By Pepper Parr

BURLINGTON, ON.

January 17, 2014

And how did you get through the power outage?  These events tend to recede from our memory unless the event was horrific or something close and personal happened.

For the people at Burlington Hydro (BH) it was very close and very personal.  Most of the staff worked long hours on Christmas Day

Christine Hallas handles corporate communications for Hydro and like every corporation that deals with the public, Hydro decided they needed to begin tweeting.  It was new information tool for BH and they are a cautious organization – they did their research and they did some testing and on the Thursday before the ice storm hit Christine advised the rest of the management team that they were good to go whenever the word was given.

At about the same time BH people were getting the word from different sources that we were in for a bit of tough weather. The people in the BH operations room listens to the radio like the rest of us but they also subscribe to a couple of weather information sources, which Dan Guatto, than in charge of engineering and operations for Burlington Hydro, admitted “weren’t all that good” but there was enough information for the senior management team to decide to open the tweet channel.  In a matter of hours the rate went from 0 followers to more than 500 and BH hydro suddenly became an important source of information for the public.

And information was the one thing that the public didn’t have all that much of – and they wanted it.  BH found they were getting pictures of trees down sent to them, the switchboard was overloaded – at one point they had logged 1500 calls and then the system crashed.

Dan Guatto, doing his best to communicate in an environment where there are a lot of things not working very well. His cell phone got him through most of the problems – Burlington Hydro is currently working on a wen site that will provide much more in the way of information for the public.

We live in a world” said Guatto where people Google the menu of the restaurant they are going to – there is the expectation that information is always available and available instantly.

It quickly became evident that while there were problems in the downtown core – it was the ice on the lines in the northern part of the city – on the inclines – where things were worst.

A line down and a cable split on road after road after road.  Hydro used up 1000 metres of cable doing the repairs.

Ice on the lines left many of them sagging – the ice on the trees that was killing ever effort to get the lines operational.

Overall the grid, North American wide was working just fine –“ it was the really local stuff that crippled us.  We would get two houses back on and then a house in between them would have branches come crashing down and we were right back where we started”, said Sm.

Trees were our biggest problem.  People live in north Burlington because of the trees.  People were prepared to be out of their homes for six days – but they were not prepared to have their tress cut down.

Burlington Hydro, like any responsible organization, plans and does practice scenarios.  They will scope out what the worst possible consequences from a possible situation and then work out plans for how they will react, what equipment they will need and make sure they have it – close by

Gerry Smallegange, Hydro president, explained that “we would give people our best estimate which was often not much more than a  guess, but it became close to gospel truth in the minds of many.  When crews are out in the field it is like being on a construction site and we often just don’t know how long a task is going to take.

Here is an accident waiting to happen.

When the line going into Lowville went down explains Smallegange the crew going in to do the fix couldn’t  get their trucks in far enough – so everything had to be hauled in by hand – over a distance of more than a kilometre.  It took hours but they finally got it up and service was restored – which isn’t as simple as screwing in a new fuse and seeing the lights go on.  There are significant safety precautions that had to be gone through – but the lights went on and the crews moved on to the next problem.

Within hours the line was back down and that work had to be done all over again.  The new break had to be found, the power taken out of the line, a splice made to the wire, line tested and power restored.

Side road # 8 had to be totally re-built.  It was the worst situation we faced said Smallegange who added that there are 20,000 poles in the hydro system but only 20 were broken during the storm.   Millar Crescent was un-passable for a period of time and there were a number of situations that needed less than a quick glance to know that there was a problem just waiting to happen.

For people sitting in a cold house – there is little comfort in knowing that all these steps have to be taken.  For the men in the field it was long hours in cold weather which isn’t easy to work in.  Fatigue and working in bulky clothing and ground that was slick with ice are conditions that result in accidents – of which there were none for the hydro crews.

