted that the lessons are not necessarily universally applicable because municipalities vary widely in population, demographics, fonn of development (urban vs. rural), geographic size, resources available to respond to emergencies, state of preparedness and training, and the nature of the services they are called upon to provide in an emergency.

This report is intended to be easy and quick to read. Most of the lessons are therefore listed without explanation or analysis. Many are however illustrated with quotes from post-stonn reports or excerpts from the interviews. The lessons are out of context and are often more meaningful if the relevant paiis-df the interview statements are read. However it is expected that readers will apply their bwn experiences and knowledge to the material to decide what is useful and applicable in their own particular circumstances, and will not need to read all of the interview statements.

A list of acronyms used in the report can be found in Appendix 'Er.

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II. Background: The January 1998 Ice Storm in Eastern Ontario

Ice storms are a common event in parts of Canada. Usually they affect a limited area and are an inconvenience for a day or two, mainly because of icy roads. The January 1998 Ice Storm was unprecedented both in the amount of freezing rain that fell and in geographic extent.

"From January 4111, 1998, to the 1011', Canada 's attention was focused on the developinent of a meteorological pattern that would eventually be dubbed the worst ever (ice storm) to hit Canada in recent history. The total water equivalent of precipitation, which fell mainly as freezing rain but also as ice pellets and snow, exceeded 73 min in Kingston, 85 min in Ottawa and 100 mm in areas south of Montreal. (see Figure 1) By comparison, the largest previous recorded ice storms, that of December 1986 in Ottawa and February 1961 in Montreal, left some 30 to 40 mm of ice, less than ha 1f the thickness of the 1998 storm.

As weather conditions unfolde'd,jew understood how far reaching an effect this storm would have on our society: many regular social and economic activities were brought to a halt, necessa y day-to-day routines became either impossible or difficult to conduct, human and animal life becanie endangered. Some 100,000 people had to take refuge in shelters. The sense of urgency, and that of solidarity, grew at a speed only equal to that of the damage left in the wake of the subsequent storm cells. Today, our society is still dealing with the aftermath of the storm."

The St. Lawrence River Valley 1998 Ice Storm: Maps and Facts, Statistics Canada, 1998

In Eastern Ontario more than 600,000 people out of a population of 1,200,000 were without power, some for up to three Wêeks. Whole communities found themselves in the dark.

Electrical and public works crews responded first to the Emergency, repairing downed power lines and removing fallen tree limbs from roads and power lines. Many businesses and factories were shut down to keep people off the roads and residents began the chore of surviving without electricity.

For many, no electricity and downed communications infrastructure also meant no heat, no lights, no TV or radio, no telephone, no water, and a flooding basement. With roads and sidewalks covered with ice, obtaining food and other supplies such as batteries and flashlights (if stores still had some), was difficult. •

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Carte préliminaire des accumulations de pluie verglaçante en mm entre le 4 et le 10 janvier 1998 (Mise à Jour du 4 mars 19,98) Praliminaly rnap of fraezirtg min accumulations in mm between January 41h and 19th, 1998 (Upàted on March 4th, 1998)

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r L e BE n v r r n" B t Canada "

Figure 1

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• Emergency workers were faced with a situation that would get worse before it would get better. Poor communications and bad weather hampered efforts to determine the extent of the damage. Added to this was the difficulty of getting people outside the affected area to understand the real impact of the storm:

"Emergency Measures Ontario did not have a complete feel for the storm from Januau 7th — 11 m. Throughout the disaster it was difficult to track the precise situation in Eastern Ontario from Toronto. Only someone there could be sure of the local situation."

Joe Scanlon, Ottawa-Carleton and the 1998 Ice Storm: Sharing the Lessons Learned, Draft Report for RMOC, pg.27

A worker from the City of Kingston kept saying to her husband (who was in Toronto), in an attempt to get him to come home "You don 't know what it's like. It's not an ordinaty ice storm."

Fortunately, it was a disaster with little trauma, and relatively few lives were lost. Many people did suffer however. Especially the poor and infirm who are least capable of looking after themselves; and fanners, who had difficulty watering livestock and milking dairy cows. But for most people, living without electricity amounted to an enormous inconvenience. •

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The storm brought out the best in people and communities pulled together to look after themselves. •

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Volunteers quickly became the backbone of the emergency response (particularly in the rural areas), doing door-to-door checks, working at shelters, driving people where they needed to go, and obtaining and : delivering supplies. Volunteer firefighters and others drove around the countryside with generators to water livestock and pump out flooded basements.

"I think if God had a purpose for this storm I think it was to make us not look inwardly at ourselves, [but] to help other people, and to bring people together ...make us a bit more caring. We had friends helping friends and strangers helping strangers."

Bruce Wylie, CFJR Radio, Brockville

"I think the success of what we got through and how we got through this was people helping people, as much and in some cases more than emergency services. Because we [emergency workers] didn't even know what was going on in a lot of cases."

Glenn Gow, Fire Chief, City of Kingston

Emergency responders worked tirelessly, often in cold, wet, snowy conditions. For many it was a very positive experience:

" ...[the ice storm] was the most exciting experience of our lives." Kevin Collins, Bell Canada

"It was a great deal of fun. It was like being away at sunnner camp. We were literally all living together."

Cheryl Mastantuono, City of Kingston

" [From an emergency management experience point of view] it was great. It was fabulous. It's the only way to go. There's nothing like being a part of it...to be in that, you can't buy that kind of experience. You can't go to enough courses to learn that."

Wan-en Leonard, Toronto Police Service, City of Toronto

"I wouldn't have missed it for the world. I was very, very fortunate and lucky, I think to have been part of it, particularly what we did [door to door checks]."

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Bob Napier, Staff Sergeant, City of Kingston Police

"I have said to many people that this was the most exhilarating time in my presidency. It's very rare that a university president can tell someone to do something and it gets done right away."

Bill Legett, Principal Queen's University, Kingston

"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 gratifting...that you were helping somebody that was beyond helping themselves".

Wayne Brydges, Ministry of Transportation, Kingston

While emergency workers were out trying to keep others safe and healthy, their families were at home trying to cope without them, which added to the stress on the workers, many of whom returned to a cold, dark house after working long shifts.

Some residents had few difficulties, even treating it like an adventure, "camping out" in their living rooms in front of the fireplace. But the effects were very different for others:

"From one side of the street to another would often be a totally different story. Glenn Gow recalled one man who came into number I station more than once during the storm for help with problems at home. 'His wife was bedridden, and his basement was flooded, but they wouldn't leave their house. Until it collapsed they weren't going to leave their house, that was all there was to it ... He had generators, but we went up and did an oil change for him on it at one point. Like most other people, he didn't know you had to change the oil on the generators; you can't leave them running, you've got to go out and do those kinds of things or you end up blowing them out, which we had many, many blown throughout the community ... Anyway, he came out on I think it was day three or four. His neighbour across the street started talking about how pretty it was, and he immediately broke down and crie. d in front of his neighbour across the street. This neighbour never even understood why he was so emotional about what had just happened. For three days: having to bail his basement out and having to try to keep his wife warm in the bedroom, coming down to the fire hall to get drinking water. He just didn't understand.'"

from the interview with Glenn Gow, Fire Chief, City of Kingston

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"[The ice storm] divided .the world into those who could cope and those who couldn't, and the doctors among them...there were the helpers and the helped. And we all received help. That's always good."

Dr. Ruth Wilson, Family Medicine Centre, Kingston

Shelter workers were upset seeing people who already had a lot of stress in their lives, trying to cope with so much more than usual:

"That kind of weighs heavy even if you're helping them. You can't make it go away, you can only help them. So that was stressfid, too, after the fact."

Adelle LaFrance, City of Kingston

There were people living better at the shelters than they live on a daily basis. The last people to leave the shelters in Kingston were the homeless. A number of people (especially seniors) commented on'how much better the food was at the shelters than at home.

That residents of eastern Ontario got through the disaster as well as they did is also due in large part to the resources that came from outside.

The Canadian Armed Forces deployed 15,000 troops to storm stricken areas in Canada, the largest peace-time deployment in Canadian history. Troops set up communications networks, supplied generators, ran warehouses, cleared debris from roads, did door-to-door checks, and helped at shelters.

Hydro and forestry crews came from across Canada and the United States, many not charging for their services or the use of their equipment. Electrical wire carne from as far away as Texas and hydro poles were shipped from British Columbia and California.

Eastern Ontario and other areas hit hard by the ice storm will be a long time recovering. Workers are still fatigued and flickering lights continue to make people nervous. Hopefully people and organizations are now better prepared to deal with the next big emergency. The lessons presented here are intended to help other communities become better prepared as well.

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III. Lessons

A. TRAINING AND PLANNING

( i ) Training

1. Prior training proved to be very useful. Several responders said "Emergency training was key." (Most responders had no previous emergency training). There was universal praise for the emergency courses given at the CEPC in Amprior from all those who had taken courses there.

2. More municipal employees and politicians should receive emergency training.

3. Council members should be trained to communicate with the public.

4. All new municipal politicians and staff should receive some emergency training.

5. At least 2 staff (preferably 3) should be trained for each position set out in the Emergency Plan to allow for: people being unavailable; shift rotation; and staff turnover.

6. Train collectively.

'7A1 Melvin] stressed the need for people to get formal, collective training. The police and the military are us. 14' ally in a leadership role, but collective training could make their jobs easie' r because each person or section will understand what everybody else does, and this will prevent duplication of efforts: 'When you break down the emergency operations center, you have got your logistical support staff your media relations, communications; you have got people who are taking care of generators, supplies, break' all that down onto a chart to show exactly who is where, who is doing what and who is responsible, and have them train collectively in that format: We never really saw, until the first week, an actual break down. When we moved over to the Pittsburgh Gore Road office, that's when the actual structure came up on a board. We said, `okay, here is the actual structure, here is the EOC manager,' so we knew where we were on what we call the food chain. But I think it is very important that you have that flow chart, that chain of command, i f you will, that structure before the start of it.'"

from the interview with Constable Al Melvin, City of Kingston Police

7. Mock disaster training proved to be beneficial.

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8. Training in running shelters is needed. (Health Canada has a series of publications available that deal with emergency lodging, food, clothing, personal services and registration and inquiry) •

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9. Parts of Emergency Plans should be exercised regularly — plans can then be fine- tuned.

10. Train skilled volunteers for emergency work.

11. Train all municipal employees in first aid and CPR and cross-train employees so they can operate numerous pieces of equipment.

12. Train responders in the legalities that effect emergency response. Issues arising during the Ice Storm included:

a) can/how do you force someone out of their home b) legal position of volunteer workers c) legality of commandeering resources d) legal position of municipal staff working in another municipality

13. "Establish and appoint key leaders and decision makers. As some managers will not be available, all managers need a working understanding of certain other departments to enable them to cover areas not normally within their jurisdiction. They need enough knowledge to be able to determine what procedures can be streamlined, what are the core essentials, and what can be deferred. This sort of flexibility comes from long-tern team building with clusters of people. Both managers and staff have to know they can make decisions and will be supported."

Hospital Quarterly, Dave G. Hunter, Delores MacDonald, Linda Peever-Spring 1998

(ii) Planning Process

1. A municipal emergency co-ordinator should be appointed who is responsible for keeping the Emergency Plan up-to-date. This person should not be a consultant, but rather a municipal employee.

2. Use a loose-leaf binder format for the Emergency Plan so updates can be made easily and other important information can be inserted dtu-ing an emergency.

