Twenty-five years ago, the rain started in what would become the ice storm of 1998, which eventually left millions of Quebecers in the dark, some for more than a month.
It was one of the worst natural disasters in Canadian history and many still have vivid memories of those cold and difficult days and nights.
“All these trees were broken, crushed and it was just a sea of brush,” said Greg Edwards, who owns a parcel of land in Havelock, Que. where some of his sugar bushes are finally starting to fill in.
Edwards leases the land to produce maple syrup and remembers when the freezing rain finally stopped.
The trees, he said, looked like toothpicks and the cleanup took years.
In nearby Hemingford, Quebec, several inches of ice covered Tim Patch’s apple trees.
All over his orchard, branches were breaking from the weight of the ice.
“It just sounded like gunshots, echoing off the ice on the ground and branches crashing to the ground on the ice,” he said. “It just sounded like gunshots or cannons being fired in the field.”
The weather on January 4, 1998 didn’t look like much at first, starting with mild temperatures and drizzle. Soon, however, the rain began to freeze and continued with ice storms that lasted nearly a week.
The weight of the accumulated ice didn’t just affect trees, toppling 1,000 hydroelectric towers and destroying 17,000 Hydro-Quebec poles.
From 1998: People look at a series of Hydro-Quebec high-voltage towers near St-Bruno, Que., south of Montreal on Saturday, that collapsed after a severe ice storm hit southwestern Quebec. The storm left more than a million households without power. (CP PHOTO) 1998 (stf/Jacques Boassinot)
Many were left cold and dark for weeks, and at its peak, half of Quebec was without power.
About 600,000 people had to leave their homes and many ended up in shelters that were set up across the province.
From 1998: A woman is treated by emergency workers in Montreal after carbon monoxide fumes from generators spread into her apartment complex. Five people were hospitalized and sixty evacuated due to the ice storm, which left one million households without power. (CP PHOTO) 1998 (str-Robert Galbraith)
The area that became known as the “Triangle of Darkness”, between Saint-Hyacinthe, Granby and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, was particularly hard hit.
Other rural areas near the Canada-US border were also hard hit, including Monteregi.
The town of Patch Hemingford was without power for 29 days. His family weathered the storm with their wood stove and generator.
“We kept it warm and close and made sure there was no build-up on the roof,” he said.
He remembers how difficult it was to explain the situation to his young children.
“All I remember was that whenever they asked for something, they always said ‘no right, no right?'” Pech said.
From 1998: Fire officials leave the charred shell of a house in Carignan, located 30 kilometers south of Montreal, in the so-called “Black Triangle” blackout area. (CP PHOTO) 1998 (str-Robert Galbraith)
Edwards’ home was without power for 44 days.
“It wasn’t just dark; it was black,” he said. “No one had lights. Everywhere you looked it was black. Obtrusive. There was no traffic and people were completely and utterly alone.”
The military was eventually called in to help, as by the fifth day Montreal was also in darkness.
Soldiers participate in a cleanup operation in St. Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec south of Montreal in 1998. (CP PHOTO str-Ryan Remiorz)
There was no plan to evacuate the city, and as the bridges became covered in hundreds of tons of ice, they were closed while crews worked to thaw them.
People in the countryside were trying to stay warm while working to save their livestock and crops.
Pecs received a generator from the Ministry of Agriculture to protect stored fruit from spoilage.
“Luckily we got the generators up and running in no time and were able to keep the coolers running and keep the apples safe,” he said.
However, the man from his trees was not so lucky and he lost over 35 percent of their fruiting branches.
“It was total and utter devastation,” Edwards said.
The storm was a huge blow to the region’s maple syrup production.
“The next year, a lot of sugar bushes were closed because people couldn’t get in,” he said.
However, the experience also brought something good.
“The community came together really well,” Pech said. “We had volunteers bring wood to homes that only had a wood stove, bring baskets of food to the elderly.”
When it was over, the storm had claimed 30 lives and cost Quebec more than $3 billion.
Also, more than a few people now freak out when the lights go out.
“I think everybody in the rural community, when the power goes out, they have a flashback, Jan. 4, 1998 comes back,” Edwards said.
“It was hard to forget and we hope we never have to go through it again,” Pech said.
Add Comment