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EPC FIELD REPORT 75/2 The Warning Smell of Gas By: Joseph Scanlon & Brian Taylor I* Emergency Planning Planification d'urgence Canada Canada QD 516 W37 1975
EPC FIELD REPORT 75/2 The Warning Smell of Gas By: Joseph Scanlon & Brian Taylor Emergency Planning Canada Pearson Building OTTAWA, Canada May 1975 The publication of this report does not signify that the contents necessarily reflect the views and policies of EPC WORKING PAPER For Information Only This material is not to be quoted or reference without the permission of EPC.
- 1 - On January 8, 1975, there was a smell of gas in the Barry Building, a two-story office building, located on MacIntyre Street, a main one-way thoroughfare in downtown North Bay, Ontario. Occupants of the building noticed the smell, commented on it to visitors and spoke of it among themselves. Passersby spoke of it too. One group of City Hall employees -- returning after a coffee break to their offices across the street -- remarked that if anyone lit a match they would be blown up. But, despite the smell, no one took any official action. The police, right across the street were not aware of any danger. The fire department a few blocks away didn't hear anything. There were some minor complaints to a number of gas company workers who were nearby but they were not passed on to other persons of authority in the company. * At 3:30 p.m., onwednesday January 8, it became too late for any precautions. The Barry Building exploded and in a few seconds, collapsed into rubble. Even as the dust settled, the rubble began to burn -- almost immediately there were flames licking at the rear corner of what had once been a building. North Bay had on its hands a major disaster -- one which eventually took the lives of eight or nine people** and injured thirty-nine others. The Immediate Response Within seconds of the original blast, the community of North Bay began to respond to the demands of the disaster. Passersby scrambled onto the rubble and began to dig for survivors. Other persons called official agencies such as the fire department, the ambulance service and the media to tell them of the incident. Almost as quickly, police, located in their headquarters just across MacIntyre Street, began the job of helping the injured and summoning other agencies to assist in the recovery operation. A time log, put together on the basis of interviews with officials, suggests that before one minute had passed after the blast, all of these things had happened: 1. A private citizen had called the North Bay Fire Department; 2. Passersby were on the wreckage digging out some victims; 3. Police attending a lecture in a nearby building had felt the shock and had run back to duty at headquarters across the street; 4. The deputy-chief of police had shouted orders to a number of officers to call for official assistance and had, himself joined passersby in the digging operation; 5. Police had used the direct line at police headquarters to call the provincial ambulance dispatcher; and *Officials of the gas company declined to discuss any apects of the explosion with members of the Carleton Research Team; however the above information was given at the inquest. ** see footnote, page three
-2-6. The mayor, who had been standing In his office window which looks out onto MacIntyre Street at the Barry Building, had avoided the glass from shattered panes and joined the growing crowd at the scene. The second minute after the blast was just as active. The ambulance dispatcher, acting on the police call, had already dispatched two ambulances a dozen blocks or so to the disaster site. The fire department had cleared the number one station and the deputy-chief on duty had ordered a second station to respond as well; and he had ordered all off-duty personnel called in. Three policemen had begun the job of calling other agencies: the fire department (where they had learned that someone had beaten them to it); St. Joseph's hospital (which went on immediate emergency footing); the Ontario Hydro*, and the gas company. And, at the disaster site itself, even as the flames began to spread, the rescuers had managed to help three persons out of the rubble to relative safety. Problems During The Immediate Response Despite this impressive response, there were a few initial problems: 1. The call to the fire department by an unidentified individual stated that the building in question was the Donnelly, not the Barry Building. 2. The initial call to the fire department was not recorded because the department, despite requests, did not have automatic record equipment. A fireman has to depress a pedal to activate the record device. (When the first call came in about the explosion, the man on duty did not record the first part.) 3. The police were not exactly sure of all the numbers that needed calling. For example, they called the Ontario Hydro which did not become involved, but they could not immediately turn up the number for North Bay Hydro which did become involved. 4. No one apparently thourht of notifying a coroner. 