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7 September/October 2022 | THE DAVEY BULLETIN MISSION MASSIVE CLEAN UP EFFORTS IN WAKE OF CANADIAN DERECHO Earlier this year, a derecho, or thunderstorm complex characterized by severe, damaging, straight-line winds, followed a 760-mile path from Detroit, Michigan to Quebec City, Quebec. The storm's maximum gusts reached 118 mph in southern Ottawa, Ontario, equivalent to an EF-2 tornado. Some parts of the city lost electricity for two weeks. Davey Tree Expert Co. of Canada, Limited's Utility services responded to the storm immediately. "We maintain a close and important relationship with Brandon Marshall, groundperson, Ottawa office, sets a line to safely remove the remaining portions of a tree that had fallen on a house. our Hydro Ottawa client which allows us to communicate and mobilize quickly to restore power," Mike Perri, regional vice president, Ontario Utility, said. Marco Bossio, supervisor, Hydro Ottawa account, was the project point person for the customer service end and execution of the work. "Our service lines do a good job of cross-training and supporting each other," Perri said. Employees from the Utility accounts, including those from Cambridge and Niagara, and the City of Ottawa, as well as the Quinte Northumberland office, worked to help Hydro Ottawa restore power. They expanded from there to assist Bell Canada restore communication lines. Ian Laidlaw, district manager, Ottawa office, said for the first 15 hours of the storm, he answered about a hundred web leads that came through emails on his cell phone. The power was out, and cell service was spotty. Six weeks into the storm recovery, all 23 of Laidlaw's team members had helped more than 200 clients. "At any one time, there were 100 open work orders," Laidlaw said. Despite the long hours, Laidlaw said the crews have enjoyed it because it's not the kind of work they do every day. "We're removing trees from houses and Bell Canada's communication lines to help the city recover. The crews have been putting in a really good effort, and credit should be given to them. They've been working 60 hour weeks in hot temperatures. We've had a couple of other storms come through in the meantime, and rain or shine, my crews were working." Crews from the London and Strathroy offices traveled to Ottawa to assist with cleanup efforts. R/C services' Dylan Glazer, vice president of operations, John Ransom, area manager, Ontario, and Matt Coady, area manager, British Columbia; along with Ryan St. Pierre, manager, Davey Resource Group Canada, organized crews to assist the city of Ottawa. Crews traveled from across Canada to commit to a month's worth of out-of-town work to help with the recovery efforts, including the Alberta, Calgary, Hamilton, Kelowna, Nanaimo, and Niagara offices, as well as Davey Resource Group Canada. "The amount of devastation was across the entire area of Ottawa, with a couple of large areas hit almost like a tornado. The problem with this storm was that out of our other 16 offices across Ontario, 12 of them were also affected by the storm, so it limited our resources and staff. We reached out to our western territories for assistance," Ransom said. Bryce Conrad, President and Chief Executive Officer, Hydro Ottawa, wrote the following letter to Mike Perri, regional vice president, Ontario Utility: I want to personally thank you and your team for supporting Hydro Ottawa in our time of need following Ottawa's recent Derecho storm. The devastation to our infrastructure was beyond anything we had previously experienced and restoration required extraordinary work and time. Over the course of the initial two weeks of intense restoration, the assistance provided by you and your company was invaluable. Your crews worked alongside ours as we rebuilt infrastructure and restored power to our customers. We could not have done it without you and them.

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