3. People from all the various agencies and groups involved in emergency response should be involved in emergency planning, training and exercising including: • police • fire

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• ambulance • utilities • public works

• • social services • parks and recreation • mapping/GIS services • Red Cross • Salvation Army • Community Care Access Center • Victim Crisis and Referral Service • Hospitals • School Boards/Principals and Vice-Principals • Amateur radio operators/ARES • armed forces • YMCA • Legions • volunteer groups and individual volunteers • businesses, industries, and institutions • media • seniors' homes, special care homes, etc. • community groups • neighborhood watch groups • Emergency Measures Ontario

4. Emergency planning should be .done and reviewed by people who are going to be on the hot seat during an emergency and people involved in prior emergencies.

5. Emergency Plans should include up-to-date lists of municipal and community resources and where they can be found, including information on how to access these resources outside of normal business hours.

7. Emergency Plans should include up-to-date lists of municipal employees and volunteers together with their skills, and phone numbers and addresses at work and home.

"Regardless of what an up-to-date emergency plan might have said, 'my most powerfill tool was having all the staff home phone numbers.' This enabled the collection of information about who was doing what, which was crucial to planning the response to the crises. It allowed a reporting structure for things to happen efficiently while allowing for staff to respond to their personal and community emergencies. He doubted that anything that he knew in a traditional emergency plan would have helped in the ice storm situation. They did learn a lot from the ice storm that may find its way into the emergency plan either general or specific to an ice storm."

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from the interview with Gerry Mulder, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources

"It would have been a lot easier for me to call people i f I had some leind of a staff inventory, or telephone fan-out. It would have been nice to have an inventory of skills of staff, which might be needed in response to the emergency."

Marvin Valensky, Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services, Kingston

7. A list of vulnerable groups and individuals should be kept up to date. A list of critical infrastructure (treatment plants, pumping stations, hospitals, etc.) should be maintained.

8. Keep hard copies of lists mentioned in #5 and #6, and #7.

9. Plan to use resources inside and outside the cominunity.

10. Include public awareness and education in the planning process, since initial response in a disaster is often by the victims themselves. Stress preparedness of individuals and families; one interviewee suggested households should plan to be able to look after themselves for 2-3 days.

11. Communications, both internal and external should be a planning priority.

12. Consider prevention and mitigation of disasters when planning.

13. Try to build some redundancy into resource planning. Both Brockville Psychiatric Hospital and Kingston Psychiatric Hospital had extra room and were used extensively as shelters. If communities lose these types of resources through restructuring, dealing with the next emergency will be more difficult.

14. Planning needs to consider . how to respond when the resources you noimally have aren't there (e.g., -electricity, phone lines, fuel, etc.)

( ill ) Emergency Plans — General

1. "The importance of having an emergency plan hit home to the municipalities who either didn't have one or who hadn't updated it for a while. EMO were handing out pamphlets and guidelines which now municipalities will take very seriously." •

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Terry Eccles, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources

2. The Emergency Plan provided a structure and eliminated duplication of effort.

3. Emergency plans and planning processes need to be kept simple so that emergencies can be responded to quickly and easily.

4. Every emergency is so different that you can only do a limited amount of useful preplarming — don't develop individual protocols but set out responsibilities for each group.

"As the Ice Storm of 1998 proved, there is no way to fully identifi, and understand the nature and scope of emergency situations that have not been ex_perienced before. Inclusion of many outside resources such as volunteers, community groups, provincial and federal agencies, etc. helps make the plan comprehensive in identifting who can help and how they can help. Therefore, the plan is focused primarily on the management of emergency situations rather than on providing detailed information on specific emergencies."

1998 Ice Storm Report on Emergency Operations, Cluis Powers, City of Nepean Fire Chief, March, 1998

5. Emergency Plans should be functional and uncluttered — short, simple, and flexible.

6. Plans must emphasize getting the right people together — not step by step procedures.

7. Emergency Plans need to include planning for wide-scale emergencies like the Ice Storm, not just single point emergencies.

8. "The emergency plan cannot provide detailed instructions on handling all types of emergencies, but rather attempts to idente responsibilities of municipal departments and other agencies to match resources with needs of residents and to _provide the structure to do so, that is efficient and effective."

1998 Ice Storm Report on Emergency Operations, Chris Powers, City of Nepean Fire Chief, March, 1998

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9. Emergency Plans should clarify the roles of politicians, staff, and outside agencies including the Red Cross and Salvation Army; consider signing contracts with outside agencies.

10. Harold Tulk, Fire Chief for the City of Brockville, sums it up this way:

"...the most interesting observation that I make as a person that's been developing emergency plans for some 20 years... it's been the hardest sell document in the municipal sector and you have to be diligent and tenacious in having people pay attention to the damn thing and the way I always sold it was it was a management tool as well as an emergency response tool because it gave everybody a snapshot overview of what each department does. But the beauty of this one, and this is a personal observation, nobody had to open the binder ... and I'll be damned if they didn't follow the process step by step...and that confirmed one thing; that all that training, all that practice, all the arguments I had with them to pay attention to it, paid off The key players didn't have to open the binder.., we kept this thing . sing,. le .. we always believed that if we have a process to bring the right people toge. ther that they can evaluate the situation and make good quality decisions for the community.. that's what that plan is premised on...not how to do it, but who was responsible, and that's what we think is the right approach now... we've confirmed... the plan should never tell you how to manage anything it should make damn sure that the right person's there to manage it -.

11. The overall municipal Emergency Plan should be supplemented by Emergency Plans for individual departments.

12. Do not over plan. This disaster showed that people had to be prepared for almost anything.

13. Concentrate on planning for the consequences, don't spend time trying to measure risk.

14. Local and Regional Emergency Plans need to be compatible.

15. Emergency Plans should be hamionized with mutual aid arrangements for fire.

16. Smaller municipalities should consider joint emergency plans.

17. Formalize "twirming" — the pairing of a municipality outside the disaster area with a municipality inside.

18. Emergency Plans, especially in larger municipalities should include provisions for

1111, expanding emergency activities beyond municipal boundaries.

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"Smaller rural municipalities were less prepared for the organization and the finding of resources to get things like shelters up and running."

John Finlay, Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Brighton

"Contacting the surrounding municipalities should be part of the emergency plan. The plan didn't contemplate this type of disaster. One of the first steps should have been to immediately isolate the area affected and figure out who was responding for each area right away. Emergency Measures Ontario perhaps should have done that. Kingston eventually did it, in a fairly rough way. The EOC was never able to be certain that it wasn't duplicating efforts because occasionally it would send crews off with a generator, only to find that some other relief centre had already sent one too.

The City was eventually asked by the Province to send its emergency response effort into the region, but the cit.); had already done so on its own and had talked to the Province about it. There was some nervousness about it on the part of the EMO, and even some denial, because, bureaucrats being what they are, there is some question about what happened. Most of what Kingston, as the western-most region affected, did that was regional was freight-forward materials that had been shipped from Toronto to make sure everyone got what they needed."

from the interview with Gardner Church, interim CAO, City of Kingston

(iv) Emergency Plans — Specifics

1. Have emergency supplies on hand and back-up power arrangements for locations used by responders.

2. Prepare public service announcements ahead of time. (e.g., on staying warm; hypothermia; use of generators, space heaters, wood stoves, kerosene lamps; food safety; water safety; medications; security for homes, what to do before the power comes back on; how to get help; carbon monoxide poisoning; home escape planning; smoke alarms; what to bring to a shelter; downed transformers; railway crossings; traffic signals; coping with a crisis; donated food; pets; caring for the fi-ail; injury prevention; etc., etc.

3. Include shelter planning in the emergency planning process, including shelters for pets.

4. Include planning for evacuations of hospitals, retirement homes, etc.

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5. The Emergency Plan should include measures for dealing with: critical incident stress in responders; the needs of the responders' families and homes; and compensation for responders.

6. All key positions set out in the Emergency Plan should have a primary person designated and 2 alternates.

7. An EOC manager should be appointed and EOC locations chosen and equipped ahead of time — have an EOC kit ready to go.

8. Establish a protocol for responding: e.g.,

-call in, don't wait to be called;

-determine a meeting place ahead of time, in case communications are down;

-establish a phone fan-out procedure; and/or

-ensure senior responders are on a 24hr. pager and have a cell phone.

9. Establish relationships with other key emergency players in your area, perhaps through a CAER (Community Awareness and Emergency Response) Committee. Network! Network! Network!

10. Consider monitoring weather radio and/or contracting with Environnent Canada for customized weather reports. (The City of Brockville Public Utilities Commission monitored custom weather reports and asked for assistance from Brampton early on, before the worst of the storm had hit.)

11. Plan for disengagement, as a small percentage of the public will inevitably corne to rely on the emergency response.

12. Ensure all houses have an address and a number sign.

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B. ORGANIZING THE RESPONSE

1. Remember it is normal to be disorganized at first — it always takes a few days to get organized.

2. Response from outside the affected area was slower than from the inside, because it was difficult to get people to understand what was happening if they weren't in the middle of it. People from outside the area should come and see for themselves what the situation is.

3. To know the nature and scale of what you are dealing with it is important to do reconnaissance — people should be assigned this task (both inside and outside the affected area). An early estimate of the people, services, and equipment required to respond to the emergency is needed.

4. The problem couldn't be managed from Toronto — local managers were needed but required support from head offices (government and non-govermnent).

"During the crisis response, at least telephone communication was maintained at all times with Guelph (OMAFRA's head office). In addition, each evening there was a one to one-and-a-half hour conference call with all the managers and directors at the command ce ntre and the eight or ten managers that were distributed in the east. Wè were updating them and they were telling us what support we could expect. it aS . iniportant to have a pool of people off-site."

John Finlay, Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs, Brighton

"If we needed major items like more generators and pumps, the call would first go out to Trenton. Very earl); on, MNR set up a receiving depot at Canadian Forces Base — Trenton. MNR equipment, normally stored at Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie and Dryden, was flown to Trenton for redistribution during the ice storm response. At the end of each day, an order would be faxed to Trenton. Trenton would reply as to whether they had the item or how long it would take to get it. The fire boss would make the decision as to whether he had the time to wait for it.

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Teny Eccles, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources

5. It is important to keep track of things. This includes staff, volunteers, equipment, donations, purchases, people using shelters, and incoming calls. Computers, maps and accounting staff should be utilized for this job. Duplicate message pads proved useful for keeping records. Having records allows you to match requests

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with offers and volunteers with jobs. Good records also allow you to apply for

11, aid, return equipment to the right place, and thank the right people.

"If you don 't know what you have and you don 't know where it is, you can't effectively deploy resources. Picture trying to do any job; try and bake a cake when you think you might have the ingredients but you don 't know where they are.

Convincing the group of the importance of this step was difficult because they were a bit caught up in the emergency. Dealing with emergencies is not most people 's everyday line of work. [Dealing with emergencies] you learn to save yourself time and aggravation by developing systems and taking good inventory as the emergency is unfolding. A fellow taught me two rules a long time ago, and it downplays the thing, but it's sort of a way of looking at it. Rule number one is 'don 't sweat the small stuff; ' and rule number two is 'it's all small stuff: ' So you sit down and you literally take this thing apart and put it back together. While I'm sure it seemed like a waste of time to them in the beginning, the next day when somebody calls in for a genera-tor, and you go down the list and say 'OK, yeah, we have a 6,500-watt gener ator sitting right here, and you assign a crew to go get it, life is much easier. It's a lot calmer then, because you're not scrambling around looking for resources Y ou're not sure you have..."