5. None of the police, or anyone else. called the emergency ward at the Civic Hospital or any other official at the Civic. This meant that the hospital did not receive its first official notification until 12 minutes after the blast, just as the first victim was being unloaded at the emergency bay. As it turned out, none of these things caused any serious problems. The call to the fire department still led the firemen almost exactly to the scene because the Donnelly Building was right next door to the Barry Building. The failure to record did not become a problem because the call turned out to be clearly understandable and did not have to be played back to be checked. North Bay Hydro did eventually get called by the police (the delay was only a matter of minutes) and did arrive on the scene in time to make the decisions that were later necessary. And, finally, the Civic Hospital responded to the emergency quickly enough so that the lack of advanced notification turned out to not seriously affect *Electric Power Utility
- 3 - its ability to deal with this specific disaster. Secondary Response Of course the immediate response was not the only response to the Barry Building explosion. The time log continued to be packed for the next few hours: 3:33 p.m. - 3 minutes after the blast - the fire department was on the scene. (The firemen and cleared th,iir station in 35 seconds.) By that time, flames covered the entire pile of rubble and smoke could be seen for miles. There was also intense heat. 3:34 p.m. - 4 minutes after the blast - the first ambulance had arrived. The ambulance drivers had set to work loading the victims into their vehicles. Six persons had died in the ruins though their bodies were not recovered until the fire was out. Two other persons were critically injured and both died at St. Joseph's hospital by 4:30 p.m. - 90 minutes after the explosion.* The ambulance dispatcher called CFCH radio - the most listened to station, a station that gets about three-quarters of the total audience at that time of day - and requested that the alert code (Code B) be broadcast. The station did so immediately. 3:35 p.m. - five minutes after the blast - police, concerned about the hear and flames, and unsure of the cause of the explosion, decided to evacuate near-by buildings. They also called Ontario Provincial Police and asked them to take over the non-disaster police duties for North Bay. 3:40 p.m. - 10 minutes after the blast - the first ambulance had cleared the scene, the dispatcher had notified St. Joseph's it was on its way, and the hospital was ready. All personnel had been notified over the hospital's public address system that there had been an emergency.. Extra ambulances had already cleared for the scene from the garage where they were undergoing minor repairs. At the scene itself there was still some confusion. The injured were still being removed. Agencies were still responding. The firemen were still trying to start the job of tackling a serious fire. The police were just beginning the evacuation of near-by buildings and were trying to keep back an ever-growing crowd. 3:55 p.m. - 25 minutes after the blast. North Bay Hydra decided it would be wise to cut out the main transformer on Maclntyre Street because of the danger of explosions. They were worried about the hazard to firemen. 4:15 p.m. - 45 minutes after the blast - North Bay Hydra decided to cut off the power from the entire area - again because of the possible danger to firemen from live wires. *A ninth person actually died in hospital but it is not yet clear whether death was caused by injuries suffered in the explosion or by other means.
- 4 - Problems During the Secondary Response response. There were a number of problems during the period of secondary One of these was the problem of electric power. The decision to cut the power unit left part of the downtown area without power and affected police operations. The police radio switched to a back-up power system but their computer was out because of the power cuts and the recording of police messages was no longer possible. The power cut also meant that Bell Canada had to go to a back-up generator. This went into service automatically and did not affect telephone service in the area. An additional problem which was steadily developing was that of co-ordination at the disaster site. By this time there were a great many agencies on the scene -- the police, the fire department, the ambulances, the works department, the gas company, the hydro people, the telephone company etc. It was not clear which of these agencies should take control of the operation. Police had managed, by around four o'clock, to get works department officials to put up barricades; but it was difficult for them to know exactly who should be allowed to pass the barricades - or who should be removed from inside. Finally, there were two other problems that developed during the secondary response period. One of them was mentioned earlier - the failure to notify Civic Hospital immediately of the fact that there was a disaster - and the other was the problem