Remembering Canada's worst ice storm ever - Part 4: The Human Impact

kiligirl (66)in #history • 5 years ago

I thought it would be really easy to find articles about the human impact of the Great Ice Storm of 1998. Many of my friends had stories to tell about packing up and leaving their houses for a few weeks. One friend told me that she and her sister, both pregnant, went to stay with their third sister, the only one with power. And I remembered a lot of people talking about how kind and generous those with electricity had been to those without. So I figured there'd be lots of human interest stories floating on the surface of the interwebs.

I was wrong.

I found many articles which provided a range of numbers of those who had died (25 was the initial estimate, and Public Safety Canada concluded the final death toll was 35 - and more or less how they had died), how many were injured (around 1000), and the estimated economic impact (anywhere from just over $1 billion to around $5 billion). I looked and looked for stories about how Canada's national railway company, Canadian National (CN) had cleverly co-opted one of their diesel engines to supply power to the city hall in my old home town of Boucherville, expecting to find lots of photographs and tales of this engineering exploit. I finally found some references to this, as well as a tiny photo, in a technical blog which mentioned that the tale is told in great detail in a March 1998 rail magazine. The paper kind.

Lines like this from a CBC article are oh-so-typical:

Families went days, even weeks and months, without electricity.

Come on! There has to be a story there. Months without electricity, in winter? Tell me more!

But I found little in the way of in-depth stories of how the aftermath of the storm affected individuals over the weeks and months that followed.

Grumble - my computer crashed

To add to the challenge, I managed to lose all of the research I did yesterday when my computer decided to crash this morning. Just thought I'd mention that, because grumble.

Finding human impact stories through Mrs Google

I tried obvious searches, like "ice storm 1998 human impact" and "ice storm 1998 shelters" but they all came up with the same few major news network stories which I've already mined for the previous posts in this series. Those would typically have a generic paragraph saying that many people had to leave their homes for an unspecified period, that schools were opened as shelters for community residents, and that it was difficult to get old people to leave their houses for safer places.

People left their homes to stay in makeshift shelters in school gymsImage source

Image source

I saw a few stories about old people's homes being abandoned by their staff (seriously? If I was a relative of one of the residents, I would have sued the home). And surely there would have been follow-up articles? I couldn't find them. I'm either not that good a researcher or the stories sit in pre-internet storage.

I picked up one article which said that the Ritz-Carlton Hotel on Sherbrooke Street in Montreal dropped its room rate to $98 to accommodate the indisposed wealthier Montreal residents. Can I find that article now, after yesterday's untimely crash? Of course not. So please take my word for it.

The Ritz Carlton hotel in MontrealImage source

Quick digression to my own "last night in Montreal during the ice storm" hotel story

Since I was being transferred by my company to South Africa, they kindly put me up in quite a nice hotel in downtown Montreal, the Château Champlain. I must have been there for a couple of nights as I would have cleared out my apartment and arranged my shipment at the beginning of January - interesting that I have no memory of whether I moved out at the end of December (logical, as that would have been when the lease would have ended) or a day or two before my flight. I don't remember a thing about the room, the weather the previous days (it would have had to have been terrible), and what I did those last few days before leaving. Did I go to the office? Stay in the hotel? Get together with friends? I wonder whether the lack of stories online now about the personal impact of the storm on people's lives is like my own inability to remember that time. Perhaps people just don't remember the detail.

The Château Champlain in sunnier weatherImage source

Anyway, I do recall that I was going to check out of the hotel to catch my early evening flight, but the airline advised the flight was delayed due to the weather, so I asked for a late checkout. The answer from the hotel desk was the most grudging "okay" they could muster, and they explained they had a huge waiting list and were already completely full. Since I had no idea whether my flight would be that night or in three days (snowstorms in North America can knock flight schedules out for days), I figured it was better to have a hotel room than to be on a waiting list, so I hunkered down and kept my room. Selfish, yes, but hey, if I hadn't been in that room, I'd have been on a waiting list, right?

Back to the human impact - just what did I glean?

In part, that it's surprisingly hard for people to remember the same experiences the same way. I did manage to find some insights....

This excellent piece offered some insight into the human impact - as well as why perhaps it's harder to write about the human impact than the meteorology of the event and how many millimetres of ice it takes to bring down a high voltage pylon. Here's a sample from that blog:

Articles with titles like, “People Seek the Essentials: Heat, Light, Food: Hotels and Motels were Booked Solid and Shopping Malls were Staying Open to Offer Food and Warmth to People Unable to Stay with Family Members Or Friends. Parents and Babysitters were Saddled with Children Whose Schools Closed,” appeared alongside stories about elderly residents who refused to evacuate because they were scared something would happen to their homes, and news of the first fatality, Joseph Laplante. Tellingly, there was even a piece with “survival tips,” for those without electricity. Author Jeff Henrich advised readers to wear warm clothes, check on their neighbours, and avoid bathing. More ominously were warnings against using propane or kerosene burners or generators inside the home, because “carbon monoxide could kill you,” and the admonishment: “don’t keep a newborn child – that is, one month old or younger, in a cold house. Don’t even take the chance.”