Hydro used up 1000 metres of cable to complete the repairs.  They didn’t lose any generators and there was never a serious risk of running out of cable.  All the hydro operations in the area have working agreements to purchase from each other.  They also have consignment agreements from the supply manufacturers that keeps needed supplies in the hydro yard – masking it instantly available.

Trees can’t last with this amount of ice on the branches.  A mighty oak bends to the force of nature.  We would like look at this in the spring and see what survived.

The December outage was big and there was little in the way of the kind of warning the city got during the July problems.

What BH is beginning to struggle with is – how often are we likely to see situations like this – and that for much of the world is both a very pressing and a very vexing question.  It all relates to risk analysis.  It just isn’t possible to be fully geared up every hour of every day for something that might happen.

Christmas Day of 2013 was a fully geared up day for both Burlington Hydro and the city of Burlington. “It is the city manager Jeff Fielding who has point on this explained Smallegange – we get the job done but he calls the shots.  There is a very solid working relationship between Hydro and the city – the city is the only shareholder but that’s not what makes the relationship work as smoothly as it does.  The top people on both sides are consummate professionals and each knows what has to be done and they get it done.

The city got through the storm and while we will be picking up brush for a number of months and when the snow melts we will see twigs and scraps of wood that will have to be raked up and either burned in a fire-place or put out as waste.

Expect the Regional authority to revise the date for the last such pick-ups several times. That will be the least of our problems.

There were no fatalities, no really serious injuries.  A major dent to Hydro’s financial statements but this is one you are not likely to feel.  Burlington Hydro is currently in negotiations on the price of the hydro it buys; there will be a decrease in the price hydro pays for power as a result of these negotiations.  How much of that price decrease works it way to your hydro bill is going to be impacted by the storm damage. The decrease you see will be just a little less than hydro had originally hoped to deliver to the public.

The cost of the outage in terms of additional monies for Burlington Hydro will come in at more than $1 million.

A lot of lessons were learned – the most important of which were on the communications side.  With power out telephone service was down and cell service in the northern part of the city isn’t all that good at the best of times.  There are parts of the city where there is basically no service.

Worn down but not worn out. Burlington Hydro Gerry Smallegange and his chief of engineering talk to people at the Kilbride fire station on what was up and what wasn’t yet up in terms of power lines.

Hydro is putting together a much different web site that will improve significantly on the information they can deliver – that along with their ability now to tweet at will result in better communications.

For Hydro’s senior management the biggest lesson was to fully understand what the public wanted in the way of information and then to find a way to get that information out with very necessary caveats and cautions attached to it.

You will like what hydro is going to release in the very near future.  “Hopefully” adds Smallegange it will be up and running before the next catastrophe providing that doesn’t take place this month.”

The big wish for Hydro is a way to be able to trim those trees in such a way that the canopy is not lost but the hydro wires have a chance to stay up when the winds howl and the trees bend.

By Pepper Parr

BURLINGTON, ON.

January 12, 2014

“When people use the services we offer – they are buying me” is the way Jason Boelhouwer explains the franchise business he operates, which is the providing of services to people who need help taking care of themselves.

And Boelhouwer wants the people of Aldershot to buy him in the 2014 municipal election because he thinks it’s time for a change.  The incumbent has been in place since 2000 and, Boelhouwer, a believer in term limits, would like to see current Councillor Rick Craven step aside.

Jayson Boelhouwer wants to represent Aldershot at city council. He thinks its time for a change.

Boelhouwer has been involved in Aldershot civic affairs for some time.  He sits on the Plains Road Village Vision, right beside Craven; sits on the Aldershot Business Improvement Area, along with Craven.

Boelhouwer maintains that he had a chat with Rick Craven back in 2010 and let him know then that he was interested in running for the seat at some point.  Boelhouwer says Craven led him to believe that the 2010 term might be his last. “I talked with him again about 18 months ago and began to realize that he might well run again so I decided 2014 was going to be the year I ran for the council seat” said Boelhouwer.

