Jan. 8, 2022, marks the 25th anniversary of the ice storm that paralyzed much of eastern Canada in 1998, including Kingston, Ont.
The city was plunged into a state of emergency for days as crews worked to restore power to hundreds of fallen hydro lines.
Utilities Kingston, like the city itself, had only recently been amalgamated with Kingston and Pittsburgh Township, and former president and CEO of Utilities Kingston, Jim Keech, says it was a ‘stressful’ time.
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He also says the storm helped bring the community together.
“You want to bring a group of people together that maybe don’t know each other all that well, a little bit nervous about this and that, kind of put all that aside and it was everybody pulling for the same thing,” Keech recalled.
It also taught the team at Utilities Kingston a number of valuable lessons, he said.
“I think there were a lot of things that we learnt in hardening the infrastructure, so not necessarily putting it underground but just building it differently that has helped us.”
Those lessons, he says, played a role in softening the impact of the storm the city experienced on Christmas Eve.
“Yeah there were some power outages but nothing too significant, nothing too serious compared to others,” Keech said
And while the city hasn’t seen anything like it in ensuing quarter century, it will know what to expect if it ever happens again.
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