of convergence. Both of these will be dealt with in some detail. The Hospital Communication Problem The earlier mentioned failure to notify the Civic Hospital could have caused serious difficulties. It meant that it was not possible to have any consultation between the two hospitals about the possibility of sending a medical team (triage unit) to the disaster site, even though this had been done during simulation. It meant that there was not time to clear the emergency ward at the Civic of persons attending a cancer clinic before the first victim arrived. It meant that the first patientswere at hand before anyone at the hospital could decide whether additional staff was needed, whether blood donors should be activated, whether extra pharmaceuticals should be prepared, or whether there shouldbe any other preparatory measures. In short, the entire decision-making process at the Civic Hospital was delayed for an 11-minute period. This delay meant that no action was taken during this period by the hospital to prepare to receive disaster victims. If the disaster had been a more serious one, this could have been a real problem. The delay led to a request by the Civic emergency staff that the first victim be sent to St. Joseph's. But, by the time the ambulance dispatcher received that request, the first ambulance was actually at the ambulance bay, about to unload, so that request was ignored. However one later ambulance was despatched to St. Joseph's instead of the Civic. Once the call was received things went well. The cancer patients were moved very quickly out of the way and the medical personnel, who had been at the cancer clinic, pitched in to help treat the victims thus increasing the availability of
medical staff. At that hour the Civic staff was also involved in a shift change so therefore there were extra medical personnel available for duty. The failure to alert the Civic came as a result of a serious misunderstanding. At that time, the provincial ambulance service was located In a room adjacent to the emergency ward of the Civic, but not directly connected. The ambulance dispatcher was also at the Civic Hospital in another room in the basement by the boiler room. The city police assumed that when they called the ambulance service - and thus reached the dispatcher located physically in the Civic Hospital - they had also notified the Civic emergency. However this turned out not to be true because once the dispatcher received the police call, he had a number of other more immediate priorities. He had to activate the available ambulances. He had to respond to other incoming calls because there might have been another emergency. He had to activate off-duty drivers by calling a radio station and using a special alert code, (Code B) - which tells all ambulance drivers to report in immediately. He had to track down other ambulances, including a couple being repaired in a garage and he had to answer the radio calls from the ambulances responding to the initial disaster calls. Not only that, he had to (and did) keep a complete log of everything that happened. It is not at all surprising that it was 3:39 p.m. - 9 minutes after the first call - before he first told St. Joseph's (who had already been told by police) that the first victim was en route; and 3:42 p.m. - 11 minutes after the first call - before he told Civic emergency that the second patient was headed there. As things turned out, there was another complication which delayed the Civic learning of the disaster. St. Joseph's Hospital not only got a police call - but it also had in its emergency department, an ambulance radio unit. And that meant that even while the switchboard was getting a police call upstairs, the nurses and other staff down in the emergency area could hear the ambulance radio traffic and realize that problems were about to arrive. The Civic at the time of the disaster, had no radio receiving unit in emergency so that even though the ambulance bay was next door, no one on duty in emergency could hear by listening to the radio that there was a flurry of activity. The hospital communication problem was therefore not the fault of someone who did a bad job. The police responded very quickly, as did the ambulance dispatcher and the hospital personnel all responded at a very high speed once they were notified. The fault was in the warning system itself, the result of a misunderstanding, a problem that was easy to overlook. There was one other problem associated with the hospitals. The only person with a list of blood donors was a woman with the Red Cross who had the list at home. After the hospitals reached her by phone she in turn tried to contact donors - also by phone. This proved extremely difficult because of the general overload on the phone system. Eventually able to contact an operator who on hearing the problem gave this woman the same special emergency service that had been given to major institutions (police, fire and hospitals etc. )* *The Bell Canada operator also personally rounded up enough blood donors at Bell Canada to more than meet the blood demand.
