OTTAWA -- Throughout the massive summer power blackout, the federal government relied on a master emergency plan dating from the Cold War that was "badly in need of revision." Newly disclosed memos reveal the musty manual, confusion about the seriousness of the power outage and subsequent communication breakdowns were just some of the shortcomings during the mid-August power failure that left most of Ontario -- and much of the rest of northeastern North America -- in the dark.
The internal documents are among almost 1,500 pages of records on the blackout obtained by CP under the Access to Information Act.
Some 50 million people in Canada and eight U.S. states were affected by the failure that originated in Ohio Aug. 14 and rapidly triggered a series of power shutdowns.
Since electrical generation and distribution fall under provincial jurisdiction, Ontario took the lead in tackling the emergency. But, the federal government was responsible for providing support to the province during the crisis.
The Government Emergency Book is supposed to serve as a blueprint for co-ordinating a federal response to calamities, but has lagged woefully behind the times, notes a memo by an analyst with the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness, known as OCIPEP.
"The (book) was prepared during the Cold War era to provide for civil support to military mobilization in the event of a Soviet incursion across the Elb River in Germany or other types of nuclear or 'national emergency' of the Cold War sort," the analyst wrote.
"It is badly in need of revision to reflect the new realities of events that can occur in North America including cyber-attacks, terrorism-related incidents, and cascading critical infrastructure failures resulting from a power outage."
The analyst argued drafting a plan to handle the crash of key utilities "would seem to be a priority for OCIPEP as well as the (federal government)."
OCIPEP has since been rolled into the new Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Department created by Prime Minster Paul Martin's government.
Emergency agency spokesperson Max London insisted in an interview the outdated manual didn't hamper the federal response to the blackout. But London added he didn't disagree with the need to update the book, noting the process is underway.
Another internal OCIPEP memo recommends the agency assess the risks posed by the aging electric infrastructure in Ontario -- a move that, if undertaken before the blackout, "may have pointed to vulnerabilities" in the province.
The study may extend to Quebec, where the hydro infrastructure is threatened by electromagnetic storms that strike the long power lines running south from James Bay, the memo adds.
