The Ice Man Cometh . . .

January 8th, 1998

Do you remember where you were then? I do and it wasn't so temperate as it is today. A friend of mine sent me an article this morning. Talking about the events of that day and I must admit I can't believe it was ten years ago.

Most you who read won't know what the hell I'm talking abuot because for most of America it was a normal winter day. However in Vermont, Maine, New York and Canada it was distinctly different. I won't get too technical I don't want to lose you all.

Everyone who lives in a region of the country that receives snow knows about freezing rain. Normally the conditions have to be just right with the perfect amount of percipitation and temperature change. Most times it will last for a few hours coat everything and take down a tree or electrical pole. Then the next day the sun comes out and its all pretty. Such was not the case 10 years ago. A low pressure system was over the great lakes was churning up warm air from the south, a high pressure system in Northern Canada was funneling arctic from the North which normally would be the right conditions for a major snow and ice event. Well to add things to the mix there was an unsually large High Pressure system sitting in Bermuda. Normally this does not happen in Winter. What it did was cause the other to system to sit and not move.

Causing the Canadian Maritimes to be pummeled with feet of snow, and for southern New England there was a lot of rain so much so that there was flooding. For me and everyone else in the areas I metioned earlier it was nothing but freezing rain. It wasn't just one day either it lasted for at least 3 if not 4 in some places. I was living in Burlington,VT at the time and I was on break from school still, while working for Toys 'R' Us on the side. I remember work closing. I remember my roommate needing to go in to work since he worked front desk at the Holiday Inn and there was plenty of stranded people who needed room. I remember trying to drive some co-workers home and I remember how eirie everything was.

Normal business was shut down. It was worse than snow. I dare say worse than the infamous blizzard of '78 in the area of damage. Normally you could expect to receive several millimeters of ice on any given storm thats about .25 of an inch. During this storm there were places that received about 100mm's of ice thats about 4 inches. That will take down trees and electrical poles and thats just what it did. In fact, in Canada alone there were 35,000 electrical poles down which is impressive by itself. Believe it or not though in the worst part it also took down electrical pylons, those are those hug steel towers that hold up high tension wires. The ice was so thick that it managed to down about 1,000 of them as well. Needless to say we all lost power. Fortunately we had a fireplace and were able to keep warm. Others were not so lucky and needed to be sheltered which meant driving in it, or using generators which because of all the ice ended up killing a few people with Carbon Monoxide.

It was not pretty but it was exhillerating. I remember that we needed to get gas so we had to drive to the only gas station that was open. It was dark, and we road along the highway. It was not just ice that was falling for the 3 days there was plenty of thunder and lightning as well. While we drove down the highway I remember thinking there was another storm coming because I was seeing all this lightning. I was wrong there was no thunder accompanying the "lightning" in fact it wasn't lightning at all. It was downed powerlines all over the city and country causing the skies to light up periodically. It was at this point that I knew I was l living in a disaster area. Snow can be dealt with, water can flood out, but the ice stayed. It can't be shoveled and it can't run off. You could only hope that it would melt and unfortunately that would not be the case because the cold air came pouring in behind and made it all rock hard.

The area was devastated in fact damages can still be seen today. Damage estimates at the end were between 4-6 Billion dollars. I remember it was about a week later that my friend and I went to Montreal for my birthday. Half the city still had no power and the drive up was depressing. I can't estimate how many trees were damaged and destoyed but they have to be in the hundreds of thousands. By all acounts this was a natural disaster. I have lived through Hurricanes (not big ones), I have been buried in blizzards, I avoided a Tornado or two, and met a microburst headon, but never have I been in something so destructive before. For as much as I love the weather and enjoy seeing it happen I can't help but feel a bit humbled by seeing something so raw and natural happen. It demands respect and all to often forget that and thats when people get hurt. I just hope that something like that never happens again.