Councillor Craven commented at one time to this reporter that taking a run for the office of Mayor was not out of the question.  Given that he has yet to file his nomination papers – we may see a race for the job of Mayor but it isn’t something I would count on.

The old Mercedes-Benz site was developed into a small housing project. Councillor Craven supported this kind of growth. Boelhouwer doesn’t have a strong position on development other than wanting enough people to draw a supermarket to the west end of the ward.

Jason Boelhouwer is Aldershot born and bred.  He brings all the strengths and weakness a small town produces in a personality. High school was in Aldershot followed by the earning of a degree at Brock University in St. Catharines.

Boelhouwer would not do all that much canvassing door to door. “You spend three hours covering a street and you get to talk to maybe 30 people, that’s not very effective” said Boelhouwer.

He isn’t all that keen on lawn signs either – doesn’t think how a person is going to vote is anyone’s business.   Boelhouwer would choose to put really large signs at major intersections where there is a lot of traffic and speaks the way only someone who knows everyone can speak.  My friend at – and names an intersection – will put up a big sign for me.  He believes as well that having a small sign in the windows of commercial establishments will do the trick.

Will Pluckers become campaign central for Jason Boelhouwer? He kind of likes the fireplace inside.

Boelhouwer plans to sit in front of the fire-place at Pluckers on Plains Road and let people know he is there ready to talk to them.  Id he picks up the bat tab for those that drop by – he will do well.  Otherwise B will not come before C in the final vote count.

Boelhouwer will tell you that there are seven hair dressers in Aldershot but no LCBO or supermarket in the west end of the ward.  The supermarket he understands is because there isn’t the population needed to justify that kind of investment by one of the chains but Boelhouwer points out there has been significant growth in Aldershot population – but he doesn’t speak as if he expects a supermarket in the near future.

Local politics are about pot holes and swimming pools and keeping the roads plowed.  Boelhouwer complains about the parking laybys that don’t get the snow cleared out of them making it difficult for people to park in front of the library for example.

Boelhouwer wants to see a Seniors’ Centre in Aldershot. “Oakville” he explains “has three locations for seniors but Burlington has just the one” and that is too tightly controlled for Boelhouwer’s  liking.

Aldershot really doesn’t have all that much in the way of destinations – there is IKEA at the east end and the RBG at the west end – other than that it’s Tim Hortons if you want to get together with people.

Planters along Plains Road have given what used to be a provincial highway a much more suburban look. Hasn’t slowed traffic down enough for most people – except for those who drive through the community.

Don’t talk to Boelhouwer about traffic – its bumper to bumper starting at about 3:30 he will tell you and they want to cut the west end of Plains Road down to just two lanes – ridiculous from Boelhouwer point of view.

Boelhouwer will give Craven credit for what he has done.  He has achieved what he set out to do – the Waterdown Road ramp to the 403 is in place and the King Road grade separation is done. Boelhouwer   sits on the BIA board and thinks Craven has far too much influence on the job that Bob Meehan does as Executive Director of the association and adds that it was the same with the previous occupant of the job.

Boelhouwer isn’t a fan of the Performing Arts Centre, he wouldn’t have approved the pier.  He did serve on the Museum Board for a period of time.  While Boelhouwer has toured the Performing Arts Centre he has not attended an event.

Earlier in life Jason Boelhouwer played soccer; today that sport is now one he coaches.  Jason and his wife have two children, a daughter in first year at Carleton University in Ottawa and a son at Assumption High in Aldershot.  His wife teaches at the same high school.

So what does he want to see Aldershot grow into?  That’s not entirely clear.  He doesn’t want to see five and six storey buildings going up along Planes Road that come right out to the edge of the sidewalk.  He wants to see more localized transit for people.  He would like to see a Seniors Centre added to the Arena and changes made to the transit service so that they could get to the location. Boelhouwer still calls the place the Kiwanis rink.