- 6 - All these problems have been corrected. The police now will call the Civic. The ambulance radio unit is being installed at the Civic emergency ward so that it no longer appears likely that a similar delay would happen. Problems of Convergence The high speed response to the disaster was not confined to official agencies: there was a high speed unofficial effect among the general populace as well. Data about crises and disasters suggest that they provoke extremely high-speed interpersonal communication systems and the North Bay disaster was no exception. Just as (some 14 months earlier) the word of the murder of a policeman spread through the city by word of mouth,* so did the word of the explosion. Evidence collected by the Carleton Research Team suggest that most people either felt or saw the blast, saw its immediate aftermath (flames and smoke) or heard about it extremely quickly. Furthermore, those active in the community - those moving about in cars or at work or school - heard much faster than those less mobile or further away at home. Speed of Learning According to the weighted data obtained from a sample of the adult population, 16 years and up, one out of every five persons became aware of the blast immediately. Another one of every seven was to learn within the first ten minutes. This means that by the ten-minute mark, approximately 33.9% (over one-third of the population sampled) knew about the blast. The evidence available also suggests that high speed transmission of news continued for the next 10-20 minutes. Nearly two-thirds of the sample, 64%, knew about the explosion before half an hour passed. The word spread extremely rapidly. Table I Speed of Learning (Percentage of those who knew by time) TOTAL Immediately (by direct perception) 19.2% 10 minutes another 14.7% 33.9% 30 minutes another 30.2% 64.1% 60 minutes another 4.5% 68.6% 3 hours another 10.8% 79.4% Place of Learning (eventually everyone) Almost as important as the speed of learning is the place of learning. Table II below shows that those who heard at work or school, or heard while on the move by car, tended to hear much faster than those who were isolated in their homes. *See an earlier study by the Carleton team.
- 7 - Table IT (The figures express the percentage of those who learned at given times in each location. For example, 31.4 % of those in a work-school situation learned immediately.) Home Immediately 10.7 10 minutes 18.4 30 minutes 52.3 60 minutes 67.2 3 hours 92.8 Work-School 31.4 53.3 80.0 87. 6 100.0 Car 6.9 48.3 93.1 100.0 Clearly, those on the move, at work or school were far more likely to hear very quickly, (and therefore were far more likely to get involved in physical convergence than those isolated at home.) The figures in Table I and Table II have to be qualified for a number of reasons. Not included are those under sixteen or transients, such as occupants of hotels and motels, or non-residents in hospitals. Furthermore, they are based on the replies of individuals and are a little suspect when such.precise timing as 10 minutes is being used. The persons were simply asked when they heard, the answers were recorded and the data were classified later. The times were not asked for in the terms given above even though interviewees gave very precise answers making the above table possible. One more piece of evidence supports the idea that much of the communication took place by word of mouth, and that is the presence of human communication chains. One of the orginal purposes of the Carleton project was to examine the existence of human communication in crises and disasters, especially the nature of the human communication chains. This was done in some detail in the original Carleton report "The North Bay/Slater Study". The present study reinforces that early data. Interpersonal Chains Working from a sample of 168 persons, the researchers traced human communication chains to their origins in 87 cases and went part way in some other cases. These chains extended as far as six stages which means that seven different successive people were involved in the transmission of first information about the blast. Most important, in many cases, these chains led, not to radio or television as a point of origin, but to persons who had been involved in the event as participants, or spectators. In fact, only 25 of the 87 chains, less than one in three led to radio or T.V. The bulk, about 71% were traced to direct contacts -- eye witnesses or participants. In other words, the people of North Bay learned of the blast mainly by word of mouth and would have learned even if they had no radio or T.V. The human communication system was extremely active in North Bay after the Barry Building explosion.
