The ice storm, 25 years later | Behind the scenes of crisis management

On Friday, January 9, 1998, 25 years ago, André Caillé, head of Hydro-Québec, silently prayed to God for the rain to stop.

That evening, from his office window at 21^e floor of the head office on René-Lévesque Boulevard, it was a desperate Caillé who saw the Guy-Favreau complex descend on this cold deluge which turned into ice when it touched the ground.

In an interview recently, he remembered this moment of despair well. Context, too, an episode told many times. At that time, a single high voltage line spanning the Rivière des Prairies linked the island of Montreal, ensuring the operation of water treatment plants and “first priority customers” such as hospitals. If the rain had lasted half an hour longer, this last line would have been seriously at risk.

Then Prime Minister Lucien Bouchard’s chief of staff, Hubert Thibault remembers another reason for concern, more rarely mentioned. The structure of all the bridges in Montreal was covered with an eight centimeter layer of ice. With mercury approaching 0°C, this ice was likely to fall on cars and smash windshields. Evacuating the island became impossible, he recalls.

The government, which made a point of being transparent throughout the crisis, had said nothing publicly.

A general panic is always to be feared. Statistically, such a disaster was likely to occur every 140 years.

Caillé is in Paris when the ice storm begins. Returning urgently, he goes directly from the airport to Saint-Hyacinthe for a press briefing with Lucien Bouchard.

It “freezes like a cotton ball!” he admits, before being brought a more appropriate turtleneck. A garment that will become the emblem of the resilience of hydro-Quebecers.

On “Black Friday”, around thirty steel pylons collapsed on the South Shore. Montreal, which normally consumes 20,000 megawatts, receives only 600. It is the beginning of an unprecedented crisis that will last more than five weeks. No less than 1.4 million Hydro-Québec customers will be without power, in the middle of winter, by three successive waves of freezing rain, which will last a total of 82 hours. It will be necessary to repair 3000 km of the distribution network, on a territory as large as Ireland.

Faced with the magnitude of the crisis, Lucien Bouchard quickly decides that he will hold a daily press conference, François Legault will make the same choice at the start of the pandemic. Bouchard, for six weeks, projects the image of a captain firmly holding the helm. Returning to this period, five years ago, he admitted to having often improvised, “working on instinct”.

Caillé and Hydro-Québec spokesman Steve Flanagan also became television news stars.

“My sister had suffered a power outage, and had made a call to Hydro. Faced with the dubious look of the employee, she wants to put pressure: “What if I told you that I am the sister of Steve Flanagan!” “, she says. “Well yes… and I am the Queen of England!” “replies the employee.

A lawyer’s reflex, the Prime Minister is always eager for information on the state of the network, on future risks, on operations and alternative scenarios. “He wanted to know everything, right down to the menu of the people who were staying in the 450 shelters,” recalls Jean-François Lisée, also in the Prime Minister’s circle. The latter had a “sequential” approach, and “solved one problem at a time”.

From the first hours, he has the instinct to concentrate all the decisions in his office, bringing together all those who have information on the situation; their reports are often greeted by an eloquent silence from the boss.

But this bulimia for information does not prevent him from deciding quickly. One day, André Caillé warns him that he wants to buy “all the telephone poles available in North America”. He gets the green light on the spot. “We even considered requisitioning a huge plane to transport everything quickly,” recalls Steve Flanagan. All the poles… “and all the generators too”, adds Caillé. No ministerial decree, no authorization from the Treasury Board. Quebec also buys 100,000 camp beds which, remaining in the warehouse, will land 12 years later in Haiti, the day after the earthquake.

Another feverish moment, the line of Beauharnois, 1000 megawatts, is deactivated by accident, a “guard wire” falling above. We must send an employee to restore the link, by helicopter. The employee, who volunteered, had to jump out of the helicopter to grab the pylon, says Caillé. A world first, immediately trumpeted Hydro-Québec. For 24 hours. Because in fact, this operation will be repeated hundreds of times, says Mr. Flanagan. “And we learned it by reading The Press “, he says.

With such a crisis today, agrees André Caillé, the president of Hydro-Québec would not have the same latitude. Protocols were subsequently established to guide decisions. “But when things get tough, sometimes you have to put the book aside and move on,” sums up the ex-boss. Once calm has returned, the state corporation will find it harder to impose its will. Thus, it will take years to achieve the recommended “loopback” for the high voltage lines in the “black triangle”.

The Hertel-Des Cantons line will be completed, but after a legal guerrilla war with the residents.

Also, Hydro-Quebec insistently demanded a source of energy close to Montreal. Five years later, Jean Charest drew a line under the Suroît oil-fired power station project, near the metropolis. “Mr. Charest was nevertheless favorable to the Suroît,” recalls Caillé.

Other investments are less visible. One billion will be injected for the installation of compensators aimed at attenuating current fluctuations on very long transmission lines. We will adopt a new design for the pylons and we will add reinforced elements intended to slow down a new cascade of collapses.

The ice storm had unforeseen political consequences. Ottawa was in the Supreme Court on the “secession of Quebec” and Lucien Bouchard hesitated, asked the opinion of André Caillé, before making a phone call to Jean Chrétien to ask for the help of the Canadian army. Some 12,000 soldiers came to lend a hand. The hard-fought No victory in the referendum a year earlier made Ottawa more lenient.

With Ottawa, however, a long dispute will arise regarding the payment of the bill related to the ice storm.

“This event created a lot of solidarity in Quebec society. It was so big! », sums up the ex-boss of Hydro. He remembers his cousin in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu who received all his neighbors around his huge fireplace, “for a solidarity party, a unique social event”, retains the boss of Hydro, a quarter of a century later. late.