25 years ago today, freezing rain started to fall over Ottawa and Eastern Ontario. It was the beginning of the Great Ice Storm of 1998. It started late in the day on January 4, 1998, when an upper-level area of low pressure stalled out over the Great Lakes. This caused the warm and moist air from the Gulf of Mexico to travel to the upper St. Lawrence Valley. At the same time, very cold air was being funneled into the St. Lawrence and locked into place by an area of high pressure – adding up to an extended 80 hour-dump of continuous freezing rain.
By January 5th, the ice load on hydro lines and trees had caused hydro outages in some areas. By the following day, January 6th, an estimated 650,000 people in Quebec and Ontario had lost power, and it would get worse as the ice continued to accumulate. For several days, steady freezing rain and drizzle fell over an area of several thousand square miles of Eastern Ontario, including Ottawa, Brockville, and Kingston, an extensive area in southern Quebec, northern New York, and northern New England (including parts of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine).
Ice accumulations totaled 85 mm in Ottawa and 100 mm in Montreal – more than had ever been seen before. As time went on, a total of almost 1.4 million customers in Quebec and 232,000 in Ontario would be without power, in the cold and dark of winter. By the end of it, some rural customers the Ottawa area went 33 days without power. Trees and power lines were toppled by the sheer weight of the ice… some 5.8 centimeters (2 inches) thick on branches and surfaces.
The ice storm led to the largest deployment of Canadian military personnel since the Korean War, with over 16,000 Canadian Forces personnel deployed, 12,000 in Quebec and 4,000 in Ontario at the height of the crisis. The Ice Storm led to 34 fatalities, a shutdown of activities in large cities like Montreal and Ottawa, and an unprecedented effort in reconstruction of the power grid.
The storm ended up costing an estimated $5.4 billion in insurance claims, utility repairs and lost productivity. Millions of people experienced financial hardship because the icy environment made it impossible to travel to work or their workspace was closed.
(Feature Photo Credit) Pedestrians walk along Bagot Street in Kingston during the ice storm on Jan. 8, 1998. PHOTO BY IAN MACALPINE /Postmedia files
(Photo Credit) A military convoy on its way to Ottawa from CFB Petawawa passes a road crew working to repair downed power lines on Jan. 9, 1998. (Tom Hanson/The Canadian Press)
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