Boelhouwer believes he can build his name recognition.  His wife teaches at Assumption, he attended Holy Rosary.  His Mother was once a columnist for the Gazette when it was a print publication.  His is a strong parish member and an active participant in the Men’s club there.

While Boelhouwer  will tell you he does not have an identifiable political affiliation – all his advisers are Tory’s which may be more a reflection of Aldershot than Jason Boelhouwer.

More candidate than Craven could manage? Sandra Pupatello on a trip through town looking for local support for her Liberal leadership bid. Craven was prepared to let the party romance him.

Craven is a known active Liberal, who has toyed with the idea of running against Jane McKenna – he thoroughly trounced her when she took a run at municipal politics in 2010.

Boelhouwer expects it will be difficult to reach the under 40 voters. “They are a disparate group and they are very busy people.  He hopes he can catch some of them at Fortino’s in the east end and at the Aldershot Go station as well.

Boelhouwer comes across as a likeable guy.  Folksy, friendly very much a part of his community.  He isn’t going to set the world on fire, there is no burning objective, there is no “plan”.  What he does want to make very clear is that he isn’t a copy of Rick Craven.

We look forward to what he has to say during the campaign.

By Pepper Parr

BURLINGTON, ON. 

January 8, 2014

The people who believe they matter in this city are going to travel to Queen’s Park and tell the Burlington story to just about anyone who will listen.  They plan to do this “ in the Spring”.

The Mayor will lead the parade.  Perhaps they will form a “congo line” from Union Station and dance up University Avenue and into the Legislature – they will travel by GO train won’t they?  As for the rest of the people on that GO train city hall is “still finalizing but there will be Council and senior management team representatives.

Is this team of stellar player travelling into the big smoke to ask for money?  The Mayors Chief of Staff advises “There will be an ask for support but this would include a combination of things. Anything specific we asked: “There will be multi prong objectives to the meetings”.  And if you have figured out what that means – tell us, because we don’t see any information in the statement.

Is Burlington the Rodney Dangerfield of Ontario municipalities – continually looking for suspect?

Burlington is sort of like the Rodney Dangerfield of smaller Ontario communities.  Tucked in between rough, tough, gritty Hamilton and snooty Oakville, Burlington continues to boast about its splendid waterfront (which it is prepared to sell a portion of, if the price is right, or you can scare city council with a law suit – but I digress) and the Escarpment that a lot of people want to drive a road through.

How does a city go about changing the way it is perceived?  City hall thinks our story should be taken to Queen’s Park where they can talk to the people who make things happen in the province and see how they feel about the development charges we have raked in.

Or we could tell them about how we managed to put up a pier that was to cost something in the $6 million range but got ramped up to $14 million and we still have a court case to settle.

Not exactly growth is it. Burlington tax revenue from the Commercial sector is falling and there are no clear signs that it will improve in the very near future.  Revenue has to come from somewhere – residents are an obvious source.

Burlington wants to tell its story – but no one is quite sure just what that story is.  If there is a vision – it’s tough to see it – unless you are looking at all the “happy talk” that comes out of city hall.  Try this for size: “Burlington is widely recognized as a great Canadian city. Not only do 95 per cent of Burlington residents rate their quality of life as excellent or good, but MoneySense magazine has named Burlington the best mid-sized city in Canada and the third best city of any size for 2013.”

The sources of tax revenue.  The yellow and the blue columns have to be grown – no one is sure just how he city is going to do that.

But how do we stay great? , the city asks. In the future, the challenge will be to maintain service levels and high quality of life without significant tax increases. We need to do this in the context of more modest growth, which means we must be proactive in planning and developing resources, especially our land base.

All too true but we have at least one land holder who refuses to work with the city to develop in a moderate intelligent manner.  Paletta International wants to convert lands currently zoned as employment lands into residential where the return on the investment is much more attractive.

