Natural Disaster in Upstate New York: A 1998 Ice Storm Retrospective
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ส.ค. 2024
- January 2013 marks the 15th anniversary of the devastating ice storm that struck our region in 1998. The turmoil caused by that natural disaster is still felt in many local communities today. Thom Hallock reflects on that catastrophe with our veteran producers Derek Muirden and Jack LaDuke
![A Day in New York 1940s in color [60fps, Remastered] w/sound design added](/img/n.gif)
Actually, when you have no electricity to heat your home in the middle of January in the North Country Region of New York State, which has some of the coldest winters in the entire state, IT IS A HARDSHIP. I've lived in the North Country my entire life and I've experienced this destructive storm first hand and I will never forget it. This disaster was even worse in the Canadian province of Quebec.
I know ,I am from West Quebec ,we managed ok though .I was delivering pizza at the time and tips were huge .Most nights I made 250 bucks in a 12 hr shift ,people were happy to see me walk up with their food I tell ya .
I remember this storm clearly...I was 7, and, as a 7 year old, loved the fact that the gentle hill behind our house, which was never great for sledding because of how slight the incline was, suddenly became the best place for the toboggan. I just remember how awesome the small woodstove in our family room was, because it was our only source of heat in the house. We had an old well on our property, and my dad had to go use a bucket to bring up brownish water for us to flush the toilets. Water of course was gotten by melting the 7-10 foot icicles that came down off the roof. For my dad, the worst thing was probably having to drive down to Albany to get a generator with 3 other men from church, and having to cover up the generator at night to prevent it from being seen and consequently stolen. We were on State Route 11B, and only were without power for 11 days; my grandparents on a side road were without power for 21. Definitely a storm to remember, but something that I'm sure myself or my family would rather treasure the memories of, but not have to live through again.
I lived near Canton NY, and was 9. The first night, I remember watching the ice slowly build and sparkle on the christmas lights on a bush in our yard before the power went out. We had no power or heat the first few days but a gas stove to make food. Then we moved to my grandparents house because they had wood heat. We were melting ice for water on the gas stove. I remember it being like a sleepiver because several cousins were all camped on the grandparent's living room floor. They were using my school as an emergency shelter. We spent a lot of time at our church in Gouverneur while my aunt and uncle helped make emergency care packages for the community. Power and school were out for about 2 weeks.
@@DixieDee The Seventh Day Adventist church. I dont know what the road or anything was called, was too young. But i know if you passed the giant lifesaver roll, over the bridge, and it was a little white building that had a huge wooden ramp built on the front of it on the right sode of the road. And my school was in Gouverneur on the road behind the P&C and the Kinneys.
@@DixieDee I havent lived in that area since about 2001, so thats a lot of changes lol. The year i went to east side was... 1998 i think? The year i was there, Mr. Canata was principle. He used to serve pizza in the lunch room on fridays and sing thats amore lol. He moved at the end of the year to be closer to family. And that little strip mall across the road from price chopper used to have a tae kwon do dojo in it that i attended 😁👍
@@DixieDee damn! I was too little to remember most of those place lol. I do know they were building the muffler shop when i was there, and i remember jrecks. The stewarts on main i remember used to have coloring sheet contests all the time that i did lol. And at 4th of july time they sold an ice cream that was called fireworks. Vanilla with red and blue pop rocks in it, it was awesome!
@@DixieDee I'm in Kentucky now, about a 16 hour drive. I still come up to visit family in Canton and Malone areas every now and then tho.
@@DixieDee It is, but I do miss home for sure. And thank you, Blesse Be to you as well, my sister 💜
I ate nothing but cans of Chef Boyardee heated on a wood stove for 2 weeks. What a time to be alive.
Watertown New York was where I was :) was 10! Will never forget
I was living in winooski Vermont. No power for 5 days. I had to drive on the sidewalks to avoid live power lines. The animals at the pet store in the university mall still needed to be cared for..
I was stationed at Fort Drum, New York during that storm. My Division was mobilized to provide emergency aid. I spent two weeks at Alexandria Bay going door to door checking on people. We were awarded the Humanitarian Service Medal by President Bill Clinton.
Thank you. That is awesome!
The group here to help were from Ill, I Helped at a fire station and one guy told me he knew cold he was from the Chicago area, but lady It has never been this cold.. I felt sorry for him.. but yes THANK ALL who helped all over.