- 8 - Table III Communication Chains* Number of Stages Number of Chains Identified Leading to Leading to Leading to Direct Contact Radio T.V. 6 1 5 2 1 4 4 2 3 9 4 1 2 14 15. 2 1 32 25 8 0 40 Radio T.V. Direct Contact *The nature of a chain has been somewhat refined from the original North Bay/Slater Study for the purpose of improved analysis. It is assumed in Table III above that persons who have direct contact with an event represent a chain of length 0. Persons who hear from someone else who had direct contact, or who heard from radio or television, represent a chain of length 1. Presented in this way, the data make it appear that there were far more traces involved in radio and television chains than was actually the case. A person who heard directly from radio or T.V. would have been a person who was found in the original sample, therefore whether this implies a chain, it involves only one interview. A person who heard from someone else who had been in contact with the event was also in a chain of length one; but in this case, two interviews were necessary. The Phenomena of Convergence What we have discussed in the above section is what the literature on disasters refers to as convergence. This can involve informational convergence (the rapid transmission of information) people convergence (the sudden surprise movement of people, especially toward the disaster site and physical convergence (the movement of supplies and materials, again toward the disaster site. There is evidence that North Bay experienced all of these aspects of convergence. The information above -- the notes on the nature and speed of word-of-mouth communication -- show that a great deal of informational
- 9- activity took place. Furthermore the experience of Bell Canada suggests that some of this word of mouth activity took place by telephone. Within two minutes of the time of the blast, Bell Canada noticed an increase in telephone traffic in North Bay. Within 12 minutes - 3:42p.m. -.Bell Canada moved to an emergency system. A number of key agencies -- police, both hospitals, the fire department the armed forces (North Bay is an important military centre), Ontario Hydro (electric power), the pipeline company and Bell itself -- all received operator service. * This evidence of word-of-mouth convergence by telephone is supported by other evidence obtained in interviews. We have already listed the rash of official and other calls that took place in the wake of the blast -- the police calls, the unofficial calls to the fire department, the calls for blood donors, etc. In addition, we were often told in interviews by persons that they had phoned a number of people seeking information and -- by some of our interviewees -- that their entire chain was completed over the telephone. But the convergence that followed the Barry building explosion was not just word-of-mouth convergence: it involved the movement of people as well. Asked if they had seen the disaster site, roughly half the people in the sample said, "yes". A great many of them also said they got there quite quickly. 8.2% (almost 1 in 11) said they had seen it within half an hour. 9.8% (almost 1 in 10) said they saw it within half an hour. Asàuming that the sample was reasonably representative this means that somewhere between 3,000 to 4,000 were at the site within the first hour. (And this number was undoubtly swelled by persons under 16 and by transients both of which were excluded from the sample.) What brought these people there? Of those who went, about 45% said they went from simple curiosity. Another 33 % said it was simple routine. Only a small per cent -- 8% -- said they went because their jobs took them there. In other words, official needs -- rescue work etc. -- was not a major reason for drawing persons to the disaster site. In addition to the convergence of people, there was also of course physical convergence of supplies, equipment, vehicles. The disaster site soon attracted all kinds of official vehicles -- police cars, fire trucks, ambulances, gas trucks,hydro trucks, telephone trucks, mobile radio units -- enough to clog the downtown area. These were soon backed up by other units -- works crews carrying barricades, army vehicles bringing emergency power. The official response alone brought about 300 to 500 people to the disaster site (based on survey data). In addition, since MacIntyre Street is a busy downtown thoroughfare and the blast occured about an hour before rush hour the area soon became clogged with normal traffic, with cars, buses and other vehicles trying to find a route around an unexpectedly blocked area. * This did create one problem. The interviews with a number of agencies suggest these agencies were not completely familiar with the nature of this service and that, therefore, the system did not work as well as it should have if the agencies had understood it.
- 10 - In short, North Bay experienced a convergence of information, a convergence of people and a convergence of physical kind -- a movement of vehicles. The Problems of Convergence Several problems were created by these various kinds of convergence, some of which have been mentioned earlier. The word-of-mouth convergence caused telephone jamming forcing the Bell to a back-up system. It also created difficulties for official agencies such as the police and hospitals who were involved in phoning personnel. The physical convergence -- the movement of people toward the disaster site -- caused problems of crowd control, forcing police and works personnel to get involved in corwd control activities. It also exposed people to possible danger -- at the beginning it was feared that there might be another explosion following the first one. Finally the physical convergence -- movement of vehicles -- created its own problems of movement. It could have made it difficult to move ambulances and other emergency vehicles. It did lead to some confusion -- there were a great many persons at the site performing different functions. And it did create some difficulties in establishing perimeter control -- since the multiplicity of agencies and vehicles involved made it difficult to decide which should have access to the restricted area and which should not. The Role of the Media Although word-of-mouth communications were very quick in North Bay, the media response was somewhat slow. This is rather strange because all North Bay media learned of the blast very quickly. The two television stations, CKNY and CHNB, both got phone tips at the two minute mark. The main radio station, CFCH, learned about the same time because the station staff overheard extensive radio traffic on the f ire department radio which they were monitoring. Furthermore, the staff at the daily newspaper, the Nuggett, also learned quickly. They are so close to the site of the disaster the staff could feel the shock of the explosion. They were on the scene less than three minutes after the event. But, while all media learned very quickly, on the whole they did not respond nearly so fast. The two television stations did not actually broadcast any news bulletins until over an hour later. And then they broadcast only officially requested messages. The first real T.V. news coverage did not come until after the major CBC and CTV national newscasts at 11:00 p.m. Radio did somewhat better. It broadcast the ambulance call-up "Code B" as requested at 3:34 p.m. and broadcast a report from a mobile unit at 3:49 p.m. - 19 minutes after the blast and repeated it at 5 p.m. - 11 minutes later. An initial radio broadcast also asked people to stay away if possible -- an appeal that apparently was put out by the news staff itself, rather than in response to an official request.
