How Bad Could a Little Frozen Rain Be?

Last Thursday night and early Friday morning we had an ice storm here. I had no idea what we were in for, but before I went to bed, I kept hearing "CRACK, crash, crash, crash!" in the back yard. (It was really freaky to hear so much going on in woods and not being able to see it!) This went on all night long. In the morning we were treated to this:





We were also treated to a 7 am phone automated phone call from the town declaring a state of emergency and closed schools. We were planning on leaving for my cousin's wedding in NJ that morning at 10, but delayed until noon, mostly just to give some time for roads to be cleared of tree limbs and such. (Well, and to finish packing, too....) We had no trouble getting out and were gone until 11:30 pm Sunday night. That's when I found out that our town was essentially entirely without power on Friday (except for small areas, including where we are) and many areas are still without power now (Tuesday night) and one of the schools is still acting as a shelter.

I find it so amazing that a bunch of rain at the wrong temperature can cause so much damage and chaos. So many perfectly healthy trees in our back yard suffered the loss of so many limbs. Most of the limbs fell, but many of them are just hanging with no clear indication of when they may fall. I imagine that everyone around here needs to be careful in any wooded area for a while, because there may be unintentional booby traps!

Thankfully, the weather warmed up the past couple of days, so people were able to get out and clean up without freezing, but tonight we have snow forecast, and they cancelled school again tomorrow....