I was 12 years old and remember like it was yesterday!! I lived in Canton, NY and just remember putting on my ice skates and skating around the whole yard and being out of school for about 2 weeks. We were fortunate enough to get power back on relatively quickly, i believe it was about 3-4 days without power.
5 days without water.
My toilet was plugged up , LMAO
I lived in Saranac Lake and remember it well. It was a war zone...
awesome video. I was upstate NY a year later after the ice storm and you could still see some of the devavstation. Looked lke someone went into the woods and cut all the trees in half
I remember this I was about 8. We had plenty of can food, pasta and water in the cellar. We had a gas stove that lit with matches. We used lots of candles and a white gas lantern to light the house because our generator powered our fridge and 1 light in the kitchen. So we ate good, we were warm, and we had what we needed. just always be prepared for the worst no matter what. I also remember my dad, my uncle and I taking my dads lifted 79' K10 (I own now) and the chainsaws to clear a fallen tree so the FD get to a blown transformer on fire down our road.
How absolutely horrific.
I was in a foster home on Keyser Rd in Evans Mills. I walked on top of the ice covered feild. In between the silence and beauty, trees crashing down echoed across the feilds.
I’m suprised you believe in this because in order for weather to occur there needs to be gravity and in order to be gravity the earth needs to be round lol
@@mazdaman2315 density
@@flatearthwatertownnewyork1141 ?
I was 10 living in Saranac Lake. No power for 2 weeks living next to the wood stove cooking beans and oatmeal mostly. I wish it was 45 like this man was stating when he lived there. My grandmother lived next door and could not even get over to her with the amount of ice on the ground and trees coming down.
I was 8 when this happened. I lived in Peru and we had to go down and stay at the church for a while until services could be turned back on. We were lucky enough to be able to take a shower at the house across the street.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
I was 35 here in Montreal. There was no water here. I had to use snow from my balcony in order to flush the shit out of my toilet.
Fujimori was supposed to save Peru, though...
Who was the Head of State of Canada at that time?
Drive along the 10 here, and there are still trees broken and bent from the storm...
Here in northern vermont on the brink of the ice storm of 2013.
I was 18 living in the Augusta, Maine area, and lost power for about 10-14 days, but remember some going without power for almost a month. I'd wrap up in 50 blankets if I had to though before spending $8,000 on a Generator.
Don't forget to have Arborists check out your trees once in a while in prevention (less damage when storms hit them). Take a close look at heavy tree crowns or heavy limbs upon the trees of your property. :) Stay safe !
Thanks Pat
My dad worked for the phone company and helped repair lines in Malone
Hey, move to Montreal! We had a fireplace going 24/7, living in blankets for 2+ weeks in our suburban home! ;) hue hue hue
I'm gonna stock-up on supplies for this winter....just in case...
Anyone else really excited the lights came on, but then sad cuz you knew you had to go back to school?
I was in Syracuse NY for training and heard that bad weather was coming to north country. Heading back to Malone NY we saw cars off the road and a frozen wonderland. When I arrived home found no electric in the area and it took 2 days for the National Guard to arrive. The agency also had me on call that week for 3 residential sites. Everyone survived and we all pulled together for that week. Montreal and parts of Canada were still with out electric for 2 weeks.
I was in Kingston, Ontario then and we had to have the army come get us out of our house, our entire street was blocked off and not passable. People in Ontario in some places had no power for over a month. It was horrific here.
Looks like the storm started out of as snow transitioned to sleet and then a lot of freezing rain
The big question here is the price gouging. Which is worse, price gouging or not having the generator?
up to an inch of ice possible for parts of Maine through monday
I lived in Malone and was the sports editor of the Telegram at the time. I was lucky in that I didn’t have power for four days. I did end up spending one night in a sleeping bag at the Telegram’s printing press room. We couldn’t put out a paper for four days, and finally made a caravan trek to our sister paper in Ogdensburg, where they had power, to put out a paper.
dealing with the exact thing right now in Kingston Ontario
Well, not exactly. But on our way there
My mother (Carol (Poirier) Andrus) [RIP]- a travelling nurse, and step-father John Andrus (then Public Health Director of Clinton Co) were on those HumVee's helping to guide them to at-risk home-patient's houses. The Nat. Guard brought chains and locks with them to help chain up and lock people's generators outside against thieves. Prior to this, some people were so afraid of thieves that they'd put their generators INSIDE- adding to another risk of CO poisoning... I stayed at home and brought in wood and kept the wood stove going. We were doubly lucky b/c Cumberland Head, b/c of it's proximity to the GP natu. gas power station, had electricity up in about 2.5 days and had phones up in a lil over 1 day! Meanwhile, my friends in the city lived on cots in the PSUC Field House for a week! HS Graduation was held in JULY. The view across the Bay the 1st night was mesmerizingly surreal- blue flashes like fireworks all night up and down valley and trees falling like firecrackers going off constantly.