Scott Cowden, Toronto Fire Service

"There was no prescribed method for tracking the generators and when they numbered only five, tracking them was not a problem. But as the numbers greiv, a system of numbering each generator and placing correspondingly numbered pins in a map was how she kept track of their whereabouts. Byvelds credits the manager of the farm supply dealership with devising the system."

from the interview with Rita Byvelds, Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Ontario

6. Document procedures so others can take over a job.

7. Record what is happening .for reporting during the emergency and for debriefings after the emergency.

"Issue pocket-sized notebooks to everyone. There needs to be an easy, accessible and retrievable method of recording events. Much trial and error led us to conclude that office-based systems (computers), clipboards, and binders were impractical when people were moving throughout the facility."

Hospital Quarterly, Dave G. Hunter, Delores MacDonald, Linda Peever- Spring 1998

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8. Use cameras to record damage. City of Kingston workers initially filled out occurrence sheets describing the location and nature of the damage. When this proved too time consuming pictures were taken instead. Tape recorders could have been used and would have been faster than filling out the occurrence sheets, but the City didn't have the machines or batteries. Cameras were purchased for the emergency.

9. "The emergency response requires not only canying out day to day operations but also logistics planning (eg. food, shelter, supervision, materials, equipment, fuel, tools, etc. for work crews) and planning for the "what ifs". Time spent in preparation for something that does not happen is not wasted energy."

Hospital Quarterly, Dave G. Hunter, Delores MacDonald, Linda Peever- Spring 1998

10. Strategic planning (thinking ahead beyond the next day) is required.

"Trust and use the prepare' d disaster plan, even if it feels like 'overkill.' It would have been much easier for us to implement the formal components of the disaster plan, then back off if any were not required. Instead, we found ourselves trying to catch up once everyone's time was over-committed to the tasks at hand."

Hospital Quarterly, Dave G. Hunter, Delores MacDonald, Linda Peever- Spring 1998

11. Expect the nature of the response to change over time and expect changing priorities. Set priorities on a day-to-day basis.

"There seemed to be crisis after crisis ...you'd feel as if you had control over one aspect and then something else would happen."

Ben TeKamp, Mayor, City of Brockville

12. A lot of operations planning was done overnight, with crews meeting in the morning for a debriefing and to get their assigm -nents for the day, so no work time in the field was lost.

13. Setting up places for crews to eat together got everybody together for the morning debriefings.

14. Expect an ebb and flow of activity; expect that some people will have very little to do at times when other people are run off their feet.

15. Maintain safety practices at all times. Limit outside work to daylight hours.

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"Safety was one factor that was not overlooked by MNR in favour of following the municipality's wishes. For example, through EMO, two chippers were sent down from Parry Sound to Lansdowne. One was 'a relic fronz 1970's'. After spending 'quite a lot of money to get it working', it was found to have no safety equipment on it. Nor did it have a reverse, in case something got caught in it. MNR made the decision to scrap it. The municipality pressured the MNR to let them use it. MNR refused on the grounds of the safety risk and ended up disabling the machine by removing the battery and switch."

fi-om the interview with Gen-y Mulder, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources

16. Expect frequent meetings, especially at the beginning.

17. Ensure Control Group meetings focus on planning and decision-making, and not on operational issues. This helps keep the meetings shorter and focused on the issues the Control Group should . be dealing with.

18. All disciplines including the private sector and military should be at the Control Group meetings. Allowing a lot of people to attend the meetings helps to keep everybody informed.

19. Ensure no one is taking phone calls during a control group meeting.

20. Ensure people answering the phones get information as soon as it is available (eg. Press releases, Control Group meeting minutes.

21. Create Control Group meeting minutes as the meeting is taking place so they are available immediately after the 'meeting (this can be done using a computer).

22. Work in pairs and use the buddy system so someone can be trained to take over, and people can keep an eye on each other for stress. This is true for all types of workers from Control Group members to volunteers.

23. If you can't attend a Control Group meeting, send someone in your place so the information flow continues.

24. Don't change things unless you have made an obvious mistake — changes result in confusion. Once someone is trained to do a job, keep them doing the same job; once a contact is established for something try to make sure that person remains the contact throughout the emergency.

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25. Don't assign the sanie task to, more than one person. In the City of Kingston people would carry out an assigned task only to find out someone else had been assigned the same task and it was already done. This resulted in a duplication of effort and a lot of frustration.

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"There was 'a little bit of conflict' between the players in the response, but not much. One thing the City didn't do well enough was manage conflict when two or three people did the saine job at the same time. Obviously it was wrong to have two or three people doing the same job at the saine time, but it was inevitable.

When you had resources being sent out of Brockville, resources being sent out of Kingston, resources being sent out of Ottawa, and resources being sent out of Toronto, it wasn't surprising that occasionally a crew would get to an einergency site and find out that somebody else had already solved the problem. And it was deeply frustrating to people, and we had a lot of people getting angry around those issues: 'God dammit I've wasted an hour driving all the way out to the boonies here, and lo and behold the Red Cross has been here for an hour and a half, why wasn't I told?' Thump ., thump, thump. Several people responded to an emergency call, because the person in dire straits phoned everybody they could think of and we all responded. There were some instances in which we got there first and heard later that others had gotten there.

The redundancy occasiona oi-iginated in City Hall, but in most cases it was because the person in disiress called several people for help, and several people responded.

from the interview with Gardner Church, interim CAO, City of Kingston

26. Look at the emergency as a long term one and set up operations to last indefinitely.

"If the exact duration of a disaster situation is unknown, anticipate a lengthy period at the earliest stage of planning. This will be important for such issues as staggering tiines off for for a limited number of staff"

Hospital Quarterly, Dave G. Hunter, Delores MacDonald, Linda Peever- Spring 1998

27. "The emergency response part of it is our business, so we practice for it all the time. When you make decisions, you make sure that you get all the facts fi-om everybody, and you talk to the people who are going to have to carry out whatever it is, and find out what the best methods are for doing that under the conditions we were under. So we just followed those procedures. There wasn't anything that was really difficult for us to make decisions on."

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• Glenn Gow, Fire Chief, City of Kingston

28. "The response of the MNR fire crews is so practiced that it is automatic. Their organizational skills were a great benefit to the municipalities they were here to help.

The crews initially came to cut wood but stayed to organize the response to the emergency. Their (the MNR crews) experience with fire fighting was a tremendous help here for the municipalities. They just set up their organization the same way they would move into a fire situation and it worked extremely well. I think you can adapt that to any type of eniergency."

Terry Eccles, OntarioMinistry of Natural Resources

29. "Allow for some trust, flexibility and the bypassing of usual bureaucratic processes to expedite getting on with the job at hand."

Hospital Quarterly, Dave G. Hunter, Delores MacDonald, Linda Peever- Spring 1998

30. Egos need to be dropped, so everybody can get on with the job at hand.

31. "The way things unfolded was the best way to meet the particular challenges of this ice storin. It is doubtfitl that classical organizational theory and command structures would work. You just go with the flow and do the best you can. Empower people. Take some risk with them. Mentor more people to participate. The effective organization was very flat. It didn't matter who was management or bargaining unit, professional, non-professional, you did whatever had to be done. Now you had to run your hospital the way you would run a hospital but outside of that, when it came to helping so many other people, you just did what you had to do and whoever was able, did."

Wayne Barnett, Kingston Psychiatric Hospital

"It was critical that the administrator did not call an internal disaster because by not doing so, options were kept open for people to do what was necessary and not just what was prescribed [by the internal disaster procedure] ."

Beverley Jones, Kingston Psychiatric Hospital

32. "No matter how enticing it is for administrative staff to roll up their sleeves and work along with eveiyone else to get the job done, those charged with managing a disaster must attend to those perhaps less rewarding, control-group and

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command-centre functions. From our experience, managers must find a balance of planning and doing, as staff morale is indeed positively affected when all levels participate in the front line activity".

Hospital Quarterly, Dave G. Hunter, Delores MacDonald, Linda Peever- Spring 1998

33. Business resumption and access to money is critical for enabling people to look after themselves during an emergency; effort should be expended on keeping /getting businesses back up and running. This is especially true in small centers where there are no alternatives to the one local grocery store or bank.

"Lack of cash was a problem. Debit and credit cards were not useable as they rely on electrical power for their transactions. During the second week, after dark in Alexandria, I came upon one of those bank machines in the middle of a parking lot. It was hooked up to a generator and there was a Brinks truck feeding it money. I bet there were people from 50 miles around there to get money from this bank machine."

Kathryn Moore, Ministry of Transportation, Kingston

34. Remember that you will need to decide how and when to stand down and tum off the supply tap.

35. Visibility of politicians, 'police, fire, ambulance, and military is reassuring to people in a disaster.

"Studies show that crime rates tend to fall during disasters but that the public does not believe this and wants extra police patrols for reassurance."

Joe Scanlon, Ottawa-Carleton and the 1998 Ice Storm: Sharing the Lessons Learned, Draft Report.

36. Use a situation board to convey information instantly. (One Canadian Tire store in Kingston adopted this technique, displaying a list of items in high demand that were not in stock at the time).

37. Use unlisted phone numbers and keep them unlisted.

38. Remember that dairy herds and other livestock need to be looked after as well as people.

39. Don't use armouries as warehouses, because they may be needed to house soldiers.

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40. There is often a clash between military and civilian cultures. Police officers are

•

used to dealing with both cultures and can help smooth relations.

41. Consider screening volunteers. This is a delicate issue but can be very important. In the City of Kingston Social Services was instrumental in screening volunteers; also use the police to do background checks.

42. Have visible ID or marking for staff and volunteers. This can be planned for ahead of time.

43. Ensure your equipment is kept in good shape and maintained properly. Fire trucks need to be kept warm, so fire halls should not be used for shelters during the emergency.

44. Identify people with special needs. Neighborhood watch volunteers may be able to help. Neighbors, especially in rural areas, were crucial in identifying high-risk situations.

45. In rural areas sending a local person with military personnel to do door-to-door checks worked well. The local person knew where to go, often knew the people they were calling on and the military provided vehicles, communications, and a reassuring presence.

46. Use a banker to help collect and record donations.

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C. COMMUNICATIONS

I . "Biggest issue is communication always in an emergency." Wilsie Hatfield, Dupont, Maitland and Community Awareness and Emergency Response (CAER)

"Communications were 'lousy'. Communications on all these things are lousy. Anything we get involved in, communications are always a problem. It doesn't come as a surprise at all that communications were a problem. Ask any policeman what happens when there's an event, whatever it is, and what could have been fixed, it's communications."

Bob Napier, City of Kingston, Police

"The inability to communicate was the most serious problem that the 1VITO 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 Regional Centre Group of that knowledge. They felt uncomfortable assuming that the highways were safe because they did not know."

Wayne Brydges, Ministry of Transportation

"The hardest thing to understand about the whole ice storm is how dependent we really are on communications. I think that was the biggest eye opener that I saw."

Constable Al Melvin, City of Kingston Police

2. "Lesson #1 is that robust communications are needed". Bruce Stock, Emergency Measures Ontario

3. Communications was the most time consuming problem...the weakest link.

4. "The biggest task was to keep the public up to date and informed — that's the number I communication issue".

