ICE STORM
'98
It has been called "The Worst Storm
of the Century," and Judy and I won't argue with that
definition! We have never seen anything like it in all our travels
and hopefully won't see its kind again. I'm sure you have all seen
the scenes on TV, but I can guarantee that the effects are even more
horrendous in real life. Even though here in the Ottawa Valley we are
used to getting freezing rain on occasion in winter, we were
completely caught off guard with this storm! The big problem was
duration; it just kept coming down until everything was coated with
clear ice from 70 to 90 mm thick. Trees, bushes, structures, and of
course the hydro lines all suffered under the extreme weight of ice.
The loss of electrical power on such a massive scale made us all
fully appreciate how much we have become dependant on this
utility.
Judy and I were very lucky as the power was
off for only a few minutes on several occasions! This happened about
11:30 PM one evening and actually was quite comical in retrospect.
Judy was asleep, and I had just bedded down when the clock-radio came
on. It has a fail-safe circuit which turns the radio on when power is
restored if there has been a power outage. So, I got up, pulled the
plug out, and went back to bed. I was just dozing off when the TV in
our room came on (I think a power surge caused this.) Up I got,
pulled the TV plug and back to bed. Again I was just entering dream
land when I thought I heard voices in the kitchen. I sprang out of
bed (as good as I can at my age that is), and cautiously padded my
way down stairs. This time it was the kitchen radio that had
mysteriously activated itself. So out came the plug as was becoming
the norm by this time.
But, I was now wide awake! I opened the
front door, and then became fully aware that this wasn't the usual
run-of-the-mill Ottawa storm. You could hear the freezing rain
splattering onto already glazed surfaces. The lights were reflected
and refracted giving the scene a fairy-land appearance. I now knew we
were in for it ... and the rest you know! By the way our "kids" had
the same, brief power outages so all the Stephansons were indeed
extremely fortunate.
On the Saturday after the freezing rain
stopped, and the sun came out, we went for a walk (skate?) around the
neighborhood. It was almost surreal - beautiful destruction! As we
walked through the Fallingbrook forest you could hear and see
branches and ice chunks falling. I got hit in the nose by an ice
chunk, and discovered gravity! No, that was of course Newton.
It made us finally heed the warnings to stay inside, so we quickly
headed home. Just to make things worse for all the workers and
volunteers, the weather then turned bitterly cold with high winds and
snow. I took some photographs and have posted them below.
