211sw post disaster response brief tec fire july 2014

South West Ontario Bonduelle Plant Fire in Tecumseh, Ontario - July 18, 2014 POST DISASTER RESPONSE BRIEF

Picture courtesy of Tecumseh Fire Twitter @TECFD

Prepared by: Jennifer Tanner, Project Manager, 211 South West Ontario City of Windsor 410-400 City Hall Square E Windsor, ON N9A 7K6 Tel: 519-255-7474 ext 834 | e-mail: jtanner@city.windsor.on.ca

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South West Ontario Bonduelle Plant Fire in Tecumseh, Ontario - July 18, 2014 POST DISASTER RESPONSE BRIEF Purpose This document has been prepared to summarize the emergency event in Tecumseh on July 18, 2014 and provide an overview of 211’s role in answering inquiries from the public. The report will be shared broadly with 211 funders and partners, emergency managers and the general public. The lessons learned from this experience will be used to improve 211 service delivery in Ontario and perhaps beyond.

211 Services Everyday 211 is an easy-to-remember three digit telephone number available to all residents of Ontario, and is expanding across Canada and the United States. 211 is recognized as the front door to government-funded and community-based human services in Ontario. 211 service providers help people navigate the complex network of human services quickly and easily, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in over 150 languages. 211 services are also available online at www.211ontario.ca.

Seven regional service partners provide 211 services in Ontario. The Corporation of the City of Windsor provides 211 services in the South West Ontario region including Windsor-Essex, Sarnia-Lambton, Chatham-Kent, London-Middlesex, St Thomas-Elgin and Oxford County, answering about 40,000 calls per year from residents of these communities.

211 Services during Emergencies During community emergency situations, 211 can directly support members of the public, as well as assist emergency responders, municipalities and other non-governmental organizations by providing authoritative information to the public about anything that does not require police, fire or ambulance such as the location of emergency shelters, shelter-in-place guidelines, road closures, environmental concerns and more. 211 can also share information about residents’ inquiries back to emergency managers, help alleviate calls that go to 911 and other municipal phone lines and continue to provide public information during the recovery stage of an emergency.

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South West Ontario Bonduelle Plant Fire in Tecumseh, Ontario - July 18, 2014 POST DISASTER RESPONSE BRIEF Event Background At approximately 2:00am on Friday, July 18, 2014 the Tecumseh Fire Department began battling a large fire a the Bonduelle Food Packaging Facility plant located on the corner of Tecumseh Road and Lacasse Boulevard in the Town of Tecumseh. Around 8:45 a.m. an evacuation order was issued for approximately 1,300 residents and businesses located within 1km of the fire and bound by County Road 22 to the south, St Thomas Road to the north, Lesperance Road to the west and Manning Road to the east. This evacuation order went out through the media and reverse 911 calls. (Reverse 911 is a public safety communications system used by public safety organizations in Canada and the United States to communicate with groups of people in a defined geographic area.) Two emergency reception centres were established at Tecumseh Arena and St Joseph’s High School. The Windsor-Essex Humane Society was available at the evacuation centres to assist with pets. A public pool and all parks in the vicinity were closed. Nearby residents outside of the evacuation zone were encouraged to stay indoors and keep doors and windows closed.

Around 12:30pm, the evacuation order was lifted and residents could return to their homes.

Road closures remained in effect and residents were encouraged to continue to keep their doors and windows closed.

Role of 211 South West When the evacuation order was issued around 8:45am, residents began to call 211 with questions related to the fire.

The 211 Project Manager sent an e-mail to contacts within the Tecumseh Fire Department and to the Essex County Community Emergency Management Coordinator asking for further information or to be put in contact with the Emergency Information Officer (EIO). Within minutes, Ms. Laura Moy (Town of Tecumseh, Director of Staff Services/City Clerk and EIO) had called the 211 Project Manager and provided confirmation of the information that 211 should be sharing with its callers. The EIO also added 211 and the City of Windsor’s 311 call centre to a distribution list and shared all subsequent e-mails, media releases and needed information with the 211 call centre.

211 South West Ontario staff monitored media releases and media coverage (newspaper, radio & social media) and passed along authoritative information to the 211 Information & Referral Specialists who were answering calls related to the fire. A City of Windsor Mapping Analyst prepared a map of the evacuation zone and a listing of all streets within the zone to assist 211 Page | 3

South West Ontario Bonduelle Plant Fire in Tecumseh, Ontario - July 18, 2014 POST DISASTER RESPONSE BRIEF staff in answering these inquiries. This map was later posted on the Town of Tecumseh’s website.

Map of the Evacuation Zone:

211 continued to answer calls from affected residents throughout the day. By mid-afternoon, first responders had the situation under control, residents were allowed back into their homes and no further calls were received.

Support from the 211 Ontario Network At 9:58 a.m. 211 South West notified the 211 Ontario Network of the event and their activation for public inquiry.

The 211 service partner from the Central East region (operated by Community Connection Collingwood) provided support by setting up the disaster database structure and deploying a cloud-based portal for 211 South West to use to centralize current, important information Page | 4

South West Ontario Bonduelle Plant Fire in Tecumseh, Ontario - July 18, 2014 POST DISASTER RESPONSE BRIEF about the event, as well as link to media releases and key files such as maps and excel files of streets in the evacuation zone. The portal also included call handling tools such as the continually updated disaster database 211 South West created for this event and a call tracking form.

The portal template was originally developed for a province-wide exercise in 2012 and continues to be tested and improved during exercises and actual events. The portal enables the potential for a multi-region or province-wide public inquiry support for large scale disasters.

211 Online Information Portal:

After the initial notification, 211 Central region (operated by Findhelp Information Services) put a plan in place to debrief with their overnight staff team so they were prepared to answer any calls related to the emergency that would have come in after the 211 South West call centre closed for the weekend at 7:00 p.m. that evening.

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South West Ontario Bonduelle Plant Fire in Tecumseh, Ontario - July 18, 2014 POST DISASTER RESPONSE BRIEF Why People Called 211 The first call to 211 about this event came in at 9:05 a.m. and continued until 5:11 p.m. that evening. In total, 211 answered 36 calls from residents. Had 211 been promoted on media releases and other sources as a number residents could call for reliable, non-emergency information, the number of calls received would have been greater.

Residents asked questions such as:  Is there really an evacuation in Tecumseh?  What is the evacuation zone?  Is my street in the evacuation zone?  I operate a day care in the evacuation zone. Where do I have to bring the kids?  Should I bring my pets with me to the evacuation centre?  What should I do if I’m not in the evacuation zone, but I smell smoke or see debris falling?  What roads are closed?

Reasons People Called 211

Number of Calls

Evacuation zone

25

Road closures

5

Shelter-in-place information

4

Park closure

1

Environmental concerns

1 Total number of calls

36

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South West Ontario Bonduelle Plant Fire in Tecumseh, Ontario - July 18, 2014 POST DISASTER RESPONSE BRIEF Lessons Learned Based on the experience gained by responding to this real-life emergency, 211 and emergency managers have learned the following key lessons: 1. Residents will call 211 for information about an emergency situation even if the phone number is not promoted as the Public Inquiry Line.

2. It is important to establish two-way communication with the Emergency Information Officer and 211 as soon as possible.

3. The 211 Ontario Network is ready to provide support to a regional call centre in terms of managing database information and handling over-flow calls.

Conclusion The fire at the Bonduelle Food Processing Facility provided 211 with an opportunity to demonstrate how it may be of service to residents, emergency managers and municipalities during such events. The lessons learned will be used to continually improve 211’s capacity to serve as a Public Inquiry Line during times of disaster.

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