Richmond Hill joins funding queue for ice storm relief

Richmond Hill Liberal
January 15, 2014
By Kim Zarzour

If you thought Richmond Hill was particularly hard hit during the recent ice storm, you’re right.

More residents experienced a power outage here than other GTA municipalities, according to a presentation to council by PowerStream Monday.

Like most GTA municipalities impacted by the late-December storm, Richmond Hill council passed a resolution this week to declare a disaster area in order to seek funding relief from the province.

While 35 per cent of PowerStream’s customers in York Region and 41 per cent of Toronto Hydro’s lost power after the Dec. 22 storm, Richmond Hill’s power loss reached 60 per cent, according to the PowerStream report.

Overall, storm damage to the town is estimated at $6.4 million.

Most other municipalities affected by the storm, including Vaughan, Markham, Aurora and Whitchurch-Stouffville, also met this week to declare disasters. Mayor Dave Barrow plans to attend a meeting with GTA mayors in Mississauga Friday to discuss adopting a coordinated response to extreme weather events.

The biggest problem experienced by residents, and one that the PowerStream says it’s working to overcome, appears to have been lack of communication.

It was the worst storm ever seen in the service area, Brian Bentz, Powerstream president and CEO, told council. Considered “the Perfect Storm”, it began with a thick layer of ice on the weekend that collapsed trees and toppled power lines.

Extreme cold and subsequent thaw added further hazard and challenge to recovery workers whose ranks were reduced because it was the weekend before Christmas.

In Richmond Hill, the most significant outages occurred in the Mill Pond area, followed by Richvale, Beverley Acres, an area east of Lake Wilcox and King Sideroad in Oak Ridges.

PowerStream’s communication systems were overwhelmed, Mr. Bentz said.

On a normal day, PowerStream receives 1,500 to 2,000 calls on the corporate phone system and up to 4,000 on the power outage line. The company received a total of 86,500 calls in one day, Dec. 22. The website took almost 100 times the normal volume and the number of Twitter followers tripled. At one point the website interactive power outage map malfunctioned.

Council also heard a preliminary report from town staff indicating damage to 200,000 trees and an expected two-year long recovery. Initially, clean-up will focus on removal of hazards, followed by three “sweeps” through town to clean up general storm debris, said Shane Baker, the town commissioner of community services.

Replacement tree planting and special yearly pruning to ensure the damaged trees grow back healthy will take place over the longer term.

On the bright side, PowerStream said the town was back on the grid much faster than other municipalities; 93% of Richmond Hill’s power was restored within 48 hours compared to 85 per cent of customers region-wide.

The town’s community emergency management coordinator, Bryan Burbridge, was a key partner and maintained excellent two-way communication throughout the incident, the PowerStream report said, while the vice-president of PowerStream operations responded directly with Mayor Dave Barrow’s requests for information.

“I think everyone in Richmond Hill stepped up to the plate,” PowerStream chairperson and Markham Mayor Frank Scarpitti said.

But not everyone agreed with Mr. Scarpitti’s assessment. Councillors Carmine Perrelli, Greg Beros and Nick Papa questioned whether more could have been done by council to speed up response time, and several wondered on Twitter whether larger hydro stakeholders Markham and Vaughan received faster service.

Mr. Scarpitti discounted that opinion, saying the percentage of customers who lost power was much higher in Richmond Hill than Markham and Vaughan.

“There are no political boundaries,” he said. “They’re all our customers.”

With more severe storms likely in the future, Mr. Bentz said PowerStream will work on improvements such as a single phone number for customers to call and a process to let customers know their estimated restoration time.

While the motion to have a disaster declared and seek provincial funding was passed unanimously, it was not without dispute.

Joe DiPaola, a candidate in the upcoming Richmond Hill election, sparked tempers and calls for an apology after he blasted the mayor’s actions during the storm.

Mr. Papa also criticized the mayor and argued the motion to declare a disaster was a waste of time.

“We don’t stand a chance,” he said. “The provincial government is going to look to this and say ‘you didn’t even declare a state of emergency and you want some relief? From what?’ There is no disaster here, there’s nothing.”

Mr. Papa said the mayor should have acted on Mr. Perrelli’s call for an emergency meeting in the midst of the storm.

“Nobody paid attention to what [Mr. Perrelli] said, but then here comes the 11th hour on the 11th day before the deadline and the mayor calls a meeting.”

Mr. Barrow said he had responded to Mr. Perrelli after consulting with staff and learning the situation did not warrant a state of emergency.

He said he advised council, in the days following, that the town was researching the disaster relief program and hoped to have information when provincial staff returned to work on December 30. He later informed councillors that the town was required to submit cost estimates by Jan. 14. On Jan. 8, the mayor, along with other muncipalities, called a special meeting for this week to present storm data and deal with the funding request.

According to Mr. Baker, to qualify as state of emergency, the situation would have to overwhelm the resources of the town, which was not the case.

“The major part of the emergency that was affecting residents was the power outage and that was not under town control.”

As well, the situation needed to present a danger of major proportions to life and property, threaten essential services, social order or the ability to govern, which it did not, and no other level of government had declared an emergency either, he said.

In fact, to apply for funding under the disaster relief program, it is not necessary for a town to declare a state of emergency, council heard.

“The point here is quite frankly that if the province does come up with something, whether it is ODRP or not, at least we have got in line with all the other municipalities,” Mr. Barrow said. “The biggest disappointment would be if we didn’t process the application today in advance of the Jan. 14 deadline, then we would be on the outside looking in.”

In addition to seeking provincial assistance, councillors passed several motions presented by Ward 2 councillor Carmine Perrelli including asking staff to investigate a bylaw that would obligate hotels and motels to accept people with pets in a declared emergency, to report on best practices assisting those on life support during power outages and to investigate claims that Markham and Vaughan received preferential treatment during the storm.

BY THE NUMBERS:

About eight per cent of the town’s urban forest affected: 5,000 municipal trees, about 1,500 ash trees
7,379 visits to the town’s Ice Storm website
2,000 calls to Access Richmond Hill

WHAT IT COST:

Vaughan: $21 million
Markham: $13.2 million
Richmond Hill: $6.4 million
Whitchurch-Stouffille: $158,000