Ice Storm
Click on any image for an enlarged view
the ice storm started late in the evening of Thursday 14 January 1999.
by the next morning the area was covered with ice.
throughout the day rain came down as a fine mist, freezing on contact to any surface, as the air temperature never got above freezing.
school bus incident
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Inbound bus from Forest Oak Middle School skids on untreated Town road.
no injuries were sustained. the children were evacuated to the Town Hall until the vehicle could be pulled back onto the road and sent on its way, two hours later.
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the precipitation (a mix of sleet, rain, snow and freezing rain) was more or less continuous throughout the night.
the quiet was punctuated by occasional explosions of electrical transformers, a sound which gradually gave way to the tinkling and crashing of encrusted tree limbs (and in some cases entire trees) falling.
around 04:00 the next morning we awoke and noted the we had lost electrical power.
since nothing else seemed amiss we went back to sleep.
around 05:30 we were awakened by the sound of a tree or large branch falling nearby.
it had to be nearby because the whole cottage shook.
within a few moments it happened again -- both the noise and the shaking.
a quick inspection revealed that the tree behind the cottage had been transformed from a two-trunk standing-up tree to a four-trunk fallen-down tree.
one of the parts ended up against the house; the others were in the street.
of these, two fell onto Pacer Farm Pacer No. 1 (1978 DL wagon) and the other around (but not onto) Pacer Farm Pacer No. 3 (1976 DL coupe).
just to keep things interesting, two houses worth of power and 'phone lines were tangled into the tree wreckage.
the power and 'phone lines for the cottage were right over Pacer No. 3, and our neighbour's wires were popped out of his wall and lying on the ground.
Pacer No. 3 was undamaged but immobilized.
later in the morning the Town Maintenance Man came to the rescue with his pickup truck, lady assistant and (best of all) chain saw.
as luck would have it, not only was the vehicle undamaged, but it seemed possible to cut away just enough branches to allow it to be driven out from the mess with neither limb nor wire causing it any harm.
we knew it was possible because we did it (we agreed to split the liabilities: he did the cutting, we did the driving).
Pacer Farm tree incident
| | Pacer No. 1 trapped beneath fallen branches
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| | Can you find the Pacer in this image?
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| | Town maintenance forces working to free undamaged Pacer No. 3
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| the two-trunk standing-up tree had become a four-trunk fallen-down tree
(photo taken after Pacer No. 3 was safely extracted)
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it took twelve hours to get through to the power company to report that the wires had come down.
by then, electrical service had been restored.
until the power was cut off the remaining limbs and debris could not be removed.
it had not yet been possible to assess the damage to Pacer No. 1 but the prognosis was not encouraging.
although none of the glass had broken, the roof may have been partly crushed, or at least significantly dented.
the suspension was certainly under a heavy stress; we had never seen the car so close to the ground.
by tuesday afternoon the power and telephone lines had been rerouted around the tangle of branches, the road behind the cottage had been reopened to traffic, removal of debris had begun and Pacer No. 1 began to emerge.
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| just cut away anything that doesn't look like a Pacer ...
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the following morning the remaining branches were cleared away from the vehicle.
the crew took great care to prevent further damage to the car.
when the largest of the logs was finally taken off the roof, the car rose right back up to its accustomed height.
it was very encouraging to see that the springs had not broken, nor had the remainder of the suspension failed.
the roof was dented, and the roof rack had been rearranged, but the damage was far less severe than it might have been.
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| removing the largest log from Pacer No. 1
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the next task was to remove the sections of tree that had fallen onto the cottage.
| this began with the high man ascending the adjacent poplar tree to secure ropes to be used both for his safety harness while working on the downed tree and for swaying down the sawn-off sections clear of the structure.
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the crew worked methodically to cut sections from the steadily-shrinking tree, sway them down and haul them clear.
as the tree got shorter, they were able to dispense with the rope for lowering sections, which in turn became larger and heavier.
soon, all that remained of the tree was a low stump, which we decided to retain for use as a planter.
the larger sections were loaded onto a flatbed truck with a crane.
with the job complete, the crew posed for a group portrait before heading off to their next assignment.
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