Ice Storm 1998 - My Pics

Here we are spending the day doing what we did during the Ice Storm of January '98: chatting, reading, hanging out, listening to the radio. In our area, the radio station was the saving grace for many people. The local radio personality stayed on the air for days on end taking updates and spreading the word. Through the radio updates, we knew where there was gas, propane, firewood, food, water and emergency shelter. We knew which roads were closed, where outside help was coming from and which services were providing door-to-door checks.

This is a pic of my backyard, looking toward the back of the garage portion of the house.

A little further afield, you can see a bit of the devastated treeline. This is my dad and my favorite dog ever, Jerry Lee.

Here we are still standing by the tractor looking toward the barns.

A very dark picture looking out the front door, past Jerry's head into the yard. The structure around the tree was our tree house. The ground was littered with branches, limbs and twigs. Really, you should be able to see much more open snowy yard. Surprisingly, the branches that came down didn't damage the house or the vehicles in the drive. There was a lot of clean-up to do once things settled down after the rain and ice. The whine of chain saws became commonplace. This particular tree was taken down the next summer - after R was born and my wedding approached in August of '99. Another big maple in the front yard is still doing ok minus a number of limbs. The birch seems to be permanently bowed and a small fir tree sprang back to grow up normally.