Marg Verbeek, Regional Municipality of Kitchener Waterloo

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"What the people really appreciated in Boucherville was our always telling them exactly what was going on."

Francine Gadbois, Mayor, Boucherville, Quebec

5. "Public information is never enough and we've got to become more innovative...maybe use the school board network."

Harold Tulk, City of Brockville, Fire Chief

6. Robust, redundant communications systems are needed. Back-up power is required for towers and offices.

"It was decided that what was really needed is a communication infrastructure that doesn't rely entirely on power. The problem is how we do that. A mobile emergency unit was an idea."

Rita Byvelds, Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Kingston

7. Ensure telephone systems will work without power; change the voice mail system to suit emergency needs.

"Shut down all but a few selected voice-mail boxes. For us the voice-mail system presented two problems. Many staff members were phoning in to their supervisors, leaving voice-mail messages as to their unavailability or phone numbers where they could . be contacted. Unfortunately if the supervisor was unable to report to work, no one could access these messages."

Hospital Quarterly, Dave G. Hunter, Delores MacDonald, Linda Peever- Spring 1998

8. Keep some phone numbers private and guard these numbers jealously; give the private numbers to the media. Issue phone numbers daily.

9. Ensure emergency facilities have lots of phone lines.

10. Call centers and 1-800 numbers for the public to call worked well. Residents got current information "and that was key". Ensure people answering the phones are well trained and the call centers get new information as soon as it is available. Get head sets for people answering the phones.

11. The radio was invaluable for getting information out to the public. Ensure one

11, radio station can broadcast to your entire municipality.

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12. Cell phones proved to be extremely useful, especially for people working out in the field. This instant communication was important, did not have the delay of voice mail or pagers.

• 13. Amateur (ham) radio equipment and operators were an important life-line —

sometimes the only means of communication. Install towers ahead of time at shelters and other emergency facilities.

14. Put ARES members on alert early on, when phones are still working and have them stand-by on their radios.

15. Amateur radio can travel with vehicles or people as well as being stationary.

16. CB radios were a life-line.

17. Portable radios were extremely helpful (some systems were brought in from outside the affected area).

18. Having different radio systems and frequencies sometimes meant people couldn't talk to each other, but when one system was down, often another one was up. Harold Tulk, Fire Chief fdr thè City of Brockville argues that the fire department should have a central communications system functionally independent of other emergency services.

19. Programmable radio systems worked "great."

"Kingston Utilities Supplier (Ericsson) sent in extra radios for use during the storm. In the past Utilities had a system where everybody had to talk on the sanie frequency. They replaced it in 1994, and this one is programmable, so you can program different talk groups. So Utilities had different crews on different talk groups, so they could be talking at the saine time, but they would think they were on their own frequency. In the operations centre, they had four or five different base stations with people monitoring the different talk groups. For example, they had one person who monitored only gas leak calls and paid no attention to the electrical calls, `Because if you had everybody on the same system, you'd never be able to pick out the critical stuff

from the interview with Nancy Taylor, City of Kingston, Utilities

20. Ensure there are enough portable radios.

21. Set up a communications protocol for external and internal communications. Part of internal communications is letting the families of responders know what is happening.

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• 22. Appoint a media spokesperson and a press release co-ordinator.

23. Set up press conferences with 5 or 6 senior people; make sure everybody restricts their comments to their own field.

24. Issue shorter media releases so they don't take as long to compose and get out.

25. Try to priorize media fax list (some lists were so long it took several hours to FAX everyone on it); try to use the Internet (e-mail) to distribute information.

26. Use web sites to distribute information.

27. Public service annotmcements were a vital component in minimizing death, injury, accidents, and crimes.

28. Prepare flyers and public service announcements to be handed out door-to-door.

29. Plan for public announcement stations and billboards; use local businesses to disseminate information.

30. Use laptop computers to .take minutes of meetings as you go and distribute minutes immediately after the Meeting.

31. Access to information is needed on a 24/7 (24 hours a day/seven days a week) basis.

32. Consider establishing an emergency radio broadcasting system like the one in the United States.

33. Establish regular meetings with Council. They can feed information back to residents and assist with their contacts in the community.

34. Have liaison persons at the control center and at critical locations for sharing and disseminating information. (e.g., have a liaison person at seniors' homes, so the residents can be kept informed).

35. Ensure pagers can be recharged and have a supply of extra batteries — charging pagers was a problem for many fire departments.

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D. MEDIA RELATIONS

1. The media play a vital role in getting information out to the public. If more media had been available (TV, radio, and newspapers were down in some places) it would have cut down on the phone calls.

"The media is key and critical. Mass communication in this kind of situation is key."

Dr. Ian Gemmill, Kingston Frontenac Lennox and Addington Health Unit, Kingston

2. Expect a lot of requests for information from the media.

3. Contact the media and give them unlisted numbers.

4. Schedule press conferences around media deadlines.

5. Radio was particularly useful: . ISIé\;v announcements can be made any time.

• 6.

Include the media in your emergency plan and consider having the media present at control group meetings.

7. Don't look at the media as an intrusion, look at them like a partner. The normal reporter — interviewer relationship broke down; there was a sense of everybody being in this together.

"[I have] nothing but praise for the way journalists and the media handled their end of things — TV, radio, and nei4. )spapers".

Greg Taylor, Emergency Measures Ontario

8. "The media wanted to be pro-active and help people — to be part of the solution. The media should have been given a chance [to do the right thing] ."

Lynn Haddrall, Kingston Whig Standard- Newspaper

9. Monitor media reports so corrections can be made right away.

10. Some municipalities felt' neglected by CBC radio coverage because they concentrated on the larger centers. When CBC reported that water needed to be boiled in parts of Montreal, other centers (like Kingston) were flooded with calls and a lot of confusion was created. •

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11. Problems with the media occun-ed mostly at shelters, when reporters wanted to conduct interviews and take pictures. Mike Stoneman of the Red Cross explained that shelters should be treated as people's homes and the media has no more right to be there than in someone's bedroom.

Tilly Nelson, Vice-Principal of LCVI had the following reaction:

"Mrs. Nelson had contact with the media and, in fact, put the media out at one point. The media went in and wanted to go through the shelter and even said things like 'this is our crisis, you have to let us in' but there is a Board policy that states that the school will not allow the media to talk to a student without the student's consent. She told them they could go to the cafeteria and speak with adults but they could not speak with students under 18. And they said, 'Well, you're not operating the school right now and it's our storm and we can do whatever we want.' This was one of the local newspapers. They also wanted to go in with cameras to one of the sleeping areas and she said no, that these people are all disadvantaged, they''ve àZlbeen out of their homes for two or three days fit took a couple of days for the P Tess to get there] . They're tired, they're under stress. There's no way that there's consent or even implied consent. When somebody collies in at 7:30 in the morning and wants to take pictures of people sleeping in this gym, they're not going in that gym. They're not taking a picture of one person in that gym sleeping."

12. Some media outlets used volunteers to gather information from the rural areas.

13. Use a well-known authority figure to do interviews with the media (i.e., mayor, police chief) not someone unknown to the public.

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•

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E. SHELTERS

1. A lot of shelters were opened during the Ice Storm. Many, especially in the rural areas, were used very little for overnight accommodation, but were used extensively as drop-in centers — places where people could get warm, eat a hot meal, take a shower, find out what was going on, and visit with neighbours and friends.

"While low use of shelters for overnight accommodations (in a disaster) is not usual, heavy use of these places as drop-in centres is unusual".

Joe Scanlon Ottawa-Carleton and the 1998 Ice Storm: Sharing the Lessons Learned, Draft Report.

2. The number of shelters made it difficult for those in charge to keep track of where they had been set up and which services were being offered. (For instance, the OPP did not have enough staff to have an officer at all 40 shelters in Leeds and Grenville 24 hours/day.)

3. Lots of small shelters resulted in a high level of ownership on the part of those who were running them.

4. Shelters were opened in different types of buildings including schools, legions, hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, fire halls, a snow mobile club house, and jails.

5. Schools make good shelters because people are familiar with school environments, schools are seen as community facilities, they already have an authority and people infrastructure, are on major transportation routes and often have facilities including kitchens, cafeterias, gymnasiums, a public address system, offices, lots of different rooms, and showers.

6. There was tension between City officials and schools officials at school shelters. Authority over schools needs to be clarified. Conflicts arose when the schools were still needed as shelters but school officials wanted to open them for regular classes. There may be a need to blend both activities for a while.

7. As shelters, Brockville and Kingston psychiatric hospitals had extensive back-up power and good facilities but, along with corrections facilities, using them as shelters created stress for people with past associations with these types of facilities. Some seniors reported being reluctant to go to BPH because they were afraid they wouldn't be allowed to go back home.

111. 8. Hospitals were used as shelters, especially for those with special medical needs (e.g., seniors, people recently released from the hospital, and people with chronic

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needs, such as requiring dialysis regularly). In an emergency with more injuries and deaths, the hospitals may not be available so other arrangements for those with medical needs would need to be made.

9. Triage people so they can be sent to the right shelter — where the level of care and the types of beds suit the person's needs.

10. Try not to move people from shelter to shelter.

11. Separate the Emergency Operations Centre from the shelter if possible, because the noise and activity of the EOC interferes with the calm of the shelter.

12. Issues that had to be dealt with at the shelters included: beds (some are too high or too low for certain people); rules for smoking and drinking alcohol (eventually shelters banned alcohol); food safety, especially with donated food; outbreaks of disease; personal security; security for the shelter (some schools had thefts); vandalism; lights in sleeping areas; personal hygiene and showers; separate areas for seniors, families, children, infants, and teens; entertainment and toys; crafts and other activities; laundry; garbage; wheel chair access; parking and parking lot control; routines to ensure quiet times; cleaning ("school custodial staff were great"); phone access for shelter residents (Bell made pay phones free); phone access for shelter workers; acCess to information; checking on the homes of people staying at the shelter.

13. Try to ensure people bring clothing, bedding, and any medications they require.

14. Use medical students to help with health problems.

15. The presence of police and/or commissionaires at shelters was reassuring to people.

"The Conimissionaires were invaluable because they are invariably retired or soon-to-be retired military, or.law enforcement (people who have gone to school to learn about security). They were superb because of their past experience, they were able to give good advice and they were able to work with some of the residents in the shelters or people who lived close to the shelters who would go in to help."

Mike Stoneman, Canadian Red Cross Society, Kingston and District Branch

16. Use a separate entrance for shelter workers and provide separate eating and relaxing areas for workers.

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17. Provide a central place to drop off donations at the shelter; control access to supplies [because some people were taking more than they needed at the time].

18. If residents from special care facilities are being brought to a shelter, bring staff with them since staff know what the residents' needs are.

19. Be prepared to deal with drunk people showing up (one drunk was sent in a taxi to the Salvation Army shelter that deals with people with alcohol problems).

20. Be prepared to deal with parents who don't look after their children (some parents were charged by police with abandoning their children).

21. Red Cross is good at doing registration and inquiry; use a computer to track where people are; use a registration card that people can take with them when they move from one shelter to another so they don't have to re-register.

22. Military can help with registration.

23. Need to have people sign in and out of shelters.

24. Assure people that no information will be given out about where they are if they want their privacy maintained (this may include parolees, ex-convicts, fugitives, and dead-beat parents).

25. De-registration was one of the most challenging things, since most people wanted to leave immediately upon hearing that the hydro was back on. It was a challenge to make sure it was safe for people to go back to their homes.