- 11 - But, the radio reports contained some flaws. For one thing, they identified the site only as the building beside the Donnelly Building across from the police station on Maclntyre Street. Some persons assumed it was the Donnelly Building and others assumed it was the service station next door. Secondly, reports referred to a girl being removed from the rubble, something which did not apparently take place. The print media, on the whole, came out the best. The Nuggett got the first bulletin on the Canadian Press Wire at 4:15 p.m., 45 minutes after the blast. A detailed and thoroughly accurate assessment was published in the following day's paper.* In some crises the media have played an extremely important role for as the main carrier of information they disseminate the picture of what has happened. In North Bay the media were not that important in g(^tting the first message to the people. Only 4.2% of the population learned directly from television according to the data obtained from the sample. Only 17.8% learned first directly from radio. In other words, direct radio and T.V. messages informed about one-fifth of the total population. Direct media information, accurate or not, was not the main source of information. Furthermore, the data are not substantially altered when one examines the origin of interpersonal communication chains. As shown in Table III earlier, 71% of the chains led directly to eye witnesses, or participants. Two out of three persons in the sample were dependent on word-of mouth chains which did not originate with the mass media. There has been some suggestion in earlier studies that early media information might be guided in such a way as to prevent convergence and that reports might be delayed until i t becomes clear what should be or could be helpful. Clearly, the Carleton-North Bay findings do not support this idea at all. The problems of convergence in North Bay appear to have been caused almost entirely by extremely high-speed word-of-mouth communication from direct observation of the disaster. In other words, the fact that the media did not report anything was not particularly helpful. It simply meant that more and more people heard by word-of-mouth or by telephone conversation and reacted accordingly. We do have some evidence that the opposite, rapid media transmission would have been helpful. As mentioned earlier, CFCH radio did request people to stay away from the scene, and there were requests to people not to use telephones. Some people in the sample volunteered the information that they had stayed away from the scene as a result of a request to do so. In other words, requests for co-operation may be effective. It may be that very quick media messages, accompanied by requests like the one broadcast over CFCH, are an effective way of reducing the problems of convergence. The opposite -- delaying media reports - would not appear to work. Suggested Solutions to Some of the Problems We have mentioned a number of problems in the text of this report. It seems to us that it is useful to make some suggestions about possible solutions, or approaches, to these problems. * The bulletin went out the same time as the Toronto EMO was alerted by teletype message from North Bay.
- 12- First of all, it seems clear that, in the absence of any kind of official information, the bulk of information flow will take place either by word-of-mouth in a completely informal manner, or by media stimulus again without any official information. If this is the case, the response will be largely uncontrollable. It was a fact that in North Bay no one had been assigned any kind of public relations function, although the police took that upon themselves. They found the task difficult and, in fact, passed outside media calls to the North Bay Nugget. If the media did play a role in the sense that they informed a substantial number of people, it seems clear they could have played a more useful role with official high-level co-operation and coordination. There is a fair amount of evidence in other communities that the media are prepared to co-operate if asked to do so, and there seems little doubt that personnel at CFCH Radio, would have been more than willing to cooperate with any request they received. The problem, therefore, is very much one of lack of official activity not one of media reluctance. It seems clear that direct observation and high speed word-of-mouth transmission will inform a large portion of the community inevitably leading to convergence and that one way to counteract this is with official messages transmitted through the media. It appears essential that somewhere in the disaster response system there should be the capacity to issue official information and requests as quickly as possible. The public relations function needs to be built into the disaster response. If such a response is to be part of the system it must be clear where the leadership role for disaster response is placed because information flow must be part of a co-ordinated approach to disaster response. In North Bay there was no clearly defined leadership role although the police gradually assumed such a role and took over the disaster response. The EMO director was out-of-town at the time of the blast but in any case, there were no agency requests for EMO support or leadership. By the time an EMO official had been able to arrive and offer any assistance necessary (at 6:45 p.m. -- 3 hours after the explosion), the mayor had decided that any formal EMO presence was unnecessary. The mayor's view is that EMO was in fact involved because the police, the hospitals, the fire department, the works department make up EMO, and in that sense EMO was there. It appears to us that an overall co-ordinating agency could have offered a number of useful contributions: 1. It could have provided an emergency communications system (such as the citizens' band radio operating in Sydney, N.S.) which would have provided communications along the disaster perimeter and relieved the police radio from the strain of operating both the police system and the disaster co-ordination system. 2. It could have provided some auxiliary personnel for such purposes as manning'barriers and crowd control, relieving the police for other duty.
