Remembering the Ice Storm 20 years later

I began writing this on January 21, 2018. The forecast was for freezing rain at the beginning of the week. Surely, if we got it, it would be nothing like the 1998 ice storm… and it wasn’t, thank goodness. Back then, the landscape was scarred – broken twigs, branches, trees everywhere; power towers crushed, wires down. The damage could not only be seen; it could be heard. From inside homes, a mere twig catapulting to the ground echoed like gunfire; the crunching of a dog’s paws on the icy driveway seeped through the walls. Ice, ice, thick ice had coated everything. It had started Monday with mere rain. In the days that followed freezing rain fell, building up, layer after layer. A tourist would have found the scenes hauntingly beautiful. Those living through the ice storm could not bear the sight. See full story in the Wednesday, Jan. 31st edition of The Record, along with other stories and photos from the ice storm of 1998, in our special 4-page section.