There is another developer who has come up with a unique, interesting – even intriguing approach to development that doesn’t follow the traditional pattern.  Evergreen has been sitting on a piece of property at the intersection of Dundas and Tremaine Road for more than ten years that stretches all the way to Hwy 407.  This development has gotten stuck in that quagmire that includes differences of opinion between the Regional Official Plan, Burlington Official plan and the plans that Oakville has – the property sits on the border of the two communities – and Ontario Municipal Board hearings.

“We need to transition: says city hall “from an expanding suburban community to one that “grows in place,” finding new and innovative ways to grow revenues – especially the assessment base – in sustainable ways that recognize the challenges posed by growth limitations.”

That “grows in place” phrase is one you are going to read a lot about in the next few years.  It needs a little more drill down to be fully understood.

“Burlington needs to sustain its revenue base, while maintaining the service levels and quality of life residents have come to enjoy and expect.”

City of Burlington is going to take its story to Queen’s Park in the Spring

To capture some of those challenges, the city has created The Burlington Story. It tells the story of where we’ve been, where we are today and where we’re going.  Watch for Mayor Goldring to grab this story and use it to as one of the major planks of his re-election platform.  That assumes of course that the Mayor will be challenged in his decision to get re-elected next October.

Is the “Burlington Story” the revised version of the Mayor’s vision?

Residents of the city will get their first look at just where our Mayor wants to go when he delivers his State of the City address  January 23, 2014.  The event is hosted by the Chamber of Commerce, tickets are available at the Chamber of Commerce.

December 30, 2013

By Pepper Parr

BURLINGTON, ON.  Gerry Smallegange, Burlington Hydro’s CEO, had dinner with his family Sunday night.  The last home in North Burlington saw its lights go on during the day and the wind was normal with the temperature rising.  Burlington had put a lid on its 2013 power outage.  Now for the cleanup and for the Burlington hydro crews to take  a trip up the road to where the people in Halton Hills are still waiting until they can flick on their lights.

Burlington Hydro CEO Gerry Smallegame and COO Dan Guatto worked all out during the power outage to get light back on – rural Burlington proved to be a real challenge.

Smallegange and his COO DanGuatto, were out day and night.  The worked with the city’s Emergency Operations Committee and interacted with the various stakeholders in the electrical generation industry that serves Burlington.  Burlington doesn’t generate any power; it draws power from various sources and distributes it to homes in the city

Burlington Hydro is a wholly owned subsidiary of the city – you the taxpayer, own them and while you might gripe when you open that electrical bill, when the next one comes in be grateful that you had a fully dedicated team out on the streets and roads of the city fixing the problems.  There wasn’t a person on the operations side of Burlington Hydro who was at home Christmas Day.  It was all hands on deck and forget the idea of an eight-hour shift.

There is quite a story to tell on how Smallegange and Guatto kept it all together and got the job done.  At the second community meeting in Kilbride on Christmas Day, Smallegange was at the front of the room trying to give people detailed answers to the question: When?

He had maps and sheafs of papers in his hands.  Eyes bloodshot from a lack of sleep and his voice a little raspy as well, Smallegame’s voice began to rise as he tried to speak over all the other voices.  He paused and then said: ”I’m not yelling at you – I’m just trying to project my voice.”  It was that kind of day.

Smallegame, a father of three who lives in Burlington may have gotten to see his kids open a present but he sure wasn’t around the house in his slippers playing with the his children and the gifts they had been given.

Running Burlington Hydro is just one of the tasks Smallegame handles; he serves as one of Burlington’s appointments to the Conservation Authority and works closely with the city’s planning department on large projects that call for more than minimal power from the system.

During the awkward times with the MedicaOne project on John Street, Smallegame found himself in the middle of an issue that was not his making.  Power was needed some distance from line that ran along Lakeshore – who should pay for getting a large power line from Lakeshore up to Caroline where the development is to be located was not something Hydro expected to be involved in.