- 13-3. It could have made sure that there was co-ordination among the various disaster agencies, perhaps by convening a quick meeting of representatives from these groups to make sure who was involved, what their roles were and what kind of coordination was needed. 4. It could have been more deeply involved in advance disaster planning, providing such things as check-lists for police and others who needed to activate the system, perhaps helping a municipal response through simulation activities. 5. It could have met one specific need in North Bay and that was supplementary lighting for the disaster area. While the Canadian Forces, the fire department and the works department were able to help with this it might have been useful if some agency had anticipated that particular need. In short, it seems to us that there is a role to be played in any disaster by some overall co-ordinating and assisting agency. Simulations The above should not suggest that North Bay had not made any preparations for disaster. In fact, the North Bay Hospitals (as they are required to do) had taken part in a simulation not too long before the disaster. This simulation had led to a number of adaptions within the hospital to the disaster response system. The hospital staffs at both hospitals moved easily into a position of disaster readiness. Those responsible for crowd control took up their assigned positions, the call for needed personnel operated fairly systematically although there was some difficulty because of the telephone jamming. But on the whole the system worked quite well. For example, one of the discoveries during simulation was that the discharge of patients was taking place in the area where incoming victims were being brought. This system was reorganized and, although the discharge procedure did not have to be activated at the hospital during the building explosion disaster, the system was activated part way. Patients were moved from their rooms, gathered for tea, told they might have to leave and why. The simulation had also affected the police department in the sense that the police noticed and pointed out to others the need for crowd control. After looking over the simulation the police concluded that the control area should be fairly large. When disaster struck they put this experience to use by cordoning off a substantial downtown area of two blocks, thus reducing crowd control problems around the disaster site. Post Disaster Review Finally the community, particularly the hospital sector of the community, almost inmediately went into a post-disaster review. The problems of notifying the Civic have already been noted, and the Civic immediately took a number of steps to overcome their problem. The notification system has been checked out and changed. An ambulance radio is being installed for emergencies. St. Joseph's, which had problems calling in personnel, has installed special telephone lines to bypass the switchboard guaranteeing that jamming within the hospital will not stop the call-up system in the future.
