Were we ready? Well, yes — for a different kind of emergency that saw swift, targeted response

Social media, fewer serious injuries help crews zero in on the most affected areas

One of the most impressive aspects of the capital region’s response to Friday ’s tornadoes was how quickly everything was locked down.

If you had managed to reach Dunrobin less than an hour after a tornado destroyed more than 50 homes and businesses there, you would have seen more than a dozen police, fire and paramedic vehicles on the scene. Roadblocks were in place and the community ’s homes were secured.

Those injured were either en route to hospital or being prepared for the trip, alternate routes already mapped out.

And, not least, the West Carleton High School just up the road had been opened to receive people who had just lost their homes. This was confirmed in a 7 p.m. tweet by the City of Ottawa, less than two hours after Dunrobin was struck. The city advised at the same time that a second emergency response centre had been opened at Canterbury Recreation Complex in the city’s south end.

Both centres are part of the city ’s emergency operations plans.

In many ways, the region’s police, fire, paramedic, hydro and volunteer services acquitted themselves well over the weekend, suggesting a high level of readiness.

Nevertheless, the series of tornadoes was a different kind of emergency for Ottawa-Gatineau. While it knocked out power for an extraordinary number of people, the pockets of truly extensive damage could be isolated quickly with the help of social media, and triaged by emergency services.

Not only that, there were relatively few people with serious injuries, substantially reducing the demands on paramedics and fire services.

This permitted first responders to target the most affected areas, leaving police services to safeguard the streets and allowing hydro crews to get on with a remarkably fast restoration of the power grid.

The general recovery was helped by the presence of a small army of police and fire services responders.

The Ottawa Police Service has more than 500 staff available for patrolling and another 130 who work in emergency operations. Hundreds of others from other directorates (criminal, for instance) could have been pressed into service as soon as 911 operators began fielding calls shortly after 5 p.m. Friday.

Ottawa Fire Services can draw on a pool of some 1,500 firefighters, including nearly 600 rural and special operations volunteers.

While very few police, fire or paramedics would have had experience dealing with the aftermath of a tornado — a very rare event in the Ottawa Valley — it’s not as though they lack relevant skills. Last year, Ottawa police responded to nearly 4,000 emergency calls and another 235,000 that required a police presence.

The general recovery was helped by the presence of a small army of police and fire service responders.

Fire personnel in 2017 dealt with nearly 10,000 calls involving a rescue, a medical emergency or hazardous material.

From the perspective of first responders, dealing with a tornado is a different kind of emergency than a flood (2017) or ice storm (1998). Tornadoes hit fast and hard and move on. Responders are left to identify the pockets of destruction and move in. Once there, their training kicks in.

The technicians with the most difficult job over the weekend were hydro employees.

Hydro Ottawa employs more than 700, but fewer than 200 are frontline workers.

There was also some unfortunate timing with the exit the previous week of more than a dozen employees. They had travelled south to help restore power grids in North Carolina in the aftermath of hurricane Florence.

Hydro Ottawa wasn’t able to confirm if these workers returned to Ottawa in time for the tornadoes, but their numbers were likely small enough not to unduly affect reconstruction efforts here.

Hydro Ottawa brass also rested some crews Friday morning in anticipation of a worse-than-normal storm. Workers finishing their shifts in the afternoon were asked to hang back, just in case. Moves like this helped.

In less than three days, hydro crews whittled the number of customers without power from 172,000 to just a few thousand.

Some first responders acknowl- edged privately that it was one thing to prepare in theory for a tornado, but it was quite another to see its effects upfront.

Hydro Ottawa’s Twitter feed from Friday offered an interesting glimpse into what could go wrong when the unexpected occurred. The utility began warning people before 10 a.m. that “outages could occur” because of thunderstorms. Later in the day came warnings about wind and what to do if power lines came down. By 3:34 p.m., Hydro Ottawa was reassuring us that crews were “prepared and ready to respond.”

At 5:39 p.m. the utility retweeted that Ottawa Paramedics were responding to 16 tornado-related calls in Dunrobin.

Less than hour later, though, Hydro Ottawa had to report that its outage phone line and online outage map were “currently unavailable.”

Like the region itself, the utility was briefly overwhelmed by a freak of nature. Once the tornado passed, crews got to work fixing the damage.

In the wake of the tornado, most residents will resolve to prepare the necessary supplies to get through the aftermath of a repeat event if there is one.

But the lesson is that there is no way to truly protect yourself against winds topping 200 km/h. That’s where insurance comes in, along with first responders and volunteers to smooth the way back something approaching normal.

Tornadoes hit fast and hard and move on. Responders are left to identify the pockets of destruction and move in. Once there, their training kicks in.