26. Plan for shutting down the shelters; some people (especially the homeless) became dependent on the shelter and didn't want to leave and some teens were having such a good time together they didn't want to leave either.

27. Remember that the people in the shelters had no other options and that the shelter was a place of last resort for them; treat people with dignity and respect their privacy- the shelter becoMes their home. The media does not have the right to access to the shelters because they are not "public" facilities when people are living there.

"In terms of the shelters, at any point in that shelter when people are in the room where their bed is, that is considered their living residence. Just as I wouldn't come into your bedroom and try to find out if you were there or what you were doing, no one had the right to come in to that building to find out who we had there. And Pin talking about police in particular. This is not an opportunity for them to try and track down all the criminals that they've being trying to track down."

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"People are very vulnerable in these. situations and that space that they're in, as much as possible, has to be held in the saine [regard] as if they were in their own house in their living room or their bedrooin or kitchen. So when you talk about running a shelter, you've got to run it in such a way that people say 'yes, this is home for me'. And until you recognize that and say 'well, sure we have to have some control but we also have to recognize that there's a certain amount of dignity that people have to be treated with... '

Mike had to explain this to the press (including the CBC) on a number of occasions. He finally let them go in to take some pan shots but was generally very resistant to letting them go in. Like I said to them, you wouldn't like me to come into your bedroom with a camera.

Referring again to the media, Mike says he would allow them into the common area so that they would have opportunities for interviews. If a person in the shelter gave permission to have a photo taken or to be interviewed, then that was all right."

Mike Stoneman, The Canadian Red Cross Society, Kingston

28. Let people do what they are trained to do.

"I think the thing that impressed me was the way in which the five different agencies all found what they were good at in the situation, let the other agencies do what they were good at, and just coordinated as we needed to. We didn't even really need to have team meetings the lczst couple of days." [The five groups were] Queen's medical and nursing students, R.M.C. cadets, the Salvation Army, City Social Services, the Red Cross and their own [school] staff

from the interview with Gary Medd, LCVI, Kingston

29. What worked was having a City. of Kingston representative at all the shelters at all times. The Red Cross was happy to have City social services staff at the shelters because they knew the City and were a link to City Hall.

30. On the people who used the shelters...

"Q.E.C.V.I. was the highest need shelter in the community and was 'the most challenging because of the population. Were talking people whose expectations are relatively high and their capacity to be able to deal with the situation is very low.' Mike sczys it was very interesting fulfilling the needs of those people. Many of them were on social assistance and they were used to using the Social Assistance system. The people in the shelters who were not high need would come to the shelter for a hot meal (because that was the only way they could get a hot

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• meal) but would generally prefer to stay at home. "I guess that's one of the unusual circumstances in a disaster, in any situation... People don 't want to leave home when life beyond the walls of their home becomes uncertain." For the most part, individuals stayed in their home because there was a comfort level there and they wanted to protect their environment and have as much control over their lives as they could. For other people there was a need to be nurtured."

• from the interview with Mike Stoneman, Canadian Red Cross Society, Kingston and District Branch

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• F. STAFFING

1. "With a slow-onset emergency like this, it's difficult to know whether to set up shifts or not. When you're starting down the road with this sort of thing ... you say 'we'll start to deal with this,' and then it getting worse and it getting worse ... and the next thing you know you're up to your eyeballs in alligators."

Scott Cowden, Toronto Fire Service

2. Staff shifts must be in place if the emergency is going to last more than 24 hours. Rotate staff and set up shifts early so staff don't bum out. "People made the mistake of thinking this was going to be over soon and over-extended themselves."

3. Don't be afraid to let go — appoint an alternate (or two) and then step down and rest.

Glenn Gow has done some soul-searching about why he was unable to delegate more of his own duties during the emergency. He has already set up a system whereby he (or any future fire chiefi will be relieved more frequently during an emergency, but he still wonders why he delegated so little during the ice storm, and reflects on how hard it is for chiefs to give up control of an incident when they need rest. 'I don 't think it's in our nature for chiefs, or even deputy chiefs, to leave it. But the point [is] that if you don 't get other people involved, you can think you're doing a good job, but other people can realize you're taxed and you're fatigued.'

Glenn Gow already monitors his fire fighters for fatigue ever)) 25 minutes during most incidents, so he understands the need for rest and recuperation. His fire fighters carry half-hour cylinders most of the time, and this forces them to come out of any structure fire on a regular basis. "The reason I do is I want to see my fire-fighters every 25 minutes in a burning building, and the reason I -want to see them is to see what condition they're in and to see i f I want them out or in. Fire-fighters traditionally will not give up. They're usually past the point of no return before they're willing to say anything, and then it's too late for them. And I still think that most of the fire-fighters that are not injured but seriously trapped in a building, are in that position because they went past that 50 per cent recovery part, and the point of no return. Then not to do that myself is kind of the [most important] thing to do, because if you don 't have a capable staff to replace you, then you're a failure as a chief and I don 't happen to think I'm a faihire. So if

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•

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that's the case, then why didn't I use them more than I did? A number of them were prepared to do the job for me, and I did use them in a couple of instances and knew how great it was for them and me. I just need to do more of that. So that will happen. That will happen."

from the interview with Glenn Gow, Fire Chief, City of Kingston

"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 fi rst adrenaline rush I ever had. There was so much happening and it was so gratifting ... that you were helping somebody that was beyond helping themselves. You tend to take the ball and run with i4 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.'"

from the interview with Wayne Brydges, Ministry of Transportation

4. Have visible ID for responders, including volunteers, ready to go. The presence of people in uniforms is reassuring. Use auxiliary police.

5. Make sure staff is well informed about what is happening. Brief and debrief each shift. Greet each new shift and explain what happened and why.

6. "Even when it seems there is no time, find a way to explain [to staff] those decisions that might seem mean-spirited. Explain to staff why they are no longer included in decision-making."

Hospital Quarterly, Dave G. Hunter, Delores MacDonald, Linda Peever- Spring 1998

7. "Those giving instructions must use a different form of communication than usual. Since staff members are being asked to perforin unfamiliar roles while preoccupied with the emotions and concerns related to a crisis, directions often have to be more explicit and step-by-step in detail."

Hospital Quarterly, Dave G. Hunter, Delores MacDonald, Linda Peever-Spring 1998

37

•

•

8. Try to give all staff the opportunity to help out.

9. [In a big institution] set up a system to co-ordinate staff so you know who's there and what they're doing.

10. It is crucial to look after the personal needs of workers — shelter, food, hygiene, sleep, and relaxation. PrOvide the best food and accommodations you can. Ensure clothes can be dried out.

"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 Regional Group quickly got generators to the patrol yards and, through the Ministry Group, got relief patrollers to volunteer from other all over the province. The patrollers fi-om 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 the' ir' fàmilies were trapped at home. Many of the patrollers were also farmers with livestock to worry about."

from the interview with Wayne Brydges, Ontario Ministry of Transportation,

11. Provide a place away from the shelters, where workers can eat and relax.

12. Provide parking for extra personnel and equipment.

13. Have a central meeting place for workers, for briefings and debriefings — a central eating place worked well for this.

14. Deliver hot food to workers in remote areas.

15. Provide a local supervisor (or worker) for each out of town crew.

16. Support the families of workers; communicate with and look after them (set up a shelter and day care for them).

17. Organize volunteers. Handle large groups (eg. RMC cadets) separately from individual volunteers.

• 38

•

•

"There were many groups. of volunteers who tried to help but were lacking leadership or appropriate scheduling of work...and direction"

Vladimir Weisser, Manager of Technical Services, Public Works Department, City of Kingston

18. Motivate volunteers — focus on the positive.

19. Do background checks on volunteers through the police and social services.

20. Pair volunteers and identify them physically.

21. Create ownership by having volunteers do the same job all the time.

22. Assigning work crews to specific areas helped create ownership of the work.

23. "Ann Gay got the opportunity to work along side people she normally wouldn't have had the opportunity to work with. She says it didn't matter whether you were a vice-president or a floor cleaner, you were all in it together."

from the interview with Ann Gay, Kingston General Hospital

24. Need people who know where resources are.

"He doesn't know where the maps came from. 'It was one of those situations where I found myself a couple of people who knew where things were in Kingston, and I latched onto them and basically said 'you're mine.' ... I don 't need a whole lot of high-level commanders. What I need is a couple of Radar 0 'Reillys. They don 't have to be in charge of anything. But you need the people who know where the resources are. They're the ones who really come in handy.'"

from the interview with Scott Cowden, Toronto Fire Service

25. There is a need for a consistent policy for the treatment and compensation of employees during emergencies.

"The Provincial Emergency Plan did not contemplate human resource implications of a widespread, prolonged disaster. The Eastern Ontario Regional Directors have recommended that sub-policy be developed under the provincial

39

•

•

emergency plan, which would dare the rights and entitlements of provincial employees under similar circumstances in the future."

Kathryn Moore, Ontario Ministry of Transportation

26. Ensure there is no lingering resentment over differences in compensation for people who worked during the emergency- both staff and volunteers. Ensure that people will be as willing to give of their time during the next emergency.

27. There is a need for administrators to decide whether to make staff come in (if that option exists) or to let them decide for themselves whether their own personal situation or their own communities take precedence.

28. Be aware that there will be different work cultures amongst responders. The police can help bridge the gap between civilians and the military.

"Hospitals should be awa' re' that there will be a sudden blending of cultures that will require compromise, communication and patience. (We almost towed away military vehicles persistently parked in our fire lanes, but the CEO was scared of drawing sinall-arms fire)"

Hospital Quarterly, Dave G. Hunter, Delores MacDonald, Linda Peever-Spring 1998

29. There was difficulty in the transition period near the end of the emergency when some staff were still working on the emergency, and others were trying to do their regular jobs.

30. Staff who acquired more power and decision-making authority during the emergency found it difficult to go back to their regular jobs.

31. There is a need to ensure all .workers are thanked for their efforts and recognized, not just the hydro crews.

32. "Being adaptable was key to being able to be of real assistance".

Debbie Lavallee, Children's Services provider, Social Services, City of Kingston

• 40

• 33. "The value of generic, multi-skilled knowledge workers was demonstrated by the Ice Storm."

Wayne Barnett, Administrator, Kingston Psychiatric Hospital

34. Have hard hats available for responders working outside (e.g., Volunteer fire-fighters, police officers).

35. To respond effectively try to make sure your own personal situation is looked after.

•

• 41

•

G. Emergency Operations Centers (EOC) and Emergency Control Group 411 (ECG) Meetings

1. Pick EOC's ahead of time.

"[The biggest setback was] not having a place set up, a place ready to have an immediate response. For example, we had to set up an area [to] work fin]. We had to move equipment in there. There is nothing more important, after seeing what has happened, than to have a proper command post, emergency operation center. Anything, any building that's ready to go. Basically, virtually a plug in the wall outlet is a start. And it's probably the most important aspect for success when it comes to responding to emergencies."

Constable Al Melvin, City of Kingston, Police

2. An EOC should be in a building controlled by the municipality but not in a building which is likely to be busy during an emergency such as a police station or fire hall.

3. Do not locate EOC's in shelters, where the noise is disruptive to shelter operations.

4. Locate an EOC where public access can be controlled.

5. Locate an EOC close to a majOr. road.

"You need a major artery for replenishment of supplies. So, clearly with any type of operation, you want to be close to be able to have transport. I mean, you have lost everything else. You have lost communication. You have lost everything, and what is left is your ability to travel and transport. You have to be somewhere [close] to a main artery. So, that would be one of the key things".