What the public saw was an accomplished executive working just a little outside his comfort zone but nevertheless able to be part of a solution that kept everyone – well almost every – happy.

The efficient and effective distribution of power is essential for a city like Burlington that has moved from greenfield development to infill and intensification.

Running the day-to-day part of the operation that keeps the lights on is job enough – learning that there is a major piece of weather is on the way has Smallegame checking the tools he needs for emergencies and then moving a totally different mode.

It has been a mammoth task.  Early next week the hydro accountants will begin to figure out the cost of the ice storm –they may not be as quick to tell you about that as they were in getting crews out into the field and cutting trees and re-stringing hydro wires.

Christmas Day at the Kilbride Fire Station: Scott Stewart, General manager Infrastructure and development for the city takes questions from area residents while Gerry Smallegame and Dan Guatto look on. Fire Chief Tony Bavato looks on.

With power restored work crews focus on clean-up.   “In the coming days and weeks our staff will focus on the clean-up” was the way  Scott Stewart, general manager of development and infrastructure saw things panning out. . “Our crews will be clearing fallen trees and branches and other debris in all parts of the city.”

The Region is lifting the three-bag limit for garbage pick-up, allowing households to place as many  as six bags of garbage for collection on their scheduled day until Jan. 31, 2014. Brush debris will also be picked up on the same day as garbage from Jan. 6-31, 2014 in designated urban areas. For rural areas, Halton Region is coordinating additional resources.

Resident can also drop off brush debris at the Halton Waste Management site free of charge.

The city has set up two drop-off stations – one in Lowville Park (6207 Guelph Line) parking lot and the other at Ella Foote Hall (2175 Blessington St.) – where residents who are able to can drop off brush and wood.

The drop-off sites open on Sunday, Dec. 29 and are staffed daily from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. There will be either a loader or a backhoe at each location to assist with debris.

The Warming Centre at the Kilbride Fire Station and the Haber Recreation Centre are now closed. The city’s Emergency Operations Committee has also stood down.

 There are a lot of branches that have fallen and while most have been moved to the side of the road where they will be picked up – there are situations where branches have to be moved. Email rpm@burlington.ca

We came through it.  There were some significant communications glitches that need to be looked at but there were no fatalities.  A lot of tired men who spent long hours climbing poles and trimming branches from a box at the end of a boom with the sound of a chain saw roaring in their ears.  

Background:

It was a winter wonder land for amateur photographers – a challenge for hydro crews.

December 28, 2013

By Pepper Parr

BURLINGTON, ON.  Gerry Smallegange probably didn’t sleep all that well Friday night.  The weather people are predicting winds of 20 kmh – which in the world Smallegange currently lives in is not good news.

Gerry Smallegange, center, along with his COO Dan Guatto  explaining to Kilbride area residents just where Hydro was in its restoring power to the community project.

The temperature hasn’t risen enough for enough of the ice on the trees in north Burlington to melt.  If those tree branches start swaying in the wind they could come down on all those hydro lines he has had to re-build.

Smallegange is the chief cheese at Burlington Hydro who, along with his second in command,  Dan Guatto, have been at it  24/7 since the first sign of a serious weather problem became evident more than a week ago.

It was close to impossible to keep up with the demand for help.  Saturday of last week Smallegange knew that he had thousands of homes in the city without power.  Situations like this are not new to the people who supply homes with electricity – it was the sheer volume that came close to crippling the hydro people.

By the end of the Monday, the 23^rd, things were beginning to look a little better.  Lines were getting put back up in the communities south of the QEW but there were still some stubborn pockets that were taking longer than expected.

While north Burlington wasn’t being ignored by any stretch – the scope and scale of the problem up there was brutal.  Smallegange knew that he had a very significant problem on his hands and needed all the help he could get.  He also needed a break in the weather – and that wasn’t happening.

