Ice Storm '98 will always be remembered by the millions of people across Ontario and Quebec who weathered the storm. This was one of the biggest and costliest natural disasters ever to hit Canada. A blanket of ice, due to six days of freezing rain, covered everything including hydro wires, towers and poles.

The tones of ice brought down the hydro distribution system, leaving approximately five million residents from the regions of Eastern Ontario, Quebec, upstate New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and New Brunswick without electricity.

Mother Nature's spectacular display of rain, freezing rain, ice pellets and snow followed by cold and violent winds ravaged the land causing a total of twenty-five deaths from falling ice, house fires and hypothermia. The financial cost of the storm has been estimated at more than two billion dollars in Canada not including business losses and loss of family income.

Businesses were forced to close and/or operate on reduced hours. Some families had to leave their homes and enter shelter areas. More than four hundred shelters opened up in Ontario and Quebec in schools, churches, hospitals and community centres.

The massive destruction, enveloping more than one hundred thousand square kilometres crippled the electrical transmission and distribution system.

The inventory required to repair damaged lines was some tens of thousands utility poles, hundreds of high voltage towers and thousands of feet of wiring that had been buried beneath a sheet of ice.

Rebuilding the Lines with Wood Poles

Quebec was the hardest hit province with one thousand pylons destroyed, three thousand needing repairs and sixteen thousand poles damaged.

St-Hyacinthe, a town of about fifty thousand people which was in the centre of the "Ice Triangle", was transformed into the operational headquarters for the reconstruction of the distribution line of Hydro where a team of seven were available twenty-four hours a day for the requisitioning of wood products.

As utility workers looked at the devastation in awe, one thought entered their minds, the challenge of rebuilding the electrical system from scratch in conditions compared to a war zone. The mission was to restore power as quickly as possible for millions of people so that life could return to normal.

Crews from Ontario Hydro and other municipal utilities immediately began the repairs, and were joined by crews from Manitoba, Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania.

Bell Canada and other telecommunications companies dispatched units to assist in the emergency. The Canadian Armed Forces dispatched almost sixteen thousand men and women to help clear trees, assist in the shelters and maintain civil order.

Working around the clock, the emergency teams were able to restore heat and power to many within days. Some rural communities that suffered greater damage were provided with assistance until power was returned within a month.

As soon as the devastation of the ice storm became evident, the treated wood industry sprang into action to face the crisis that had emerged. Here are some of the unsung heroes.

Bell Pole Co. utilizing its treated plants located in Calgary, Alberta and New Brighton, Minnesota, was able to respond to the storm immediately.

Their two treating plants were mobilized for treated around the clock and shipments of treated wood poles began the day after orders were received.

Shipments of untreated poles were also maid available from five of Bell's pole yards to other Eastern Canadian treated pole suppliers as well as their own plants.

In a period of just over five weeks, Bell Poll Co. delivered over ten thousand polls to the ice storm damaged areas of Ontario and Quebec.

The company went on three shifts twenty-four hours a day to prepare and ship as many utility poles as possible. Guelph Utility Pole Co. shipped more than thirty truckloads, totaling eight hundred transmission poles to Quebec and four thousand distribution and transmission poles to Eastern Ontario.

Northern Wood Preservers in Thunder Bay, Ontario received an order for two thousand five hundred poles from Quebec Hydro on Friday, January 9th.

Overtime crews were immediately scheduled to work over the weekend as one thousand three hundred of the poles were sitting in untreated inventory.

Over the next few weeks, eight railcars and twenty-three truckloads of poles were shipped to the disaster areas, literally cleaning out Northern Wood's inventory of forty feet to sixty-five feet poles.

The Stella-Jones plant in Delson, Quebec was situated in the heart of the disaster area. Having lost power from January 7, the plant went into a maintenance period and all work was temporarily suspended.

A generator was rented immediately so that minimal production could resume. With the help of Hydro Quebec, a more powerful generator was obtained and normal production was achieved.

Stella-Jones also called on its plants in Truro, Nova-Scotia, New Westminster and Prince Georges, B.C. All of which were active twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

Let’s not forget all the other utility pole suppliers from Canada and the U.S. who helped in the emergency, including the following WPC members:

• Bell Pole Co. Ltd.
• Bois KMS Ltd.
• Guelph Utility Pole Co. Ltd.
• IPB International Inc.
• LPB Poles Inc.
• Northern Pressure Treated Wood Ltd.
• Prairie Forest Products Ltd.
• Stella-Jones Inc.