Constable Al Melvin, City of Kingston, Police

6. Provide back-up power for the EOC.

7. Have an EOC "kit" ready to go (paper, pens, status boards, etc.)

8. Equip EOC's with phone lines (and capacity to install more), ham radio towers and equipment, fax machine, photo copier, stand alone computers, up-to-date site plans and maps, good acoustics, good lighting, eating areas, and sleeping or rest areas.

9. EOC' s need to have several rooms.

42

10. For a large scale emergency a large EOC is required which includes plenty of parking, meeting rooms, separate rooms and wings for different groups of people to work in, a media room and conference area.

•

•

11. Room in the EOC is needed for representatives of various groups and their alternates.

12. Ensure there is no voice mail on phone lines at the EOC so messages do not pile up.

13. Remember military personnel can help set up an EOC. Appoint an EOC manager.

14. It is difficult to move an EOC — try to pick the right place in the beginning. Pick an EOC where other activities will not need to take priority. Avoid using 2 EOC's. This causes confusion and duplication of effort.

15. A senior level representative frdm each discipline should be present at all ECG meetings. (This was impossible in rural areas where the OPP staff sergeant was in charge of a geographic are a whiCh had 10 or more EOC's). Consider having the County take the lead role to avoid this problem.

16. Ensure the head of Council is at ECG meetings and invite the other politicians.

17. Invite the media to ECG meethigs.

18. Ensure emergency response is co-ordinated through the ECG. Do not spend time on operational issues at ECG meetings — spend time setting priorities and making decisions.

19. Make decisions at the ECG meetings, not privately after the meeting and record those decisions on status boards and in minutes as the meeting is taking place. Minutes should clearly state who is responsible for what.

20. Include a military liaison at the EOC.

21. Keep the public out of the EOC.

22. Use visual information (status boards) so people can get information without having to ask.

43

•

•

•

H. RESOURCES

1. "Remember that it takes time to bring resources to bear on an emergency situation".

Gary Bennett, Mayor City of Kingston

2. "It [the Ice Storm] taught me the next time there's a disaster you should call out all the resources and put people on stand by right from the start because you can always scale back but it's hard to build up."

Mike Stoneman, Canadian Red Cross Society, Kingston and District Branch

3. It is important to do reconnaissance early to determine what the damage is and estimate the supplies that will be required. Try to use helicopters to survey the damage.

4. Know what resources you have and where they are.

5. Determine priorities for resources (during the Ice Storm this was critical for generators). It was easier for outsiders to set priorities than for workers who knew people personally.

6. Find out what supplies, equipment and people (volunteers) are coming so you can prepare ahead of time for their arrival.

7. Resources were obtained through personal contacts (back door) and through EMO and other head quarters/head offices (front door). If resources are obtained through the back door let emergency officials know what you have.

8. Twinning (matching a municipality inside the emergency area with one outside the emergency area) worked well for obtaining resources. New contacts between municipalities were made and new work practices learned.

9. Co-ordinating resources between municipalities would have been helpful.

10. Assign a local person to each out of town crew and give that person the job of keeping track of the personnel and equipment.

11. When sending crews to an emergency area send supervisors and maintenance people as well.

12. Be prepared to organize, house and feed out of town crews.

44

13. It is important to liaise with head offices because they have good connections for II securing resources.

14. Suppliers were flexible during the emergency and remained open 24 hours a day.

15. During the Ice Storm emergency, some of the resources required were: facilities for storing vaccines; back-up pharmacies for filling prescriptions; portable stop signs for intersections where the traffic signals were not working; a database so doctors could be contacted; and insurance for equipment such as generators which people were willing to loan.

16. Not only were resources such as generators and chainsaws required but also people to operate and maintain them.

17. Think about how you will tum the faucet off so you do not end up with a lot of extra supplies you do not need.

18. Be prepared to deal with donated food.

19. Be prepared to help other mtmicipalities in future emergencies.

•

• 45

•

•

•

I. RESPONSES SPECIFIC TO THE ICE STORM EMERGENCY

1. People wanted to know when their power was going to be back on so they could decide whether to stay in their homes or make other arrangements.

2. Snow plows were used to clear the roads of trees and branches. (This was made possible when the whole hydro grid in an area was shut down).

"We were just plowing, literally plowing trees off the streets. It was incredible." Mark Fluhrer, City of Kingston

3. Clearing branches off lines early minimized damage to hydro wires.

4. The services provided changed throughout the emergency.

"The ever-shifting demands' and predictions of severity around this disaster meant that we had to be prepared for almost anything."

Hospital Quarterly, Dave G. Hunter, Delores MacDonald, Linda Peever-Spring 1998

5. Social Services and Hydro 'were :the lead agencies, not police and fire as is usually the case. "This was an unusual emergency because it happened so gradually — there were no policing issues in the usual sense."

Bob Napier, City of Kingston Police

6. Staff suffered more from fatigue than stress. There was little need for Critical Incident Response except for farmers (due to the stress created by the financial costs).

7. Door to door checks were done at all residences and a "white flag" campaign used (people in need were encouraged to tie something white to their mail box or an upstairs window).

8. Volunteers were instrumental in the response to the emergency.

9. Landing zones for helicopters were needed and had to be located, measured and marked (a 40-metre diameter circle is required).

10. Generators were the most sought after piece of equipment. Generator working groups were established at the Federal, Provincial and municipal levels of government.

46

11. Restrictions and requirements for transporting over-sized, over-weight and otherwise restricted items were waived through MTO to facilitate the emergency response. •

•

•

12. Fuel was a critical commodity in short supply because it couldn't be pumped. Fuel trucks were brought in to fuel equipment and fuel was taken from unused equipment.

13. There were a number of issues for people staying in their homes including food safety, water safety, and medication safety.

14. Grader ice blades were in great demand and were brought in from throughout Canada and the United States.

15. Milk went to the United States to be processed, which was unprecedented.

16. People were asked not to corne into work and many businesses and factories shut down.

17. Criteria needed to be developed for when to force people to leave their homes and when to allow people to return io their homes.

18. In some areas what power there was, was shut down, so crews (hydro, fire, and roads mainly) could work without fear of being electrocuted. This greatly enhanced the speed of work, especially near the beginning of the emergency.

19. Wood chips created by chipping downed trees and branches are an environmental hazard and their disposal has become problematic.

"MTO's big task right now is to, safely and in an environmentally sound way, dispose of a half-million cubic metros of wood chips in eastern Ontario. That is enough to cover Highway 401 from the middle of Toronto to the Quebec border to a depth of 5 cms. There is hope that technologies, such as biomass conversion to energy, may emerge to use the chips as a resource. In the short term, MTO is researching the opportunities to stockpile the chips. MTO does not want to landfi ll or otherwise dispose of something that might be a resource."

Kathryn Moore, Ontario Ministry of Transportation

20. Stiffer than usual sentences were agreed to for people committing crimes during the Emergency. The word was put out through the media that there would be special "ice storm sentencing".

21. "Ten Provincial Parks sustained a lot of physical damage. The public areas will be cleaned-up and made safe but much will be left alone to study the long-term

47

• ecological impact of the ice storm as an event that will benefit some species and hurt others. The ice storm is a research opportunity."

Marie-France Bernier, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources

22. Downed transformers created PCB spills that were dealt with by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment.

"As time passed and MOE heard from Ontario Hydro and some of the utilities, it was apparent that there were so many spills that their task became an exercise in keeping track of how many and where the spills were. From Bishop's perspective, a PCB spill is usually contained and 'given the nature of the weather ... as long as we knew where (the spill) was, at some point, somebody could go and clean it up. It wasn't an immediate emergency. It was more a case, in my opinion, of trying to keep track of the stuff

John Bishop, Ontario Ministry of Environnent

23. People were reluctant to leave their homes especially the elderly. Many people did not want to leave pets behind.

24. Provisions for looking after pèts were inadequate.

• 48

•

•

J. MAPS

1. "The need for accurate maps, software and information tracking systems was a constant."

Bruce Stock, Emergency Measures Ontario

2. Maps and corresponding civic address lists are needed for door-to-door checks.

Constable Al Melvin of the Kingston Police Force, who was one of 2 officers in charge of door-to-door checks explained how they were organized:

"We still have maps, 'war maps' set up for the whole city. That was one of the fi rst things we did. And to this day, we still have a command post that's ready to operate, if anything ever happened to this city. Sgt. Major Finn, from the military, was keeping the maps up to date. As well, whenever we received information, we would always get together to review the information and to update the maps. So, if one of us was gone for whatever reason, doing another task, then whoever was present would just update— the nup on the actual war maps, drawing on them because even) day was a new map. And every day was a virtually new area too. We were having these areas to be searched. We were identeing priority areas initially, and we would actually photocopy portions of a map. What areas and what streets. If the streets were large enough, we would break down the police members who were present into teams, and give them a map with a planning order. These are the areas that need to be done. Your area to look at and check is here. Here are a bundle of flyers. We had arranged transportation for them. We had arranged food for them. We had to have everything set up, so they knew where to go and what they were doing. They are out all day but they come back at lunch time. They tell me or Staff Sergeant Napier they have accomplished the area. We checked it off the board. We had a visual record of every area that's been searched."

3. Maps were used to keep track of generators (by using colour-coded pins).

4. Maps were used to keep track of where power was on or off by color coding streets and areas. Maps like this convey a lot of information quickly.

5. Maps were needed for out-of-towners to find their way around.

6. There is a need for maps produced by a GIS system that can be modified in detail and scale to match the use they are being put to.

7. "Finally, there were continual problems of communications because different

•players had their own maps. This often lead to confusion. Each Ministry has its own language and one of the main things was maps, producing maps that were

49

• consistent and showed stuff There were a variety of maps. The military had its own maps. Hydro had its own system of maps. There were township maps, road maps. It got thoroughly confusing. Regional Roads, for example, found it needed to provide maps for drivers bringing in supplies and delivering them to places inside and outside the Region."

Joe Scanlon, Ottawa-Carleton and the 1998 Ice Storm: Sharing the Lessons Learned. Draft Report pg. 67

• 50

• K. BACK-UP POWER

1. The 1998 Ice Storm showed there is a need for back-up power (or generator hook-ups) at shelters, seniors homes, police, fire and utilities facilities, emergency operations centers, hospitals, jails, radio stations, sewage pumping stations, water purification plants, and for fuel supplies (or have a manual pump available).

2. "In terms of the environment and his job, Bishop was very pleased that the back- up equipment worked as it should and that there was no permanent damage to the environment.

Bishop said that for years MOE has been urging utilities to install stand-by generators in case of power failure. The ice storm is an event that proves their value. 7t 's kind of like Hurricane Hazel. In ternis of designing for things in the future, we will be able to point at Ice Storm '98 and say, there is an example of the kind of thing that we are trying to guard against' ."

John Bishop, Ontario Ministry of Environment

3. When installing back-up power put surge protectors on the main circuit and test to make sure the back-up power iS hooked up to the right things.

4. Change from electric heat to another form of heating in emergency response buildings because electric heat requires too much generator power.

5. Have back-up power available for computers to access maps and critical information.

6. Electronic locks may fail without back-up power.

• 51

• L. GENERATORS

1. There are many different types of generators that serve different purposes. Find a way to match needs with the generators available. The generator working group at EMO developed a series of questions to ask people who were offering generators to determine where the generators should go.