The ice that had built upon the hydro wires needed to melt – and the temperatures were staying at a stubborn six to ten degrees below zero.

Working from his cell phone with an ear piece, Dan Guatto, the senior operations person at Burlington Hydro, is in communication with each of the hydro crews and the eight tree trimming trucks out on the roads of North Burlington during the power outage.

The city’s Emergency Coordinating Committee was almost in constant session and doing their best to maintain a constant flow of information to city residents.  The difficulty was that with no power radio and television were useless as was the internet and social media.

What worked best was  neighbour telling neighbour and in the north – community meetings.  The city held its first community meeting in Kilbride where hundreds showed up with questions.  The city did its best – but at times that wasn’t good enough.

The lack of information was frustrating for the residents without power and the politicians and bureaucrats who had information.  Information, like energy, has to have lines it can flow through – and the available lines weren’t working all that well when it came to keeping people informed.

For those without power – they were in the dark in more ways than one.   For reasons that are not yet clear the city’s communications department didn’t seem to have strong working relationships with the radio stations – which meant the people needing the information weren’t getting it from the radio stations – apparently because information wasn’t getting from the city to that media.

The news people have one need – information – and if it is given to them – they get it out.  Mayor Goldring expressed considerable frustration over the lack of radio coverage.  “This has been a frustration and challenge for us, compounded by the time of year when so many organizations are working with lighter than usual staff compliments., he said in his blog posted on the city’s web site.

Mayor Rick Goldring explaining to Kilbride area residents what was being done and the time frames the repair crews were working to in their community.

Mayor Goldring went on to “ assure you that we did communicate extensively with the local stations that reach the Burlington audience. Burlington is without its own radio station; if we had our own station, it would have helped enormously in pushing communication out to those without power. I will be asking our Communications staff to reach out to area radio stations in order to create better connections during times of emergency.”  Better late than never, I suppose.

Many of the outdoor locations that families use during holiday periods are not operational.  Of the seven facilities run by the Galton Conservation Authority – just the one, Glen Eden, is open. All the others:Crawford Lake; Mt. Nemo; Mountsberg; Hilton Falls; Rattlesnake Point and Robert Edmondson are closed and are expected to remain closed until early in the New Year.

While it has been tough for Burlingtonians – the rest of Halton has had it hard as well.  The situation in Toronto is beyond comprehension and it isn’t much better elsewhere.

Bolton: 368 customers 

Guelph: 1,639 customers 

Orangeville: 1,774 customers 

Toronto Hydro: 32,400 customers (300,000 at peak)

Brampton: 500 customers 

Halton Hills Hydro: 900 customers 

York Region (Power Stream): 1,000 customers 

Durham Region (Veridian): 1,000 customers 

Milton Hydro: less than 1,000 customers 

The city is now running the Emergency Operations centre out of the Kilbride Fire Station which is also serving as a Warming Centre where people can get drinking water and to use washroom facilities.

The Haber Recreation Centre – 3040 Tim Dobbie Dr., Burlington, is set up as an overnight evacuation centre with warm beds and hot showers.

A photographers paradise: a major problem for hydro crews when there is ice on those tree branches that become a real problem when the wind rises and the branches begin to sway and snap off – falling onto the hydro lines.

Hydro just might be able to report by the end of the day that they have our local problems licked – assuming the winds stay low and the temperature rises.  Burlington Hydro crews can them move on into other communities and beginning stringing hydro lines elsewhere.

Burlington has a neat little habit of referring to those occasions where problems have cropped up as opportunities to learn – and learn they will.  Mayor Goldring added in his blog that: In the following weeks, we will be conducting a thorough review, debrief and analysis of our response to the ice storm. We have learned a great deal from this experience and much of what we have learned will be incorporated into future emergency operations response. Our communication protocols and the tools we have available are areas that we have realized need particular focus.

He got that part right.

Background:

Mayor leafs through his emergency Measures Manual