- 14 - Finally, both hospitals have made arrangements to duplicate the list of blood donors so that the cards will not again be left in the home of someone who might have difficulty getting to a telephone. In short, the hospitals in the post-disaster period took immediate steps to overcome the problems they had encountered during the disaster. It is our view that such a post-disaster review should form an automatic response to a disaster, not only for the benefit of the community itself but because this may well lead to an identification of problems helpful to other such communities. General Comments There are one or two highlights of the North Bay response to disaster which are worth mentioning: 1. The speed with which the ambulance service responded to the disaster. The dispatcher performed an incredibly good job of summoning those off duty and directing all involved. The ambulance call up system - which involved the use of a special code broadcast over a private radio station and thus avoided any need for telephone calls - worked extremely well and indicated just how effective a call-up system can be. All ambulance personnel were on duty in less than 20 minutes. 2. The telephone operator who responded to the need for the blood call-up was also impressive in her performance. The operator decided immediately to provide assistance to the woman running the blood bank card index and that assistance enabled the blood donor system to operate despite the problems with the telephone system. 3. Finally, it is worth noting that although the data are not suff icient for complete verification, it seems quite clear that a substantial number of firms, schools and other agencies with large numbers of people involved did broadcast appeals to their employees, students, whatever, not to converge on the disaster scene. The evidence we have from very modest survey data is that a lot of people chose to respond to such requests and stay away. It is our view that the people of North Bay were very responsive to requests for co-operation, suggesting that an effective system of asking for immediate co-operation could work. There is some suggestion in earlier studies that this does not happen and that people do not respond to such requests. In North Bay, the evidence suggests the opposite. A Word About Us For those of us attached to the Emergency Communication Research Unit(ECRU) at Carleton, crises and disasters are fast becoming a way of life. In just over 14 months we have dealt with a shoot-out at North Bay, a blizzard and subsequent state of emergency in St. John's, Nfld., a wind storm that devastated parts of Sydney, N.S., and a building explosion that took eight or nine lives in North Bay. We are acquiring an increasing knowledge of such disasters and we are convinced we have an efficient mechanism for acquiring information about them.
- 15 - On each of these occasions we have discovered new problems to deal with. In disasters nothing goes quite according to plan. There are always new difficulties to be overcome, new questions to be answered In closing this report, we would like to describe some of the new problems we are encountering and some suggestions as to how we plan to deal with them. We would also like to suggest where our research might take us in the hope that we will recieve comment on the appropriateness of our priorities. In less than two years, we have been able to put together a welltrained stand-by research team. At the moment, for example, we have seventeen persons on stand-by. Ten of them have had previous field experience, (averaging more than two trips with the team). Seven are newcomers trained only in simulation. Seventy per cent of the team speaks English and French. We can also interview in Italian, German, Finnish and Polish. We have a proven questionnaire partially revised since North Bay. We have a tested and proved activation procedure which has operated so well that we usually have people ready to go before we are prepared to send them. Our sampling techniques have been substantially improved, and are now codified in a kit prepared by a fourth-year general science student under the direction of Dr. Jack Graham of Carleton's Mathematics Department. The same student has also prepared a set of instructions attached to each questionnaire to improve the actual handling of sampling in the field. However, we still have difficulties. Our sampling techniques have not, as yet, overcome the problem of transients. Only recently, have we been-able to give serious study as to how hotel residents, motel residents and hospital patients not from the community could be included in the sample. Furthermore, children (under 16) have not so far been included in the original sample (though in the chains) yet there is some.evidence that children play an important role in disaster communication, especially in daytime. More important, we have never entirely resolved an extremely.critical problem, and that is the identification of a disaster. When does a person know of an event? In North Bay for example, did knowing mean feeling the blast, even if it is interpreted as a car collision; seeing the f lames, even though thinking it might be a big fire; being told about it, even though told incorrectly; or actually learning the specifics and in any case what does "specifics" mean. We have tried very hard to answer these questions. In North Bay for example, we have defined the "knowing" as the point where a reaction occurs in response to some information or event. Our present intention is to study a number of phenomena, in the following way. First, we are prepared to deal with a medium-sized Canadian community where we feel we can operate, and (this now means operating from coast to coast). Second, we will send a small advanced team which will attempt to identify the nature of the disaster and the probability of finding any reasonable information about: 1. Warning systems and their effectiveness 2. The flow of official information about the disaster 3. The flow of informal information about the disaster
- 16-4. The flow of rumours in the wake of disaster 5. The attempts by people involved in the community to acquire information on the disaster. We intend to include in each and every case, the official response system so that we can document the interface between the official communications system and the unofficial system. Finally, there is one remaining problem in our work to date which is becoming increasingly serious. While we have established the capacity to collect data and to provide some descriptive interpretation we have not yet resolved all the problems of complete analysis, particularly on chains. We have established.a summer program of data analysis and review of methodology. Field research is not however intended during the summer term.
PSEPC/SPPCC LIB/BIBLIO 11111111111 0000066706 QD 516 W37 1975 The warning smell of gas DATE DUE SLIP F255 o