The same article gives an interesting take from a social historian's perspective on how people's memories fade, or different people have different memories of the same experiences. The author also tackled the possible reasons why people's memories of that time are so different:

...our experiences are always filtered through our own world views, affecting not only the original creation of a memory, but how the memory lives on in our imaginations.

One of Canada's venerable magazines, Maclean's, had this to say in an excellent article on the impact on people:

In a country blessedly untouched by war, the scenes in Montreal, Ottawa and communities from Kingston, Ont., to Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley sometimes resembled battle zones—although in reality, of course, they were considerably less dangerous. Both of the major cities declared official states of emergency. In Montreal, an eerie calm hung over the downtown area as almost all stores and businesses shut down. Montrealers were advised to ration their use of water and at one point police posted bilingual notices across the city warning residents to boil water for at least five minutes before drinking because one of the city’s two filtration plants had shut down.

Major hospitals lost their primary power, traffic lights failed, the Metro (subway system) was closed, radio and television stations lost their broadcast signals, and some grocery stores reported panic buying of supplies—even as banks closed and banking machines short-circuited, depriving many people of the money needed to buy goods. At the elegant Five Seasons grocery store in affluent Westmount, there were so many would-be buyers that the manager only allowed people in five at a time. As Canadian Forces personnel moved into affected areas to offer help, they found pitch-black, silent streets, makeshift rescue centres and soup kitchens, and devastated landscapes littered with ruined automobiles and homes.

That same Maclean's article goes on to describe the impact on Montreal's South Shore (where my home town of Boucherville is located):

Perhaps the most hard-hit area was Montreal’s South Shore, where more than 500,000 people were without power for days, and forced to scramble for shelter elsewhere. On one block in the municipality of St-Lambert, almost everyone was evacuated after heavy winds and ice brought power lines down and knocked down scores of branches from maple trees. At one point, the only residents left on the deserted strip were Richard Gatien, a 46-year-old general contractor, and his family. They used a generator to power their oil furnace. Still, said Gatien: “It’s disastrous—I’ve never seen anything like this.”

That was a common refrain. As 57-year-old neighbor Monique Achim returned to inspect her house—which she temporarily abandoned in favor of a municipal shelter—she discovered that a much-beloved, 80-year-old maple tree on her front lawn had been ravaged by the storm. “Look,” she said wistfully, “at what is left of it.”

Predictably, the elderly and infirm faced the greatest difficulty. In St-Lambert, Red Cross volunteers herded residents of seniors’ homes into a local college equipped with army cots. One room was filled with two dozen patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. "They feel insecure,” said Claudette Monty, the owner of the seniors’ home. With volunteers supplying coffee and medication, other, healthier seniors fared better. “We’re well fed,” said 81-year-old Yvette Lapierre, who marked her third day in the shelter with a spaghetti dinner.

Jan 12, 1998– Cecile Fortin (L) and her son Hughes Fortin (C) and Julie Pelletier prepare dinner under candle light power at a emergency shelter in Chelsea, Quebec. Photo by Dave Chan. DAVE CHAN OTTCITImage source

Quite a few people spoke of the beauty of the area at night - starlit, with no city lights where once the lights were so bright they could barely see any stars. They also spoke of the quiet (they must not have been near generators).

I found sad stories of farmers losing, or having to slaughter, their livestock.

Image source

I particularly enjoyed this short tale:

[A] Montrealer [Marie Annik Grégoire] told CBC that she hosted a friend of a friend during the storm "as an act of solidarity," because her home still had power.

As Grégoire tells it, he stayed with her for a few days, and then he never left.

"I hosted the one who would become my husband," she said.

"One marriage, two children and three cats later, I'm very happy that Hydro-Québec never got my love's place reconnected."

Ultimately, Canadians were there for each other

Here's a statement from Canada's Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, in January 2018, marking the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the storm:

"The storm paralyzed eastern Canada, as day-to-day routines became nearly impossible. Without electricity, heat, food, and water, people were forced out of their homes and businesses could not stay open. The freezing rain made all forms of transportation treacherous. Impassable roads hindered basic services and made it difficult for emergency vehicles to help those most in need," the statement reads.

"Meanwhile, Canadians welcomed neighbours, friends, and family into their homes, sharing generators and hot food. They prepared meals by candlelight, and turned libraries and arenas into shelters so people could find refuge from the cold.

"Twenty years later, time has not dimmed the outpouring of compassion, and sense of community, Canadians showed to each other. Today, I hope all Canadians reflect on, or learn more about, the Great Ice Storm, and how we were there for each other."