2. Small generators are not designed to be run continuously. Some need to be shut down periodically.

3. Generators require oil changes and maintenance on a regular basis, otherwise they will burn out. A back-up generator may be required while the main one is being serviced.

4. Generators need winter fuel to run in the winter; some generators aniving from the U.S. had summer fuel and would not work until it was replaced with winter fuel.

5. Electricians are generally needed to hook up generators; fire fighters could be trained to hook up generators.

6. Purchase generators that can be trailered and devise a trailering system. (Bell Canada is now carrying out field trials with trailers that can carry 6-8 generators.)

7. Take one wheel off each generator so they cannot be stolen.

8. Farmers need generators to milk, feed, and water animals. In Quebec about 80% of farmers have generators: in 'Ontario only about 20% have generators. (OMAFRA had guessed that about 50% have generators).

9. Generators from unlikely sources were pressed into service. At MTO:

"the primary communication with patrols is a series of radio towers with battery back-up but when power is out for 8,10 or 12 hours at a time, the batteries run down. Backup electrical generators are needed. It took two days to contemplate what to do to replace the batteries. In the end, the company which maintains the radio towers suggested renting backhoes to haul the sign trailers (arrow boards) up the hills to the radio towers and use their generators to power the transmitters. They were the only generators available at the time and this was done."

Kathryn Moore, Ontario Ministry of Transportation

• 52

• M. CANADIAN ARMED FORCES

1. "They [the Canadian military] were low profile, they blended in beautifidly with the emergency task forces, they participated, they had their own chain of command and they were well equipped and they did their task masterfidly."

Ben Tekamp, Mayor City of Brockville

2. Civilians need to know what the military can do and how to access them.

3. A variety of taskings for the military should be approved early by EMO and then the military can decentralize and provide what is needed.

4. The military was used too much on small taskings which could have been done by other volunteers (such as picking up small branches).

5. The military should matc h the'ir deployment boundaries to municipal boundaries; the military needs to keep itself up to date on municipal boundaries.

•

• 53

• N. VOUCHERS

1. Partway through the emergency the Province of Ontario provided funding for immediate relief, most of which was handed out in the fonn of food vouchers by individual municipalities. Handing out the vouchers proved to be labor intensive.

"The voucher phase was almost as bizarre as the shelter phase of the storm." Debbie Lavallee, Social Services, City of Kingston

2. Guidelines from the provincial govenunent for handing out relief funds and vouchers are needed.

3. There was some fraud when vouchers were being handed out. Suggestions for combating fi-aud include using security paper (people were duplicating vouchers), placing a short expiry date on the vouchers (less time to duplicate) and handing the vouchers out in one location only (some people got vouchers from different locations).

•

• 54

• O. ONTARIO HYDRO

1. Hydro did not communicate enough with the public, especially at the beginning of the ice storm emergency.

2. Information was difficult to get from Hydro. It was inconsistent and illogical at times.

3. The Hydro decision not to work with local people was a bad one.

4. In the future, Hydro will do more reconnaissance, more updating throughout the emergency and will communicate more with the public.

•

s 55

P. MITIGATION

1. Routine maintenance paid off- well-maintained hydro poles and lines remained in place.

2. Some back-up power systems did not work — develop a test and maintenance procedm-e for back-up power.

3. An aggressive tree trimming policy and operation helped reduce the number of power lines that came down.

4. Replace older equipment on time — newer equipment in good shape is less likely to fail.

5. Put money into emergency planning and preparedness. Municipalities with plans had an easier time.

6. Keep back-ups and/or hard copies of important information stored in computers (e.g., Maps and client lists 'for agencies that need to get in touch with their clients in an emergency such as people receiving medical care at home).

• 7. Encourage individuals to be prepared. Households should have: an alte rnate heat source available; a supply of fuel on hand for the alternate heat source (e.g., wood for a fireplace); flashlights, candles, lanterns, matches, batteries, and a battery or wind up radio stored in a handy place.

8. Bush fires are likely to increase particularly in 1999. Train firefighters to handle these types of fires.

9. Trim hanging branches so they do not fall and injure someone or damage hydro wires.

10. Put signals on back-up batteries. This will alert people that the power has gone out and they can begin to respond: without a signal there is no indication of a power outage until the back-up batteries are no longer working.

11. Change from electricity to another form of heat in buildings (i.e., fire-halls) where back-up power is needed because electric heat requires a lot of power from a generator.

12. Install communications systems that are not dependent on electricity.

13. Look at developing new standards for construction of power lines and other structures using Ice Storm '98 as the benchmark.

•

56

•

•

14. Put regulations in place that will require certain institutions and special facilities (e.g., Seniors' homes, homes for people with special needs, jails, corrections facilities, etc.) to have back-up power available.

15. Put regulations in place to ensm-e that service stations along Highway 401 have back-up power to pump fuel.

16. Put regulations in place to require radio stations to have back-up power.

17. Put regulations in place or encourage people to have both battery and direct-wired smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.

18. Put regulations in place to reduce basement flooding during power outages.

19. Examine the feasibility of instituting an emergency broadcast system such as the one that exists in the United States.

20. Monitor the weather regularly and put emergency responders on alert if an emergency situation appears to be developing.

21. Have fi-esh fuel and spare parts on hand.

22. Have extra emergency supplies on hand and/or know where they are available; make arrangements ahead ef dine io be able to obtain or rent what is needed at the time of an emergency.

57

• Q. CONCLUDING REMARKS

The story of Ice Storm '98 is one of people helping people. The success of the response is a testament to the strength of our communities and the compassion of Canadians.

Prior emergency planning and training proved invaluable. The "all-hazards" approach to emergency preparedness advocated by the provincial and federal governments, allowed emergency responders to deal effectively with an emergency of a type and scale not contemplated by emergency plamiers.

The increasing number of severe weather events and associated emergencies means disaster preparation is more important than ever before. Learning from the experience of others allows individuals and emergency response organizations alike to become better prepared and to improve response in future emergencies. That is why this report was produced. The lessons presented here, most of which are applicable to any large-scale emergency, represent the collected wisdom of several hundred emergency responders who spent days and weeks dealing with Canada's biggest emergency. May their experiences help guide your future planning.

•

• 58

• APPENDIX 'A'

List of people interviewed for

Queen's University Ice Storm '98 Study

•

•

Aitken, Col Ronald Allan, Dr. Bryan Angst, Clarence Archibald, Ruth Asbruek, Gerard Baird, Robert Barbour, Dale Barnett, Wayne Beach, Cynthia Beatty, Brian Beaudette, Mary Anne Beaudoin, Luc Bennett, Gary Bernier, Marie F Birrell, Sheila Bishop, Bill Bishop, John Bissonette, Gary Boyd, Rob Braham, Mike Breen, Linda Brett, Claude Brown, Graham Brydges, Wayne

Buffett, Don Bullock, Gary Burton, Tom Byvelds, Rita

Calcafuoco, Ciro Campbell, Genard Carr, Pam Carr, Timothy Cash, Dave Chiang, Jack Church, Gardner

Base Commander, CFB Kingston Medical Officer of Health, Lanark, Leeds and Grenville Health Unit Emergency Coordinator, Brockville Amateur Radio Club Director, Community and Family Services, Salvation Army, Kingston Deputy Reeve, Front of Escott and Dairy Farmer Road Designer, Public Works and Transportation, City of Kingston Director Hunan Resources Development Canada, Kingston Administrator, Kingston Psychiatric Hospital General Manager, Fleet Operations, City of Kingston President, Guy-Tash Security, Kingston Department of Communications, Queen's University Cadet Wing•Commander, Royal Military College, Kingston Mayor, City of Kingston District Manager, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources Director of Council Support and Communications, City of Kingston Commissioner of Human Resources, City of Kingston District Manager, *Ontario Ministry of Environnent C.E.O. Kingstèn Y.M.C.A. Emergency Consultant, City of Kingston Head of Operations, Emergency Preparedness Canada Recreational Services, City of Kingston Police Chief, , Town of Gananoque Director of Residences, Queen's University Head of Engineering Services, Ontario Ministry of Transportation, Kingston Fleet Manager, City of Brockville Fire Chief City of Kingston, East Fire Chief, Front of Yonge Agriculture and Rural Representative., Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural'Affairs Vice Principal, Holy Cross High School, Kingston CKWS TV, Kingston Manager, Health Promotion Division KFL&A Health Unit, Kingston Dispatch Service Director, Kingston Transit, City of Kingston President and CEO, Kingston Economic Development Corporation City Editor, Kingston Whig Standard Sr. Advisor, City of Kingston

59

• Clark, Gary Closs, Bill Coady, Gerry Collins, Gary Collins, Kevin Cornwall, Dave Cowden, Scott Craig, Raymond Crawford, Bob Crawford, Bob Cutway, Steve Darroch, Mark Decker, Aubrey deHoop, Jim Donohue, Dan Donovan, Jim Dougall,Gordon Duggan, Carol Durm, Carolyn Dunne, Cathy Earner, Gord Eccles, Terry Edmonds, Mark

Farish, Joe Famsworth,Chuck Finlay, John

Fletcher, Sylvia Fluhrer, Mark Forbes, Wayne Fowler, Glenn Staff Sgt.

Frazer, Major Jim French, Howard Froats, Bruce Gagnon, Ron Garcia, Dr. Henry Gay, Ann Gemmill, Dr. Ian Gerritsen, Rob Giles, John Glynn, Peter Gow, Glenn

Public Works Superintendent, Town of Gananoque Police Chief, City of Kingston Former Base Commander, CFB Kingston Sgt., Ontario Provincial Police, Kingston Manager Network Operations, Bell Canada, Kingston CUPE President, Public Works employee, City of Kingston Planning Officer, Toronto Fire Service Reeve , Village of Athens Dean of Student Affairs, Queen's University Chief, Emergency Planning, City of Toronto Fire Service Ham Radio Operator, Kingston Former Director of Social Services, Leeds and Grenville Dispatch Service Director, Kingston Transit, City of Kingston Director of Information Technology Services, City of Kingston Editor, Kingston This Week Fire Chief, Elizabethtown County Engineer, Leeds and Grenville Social SerVices Administrator, Town of Gananoque CKWS TV, Kingston President and . CEO, St. Mary's of the Lake Hospital, Kingston General Manager, Public Utilities Commission, City of Brockville Senior Resotirce Technician, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources Director, Systems Support and Development, Hotel Dieu Hospital, Kingston Senior Constable, Ontario Provincial Police, Kingston Director of Fund Raising, Grenville Christian College, Brockville Field Services Mgr., Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Brighton Mayor, Town of Gananoque Manager of Parks, City of Kingston Public Works and Roads Superintendent, Front of Leeds & Lansdowne Officer in Charge, Ontario Provincial Police, Kingston Municipal Detachment . Chief Engineer Services Officer, CFB Kingston Warden, Leeds and Grenville and Reeve, Rideau Lakes Ontario Hydro, Prescott VP, Eastern and Northern Operations, Ontario Clean Water Agency Director, Health Protection, Lanark, Leeds and Grenville Health Unit Nusing Co-ordinator, Kingston General Hospital, Kingston Acting Medical Officer of Health, KFL&A Health Unit, Kingston Acting Operations Manager, Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority Manager of Mobility, Kingston Transit, City of Kingston President and CEO, Kingston General Hospital, Kingston Co-ordinating Fire Chief, City of Kingston

