Twenty-five years in the past, a storm struck components of the Higher Valley, weighing down timber beneath a coating of ice and knocking out energy for days.
Two climate fronts stalled over the Northeast for 3 to 4 days in early January 1998, and it fell not as snow however as drenching rain.
“The storm introduced an amazing quantity of precipitation,” meteorologist Steve Maleksi of the Fairbanks Museum in St. Johnsbury, Vt., mentioned in a 1998 Valley Information story. “We bought extra in 4 days than we normally get throughout the complete month in January.”
In accordance with the Related Press on the time, the month was the wettest because the Nationwide Climate Service started maintaining data in 1884. February was the third warmest February on document and March set a brand new document excessive temperature for the month: 88 levels.
Higher Valley cities hit hardest by accumulating ice had been at greater elevations. New London was one on the tip of the storm’s spear, one among 16 New Hampshire communities that declared a state of emergency because of the quantity of timber and energy traces that had been down.
“It’s a white catastrophe zone,” mentioned Bob Nelson, New London’s emergency administration director on the time. The NH Division of Transportation had 15 vans and 35 males — 5 occasions the dimensions of a crew that usually works in New London — attempting to maintain roads open for emergency personnel.
After combating no warmth or electrical energy for days, the Jerome household determined to go away their New London houses to remain at a shelter within the Wilmot Hearth Station. Emma Jerome mentioned they needed to get sizzling meals into her three grandchildren and had been bored with attempting to warmth soup over candles. “No water, no meals, no warmth, no bathroom and no espresso,” she mentioned to a Valley Information reporter on the time.
The Keat household in Grantham got here up with a artistic resolution to deal with the small wooden range heating their giant home. As sleeping turned uncomfortable, on the third evening they arrange tents for fogeys and youngsters in entrance of the range.
“It was type of enjoyable for all of us,” Faye Keat mentioned in a 1998 Valley Information story. “It was like sleeping out within the forest, since we nonetheless had our Christmas tree up.”
Timber, notably hardwoods, had been hit exhausting by the layers of ice. An estimated 500,000 acres — about 10% of Vermont’s forests — had been broken, state forestry officers mentioned on the time.
“It seems to be like a dinosaur got here alongside and simply munched on the tops of those timber,” forester Paul Harwood mentioned in late January 1998 whereas surveying a stand of maples timber in Tunbridge. “You don’t must be a forester to know this isn’t the best way it’s alleged to be.”
Kathy Jones, a analysis scientist on the Chilly Areas Analysis and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, calculated on the time {that a} maple tree 20 to 30 toes excessive with a trunk 12 inches in diameter that bought a half-inch coating can be weighed down with eight tons of ice.
“My guess is the tree would fall down earlier than it might get that a lot ice on it,” Jones mentioned to the Valley Information. “A few quarter-inch on all of the limbs and branches will carry a tree down.”
“I’ve by no means seen harm like this,” mentioned Larry Myott, maple specialist for the College of Vermont Extension service, informed the Valley Information. “The long-range impact doesn’t look good,” he mentioned, “as a result of you possibly can’t faucet a badly broken sugarbush.”
Crews had been in danger whereas restoring energy after the storm. A lineman for NH Electrical Co-Op, Alan Noyes, of Sunapee, was pinned in the course of the storm by a tree that snapped whereas he was clearing it from an electrical line in Sunapee Heights. Noyes turned a quadriplegic as a consequence of a extreme injury to his spinal cord. “You do every little thing you possibly can to keep away from this, however when a tree doesn’t behave the best way mechanics say it could, there’s not a lot you are able to do,” mentioned Co-op spokesman Ray Gosney in a Jan. 10, 1998, Related Press report. “We’re all praying for him now.”
Later within the month, a contingent from Granite State Electrical in Lebanon labored for at the least two weeks with crews from as far-off as Detroit to carry energy again in rural Quebec. “We had been drafted,” mentioned engineer Tim Deppmeyer, of Claremont, a part of an effort to carry energy again to 175,000 in Hydro-Quebec’s protection space.
In a February 1998 Valley Information story about their work, Bobby Woodward, of Lebanon, was requested to measure the catastrophe in opposition to different jobs he had been on in his 32 years as a lineman. “Multiply any job we’ve been on by 10 or 20 — I don’t assume anyone can put a quantity on it.”
Geoff Hansen may be reached at ghansen@vnews.com or 603-727-3247.
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