My West Quebec sure got hit hard .
@@markdemell8056 They did, a large swath from Detroit to Maine and everywhere above got hit hard, but Clinton County, the place I lived at the time, is the most north-eastern corner of NY State- adjacent Montreal, Que and across from Burlington (Bernie Sanders / Phish land), VT... speaking of Burlington... lotta steep roads and hills there, plus, they face into head winds- where-as Plattsburgh is sheltered by the ADK mnt range...
God i wish we have this on 2021, looks b e a u t i f u l 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
your wish is gonna come true here in the next 8 days xD
@@HamburgerAmy oh i hope it does 😬😬😬😬😬😬
@@thefurbyman No you don't ,trust me it ain't fun.
@@markdemell8056 we got some on Monday it was bad
@@thefurbyman In West Quebec we grew up with all kinds of cold weather , it takes a hardy bread to live over here and like it.
I was almost 6.5 years old when the ice storm happened living in the hellhole called Watertown NY
I was in Calcium NY. Luckily we went on base. My dad is amazing and had so much camping gear. We did loads of camping in the winter in Alaska years before so we used all his gear. Not so many were as lucky as we were.
@@tboynton1000 I’ve walked from Watertown to Calcium and Fort Drum as well as 61 other places in Jefferson and Lewis County 300 times all together
The ice storm of my dreams. I'll probably never get to experience this in Ohio.
I lived on Salem street in Portland Maine at that time I was about to give birth to my first child
I was negative 4 years old
u drive the 401 u still see the birches to this day bent over I am a tree expert and seen a lot people get hurt
Neither of you were even there.
Hardship - Severe suffering or privation.
2. : something that causes or entails suffering or privation.
Just for the record.
Peace
It brought us together though.
i want to live in a place were it snows, except with a fire place and blankets and stuff :D
The storm was a disaster ,not fun.
1998 was a time when New York State used to be Conservative back then, nowadays New York State is Liberal forever ever since the late 2000s onward
I dont see it as gouging---the guy provided a service very much needed
I hate how quick people are to use the word "warzone". Get real, living for a week without power is NOT hardship.
L M I have I lived in the woods in upstate NY in a hut for 2 years, you are so right. -27 sucks...
Having lived through this, I can tell you the trees sounded like gunfire when they snapped and all the snapping sounded not unlike when you're being shelled and the incoming projectiles are smashing through the trees. Where I was, Wilmington, NY, this went on for over a week and most didn't have power for over two in the dead of winter.
Until you live completely isolated from the outside world for two weeks without water, heat, food and watch your woods literally fall on your house and property you will not understand the trauma that uncertainty and danger brought to our lives. Very few just sat and waited, almost all showed the best of humanity by pulling together as a community and doing whatever they could for their neighbors.
This January, if you're in a cold place, turn your lights, heat, water off and stay indoors without provisions for 2 weeks and get back to me about hardship...
When we finally had a power company get to us a week later They had to set every pole on a cross road. One of the guys looked around and told me " OMG This is how it looks when a cluster bomb goes off," so if a guy who had seen what a bomb could do I'd go by what he said... By the way they came from PA. to help when I was able to get an address for the company I sent them a thank you. If you have someone who has a medical problem it is a hardship to not be able to get them what they need, If you were lucky to not have any problem then feel lucky..
There is no “Hardship Olympics,” idiot. Sit down before you further embarrass yourself in your rampant ignorance.
Well, let's see...
BILLIONS in property damage? check
National Guard all over the place? check
Looting and Price Gouging? check
No Power for hundreds of miles? check
Gotta boil the water, no grocery stores, living off what you have stored in case of an emergency, you know, like the stuff one might keep in a bunker for wartime? check
Explosions all around you (from power lines, transformers blowing)? check
The threat of heavy objects falling outta the sky to crush you? check
PEOPLE DYING? check
Am I missing anything?