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Graham, Sue Grandy, Cpt. Chris Grier, Bill Grier, Harold Haddrall, Lynn Hall, Diane Haimah, Howard Harbec, Greg Hasselaar, Jan Hatfield, Wilsie

Hauschildt, Peg Hickey, Sheila

Hilgar, Tanya Holmberg, Carl Hopkins, Randy Horton, George Hunter, Dave Hutson, George Hutton, Susan Irving, Ian Januszkiewicz, Mirka Jeffery, Maj-General Jones, Beverley Jordon, Lynne Kane, Sally Kazurak, Carrie Keech, Jim Kershaw, Aime King, Barry Knechtel, Stephen

Kugel, Sister Rosemarie Lafrance, Adele LaPlante-Wheeler, M LaVallee, Debbie Lavoie, Roger

Layng, Robert Lee, Joseph & D. Morris Leger, Denis

110 Leggett, Bill

Vice President, ,St.. Mary's of the Lake Hospital, Kingston Commanding Officer, Crypto Maintenance Unit, CFB Kingston Fire Chief, Front of Leeds and Lansdowne and Manager, Lansdowne Reeve, Front of Leeds and Lansdowne Managing Editor, Kingston Whig Standard Deputy Clerk Front of Leeds and Lansdowne Chief Operator, Granite Power Corporation Police Constable, City of Kingston Reeve, Frontenac Islands Manager of Maintenance, Dupont, Maitland and CAER Coordinator, L&G Manager of Educational Services, GIS Lab, Queen's University Assoc. Commissioner, Client Services and Community Dey., City of Kingston Coordinator, Parks and Recreation, Front of Leeds and Lansdowne Deputy Mayor, City of Kingston Senior Pas-tôr, Standard Church, Brockville

; . Dairy Fanner, 'Front of Leeds and Lansdowne Hospital AdMiàiish-ator; Brockville Psychiatric Hospital, Brockville Director of PhYsical Plant, Queen's University St. John's Ambulance, Brockville Registered Nurse, Ward Supervisor, Kingston Psychiatric Hospital Commissioner;Corporate and Strategic Planning, City of Kingston Commander 1 Division, CFB Kingston Clinical Nurse SPecialist, Kingston Psychiatric Hospital, Kingston Chief Librarian and CEO, Kingston Frontenac Public Library Coordinator, Wolfe Island Volunteer Ambulance Service Public Health Nurse, Lanark, Leeds and Grenville Health Unit General Manager, Utilities, City of Kingston Media Coordinator, Department of Communications, Queen's University Chief of Police; City of Brockville Watershed. Management Supervisor, Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority • • President, Hôtel «Dieu Hospital, Kingston Manager d'Adininistration, Social Services, City of Kingston Administrative Assistant to Sheila Hickey, City of Kingston Children's Services-Supervisor, Social Services, City of Kingston Assistant District , Administrator, St. Lawrence-Ottawa Valley, Ont. MSGCS Fire Chief, Village of Athens and Rear of Yonge and Escott Line Crew, Orillia Light and Power, Orillia Commissioner of Finance and Performance Management, City of Kingston t — Principal, Queen' University

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Leonard, Warren Ling, Andy Lukits, Arm MacDonald, Kathy MacDonald, Keith Mj. Mack, Dave Mastantuano, Cheryl Mattinson, John

Mayhew, Barclay McDonald, Brad

McFarlane, Malcolm McIsaac, Bonnie

Medd, Gary Meek, Phil Meinen, Jeroen Melvin, Al Michaud, Lt Col Jacques Moore, Kathryn Morgan,David Mon-is, Dave Mulder, Gerry

Murphy, Neville Napier, Bob Nelson, Tilly

Newton, Tracy Norman, Frank Nuttle, Harold O'Man-a, Joanne On, Tony O'Shea, Ten-y Page, Art Pergunas, Mark Pothaar, Donna Purcell, Mike

Reiach, Lindsay Reid, Randy

Salter, Francis

Director of Emergency Management, City of Toronto Police Services Vice President and Chief Engineer, Granite Power Corporation Reporter, Kingston Whig Standard Co-ordinator of Shelter Volunteers, Thousand Island SS, Brockville Base Operations Officer, CFB Kingston Reeve, Elizabethtown Community Development Coordinator, City of Kingston General Manager & Secretary, Orillia Water, Light and Power Commission Senior Projects Manager, City of Kingston Supervisor, Underground Operations, City of Toronto Hydro Electric Commission Community Placement Coordinator, Kingston Psychiatric Hospital Program Supervisor, Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services Principal, Loyalist Collegiate and Vocational Institute, Kingston Line Crew',. Ontario Hydro, Brockville Detachment COMMander, Ontario Provincial Police, Brockville Constable, City of Kingston Police Director of Cadets, Royal Military College, Kingston Regional Director, Eastern Ontario, Ontario Ministry of Transportation Manager, Culture 'and Recreation, City of Kingston Communications Volunteer, City of Kingston Area SuperviSor; Kingston Management Team, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources Deputy Fire Chief, City of Kingston Staff Sergeant, City of Kingston Police Administrative Head, Loyalist Collegiate and Vocational Institute, Kingston AdministratiVe Assistant to Lance Thurston, City of Kingston Chairman, Board of Directors, Kingston General Hospital, Kingston Deputy Reeve, 'Front of Leeds and Lansdowne Administrative Assistant to Cynthia Beach, City of Kingston News Director, CKLC/FlyFM, Kingston Clerk Administrator, Frontenac Islands Councillor, Front of Escott Reeve, Front of Yonge Communications Specialist for Sheila Bin-ell, City of Kingston Grocery Store Owner, Mallorytown, & Volunteer Fire Fighter, Front of Yonge '- Senior Geographic Information Systems Specialist, City of Kingston Emergency Measures Officer, Southeastern, Emergency Measures Ontario Ham Radio Operator, Kingston

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Scott, Herb Scott, R. Sears, Nancy Segsworth, Mark Sharp, Ron Sheridan, Brian

Shultz, Mike Simmons, Captain Sinclair, Doug Smith, Tom Stamp, Dale Stevenson, Bill Stevenson, Jim Stock, Bruce

Stoneman, Mike

Tackaberry, Kevin

Taylor, Dave Taylor, Greg Taylor, Nancy TeKamp, Ben Theobald, Dorothy Thornton, Lt. Col. Kirk Thm-ston, Lance

Trudgen, John Tulk, Harold Tulk, Paul Turpin, Dave Valensky, Marvin

Vanamstel, Bob V andenAkker

Verbeek, Marg

Wadden, Ron Walker, Ross Ward, Brian Warwick, Bill

•Webb, Lester

Reeve, Rear of Yonge and Escott Captain, Salvation Army, Brockville CEO, KFL&A Community Care Access Centre Manager of Works, City of Kingston Principal, Queen Elizabeth Collegiate and Vocational Institute, Kingston Former General Manager, Public Works and Transportation, City of Kingston Commanding Officer, PWOR and Constable, City of Kingston Police Brockville Rifles Vice President of Operations, Grafton Utility Supply Limited, Colborne Customer Operations Supervisor, Ontario Hydro, Brockville Reeve, Front of Escott Wolfe Island Fire Chief, Frontenac Islands Fire Chief, Town of Gananoque Emergency Public Information Coordinator, Emergency Measures Ontario Branch Manager, Kingston and District Branch, Canadian Red Cross Society Vice President,. Ge. orge TackabeiTy and Sons Construction Company Limited Managing.Edior, Brockville Recorder and Times Manager Preparedness Program, Emergency Measures Ontario Operations Manager, Utilities, City of Kingston Mayor, City of Brockville Director, Social Services, Brockville and Leeds and Grenville CFB Kingston Commissioner of Client Services and Community Development, City of Kingston Clerk Administrator, Front Leeds & Lansdowne Fire Chief, City of Brockville and Fire Coordinator, Leeds and Grenville Volunteer, Front of Escott Vice Principal (Academic), Queen's University, Kingston Program Supervisor, Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services County Telecommunications Officer, Brockville Amateur Radio Club Coordinator, Frontenac Victim Crisis Assistance and Referral Service, Kingston Emergency 'Planning Coordinator, Regional Municipality of Kitchener Waterloo Former News Editor, Kingston Whig Standard Road Superintendent, Front of Escott Regional Director, Ontario Ministry of Environnent General Manager, Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority Assistant to Jim deHoop, City of Kingston

63

• Weisser, Vladimir

Wendt, Corinne Wheeler, Brian Wiegand, Cpt. Harold

Willing, Terri Wilson, Dr. Ruth

Winship, John Wood, Alvin

Wylie, Bruce

Mgr. of Technical Service, Public Works & Transportation Dept., City of Kingston . Clerk Treasurer, Town of Gananoque Corps Officer/Pastor, Salvation Army, Gananoque Regular Force Operations Officer, Princess of Wales Own Regiment, Kingston Manager, Building and By-Law Enforcement, City of Kingston Head, Dept. of Family Medicine, Queen's & Chair, Med. Ad. Cttee, Hotel Dieu Co-Chair of Emergency Cttee., Canadian Red Cross Society, Kingston Network Specialist, Information Technology Systems, Queen's University Talk-show Host, CFJR Radio, Brockville

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APPENDIX 'B'

List of Acronyms

BPH Brockville Psychiatric Hospital

CAER Community Awareness & Emergency Response

CAF Canadian Armed Forces

CAO Chief Administrative Officer

CBC Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

CCARE Community Care Access Resource Centre or CCAC

CEPC Canadian Emergency Preparedness College

CF Canadian Forces

CFB Canadian Forces Base

CO Carbon Monoxide

DND Department of National Defence

ECC Emergency Control Centre

ECG Emergency Control Group

EMO Emergency Measures Ontario

EOC Emergency Operations Centre

EPC Emergency Preparedness Canada

GCC Grenville Christian College

HDH Hotel Dieu Hospital (Kingston) • HRDC Human Resources Development Canada

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KCVI Kingston Collegiate and Vocational Institute

KAEDC Kingston Area Economic Development Corporation

KEDCO Kingston Economic Development Corporation

KFL&A Kingston, Frontenac, Lermox and Addington

KGH Kingston General Hospital

KPH Kingston Psychiatric Hospital

LCVI Loyalist Collegiate and Vocational Institute (Kingston)

L&G Leeds and Grenville

LL&G Lanark, Leeds and Grenville

MCC Municipal Control Centre

MCG Municipal Control Group

MCSS Ministry of Community and Social Services (Ontario)

MMAH Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (Ontario)

MNR Ministry of Natural Resources (Ontario)

MOE Ministry of Environment (Ontario)

MSGCCMinistry of the Solicitor General and Correctional Services

MTO Ministry of Transportation (Ontario)

OMAFRA Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs

OPP Ontario Provincial Police

POC Provincial Operations Centre (Toronto)

POR Post Operations Report

111, PWOR Princess of Wales Own Regiment (Kingston)

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• QE, QECVI Queen Elizabeth Collegiate and Vocational Institute (Kingston)

RCMP Royal Canadian Mounted Police

RMOC Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton

SD&G Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry

TISS Thousand Island Secondary School (Brockville)

VCARS Victim Crisis Assistance and Referral Service (Kingston)

To go back, click on the x at the very top right-hand corner of the screen.

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QC 926.45 .C2 P8711998 Lessons in emergency preparedness and response : Queens University Ice Storm '98 Study /

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