Ice Storm memories...

Given that we are 'celebrating' the 20 year anniversary of the ice storm, I thought it might be fun to share some of our 19th ward ice storm stories!!

How long were YOU without power?

What did you do to survive?

Did you meet any new neighbors during the ice storm?

How did your street change as a result of the damage that occurred?

We were without power for over a week. Thankfully, we had a lot of camping supplies so we set up a mini-kitchen on our enclosed front porch including lantern, cook stove, etc. We also used our gas grill to cook up a lot that was in our freezer. Indoors we had a woodstove so we were one of the few people on the street with a source of heat- several neighbors stopped in during the day to warm up and my family moved in at night to have a warm place to stay- I slept on the living room floor for several nights to keep the fire going..... it felt very much like a 'hunting and gathering' society in terms of day to day focus but we also created a sense of community where many people were willing to share resources.

I distinctly remember when we finally started seeing RGE/Utility crews on the street - they had to go house to house to put up all of the fallen power lines before they could actually turn the power back on. That seemed to take a very long time!

When we bought our house in the mid-eighties, one of the things that we loved about Marlborough was that our street was lined with mature trees. It was really hard to lose so many of them but we were lucky to be able to keep the maple in our front yard. We also lost a HUGE elm tree in the back yard - the only good thing about that is the insurance company paid US to take the tree down and we were able to use the money from that to do some much needed work in our kitchen!

What are your memories of the ice storm??

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Permalink Reply by Mark Sweetland on March 3, 2011 at 8:33pm

I remember waking in the middle of the night to what sounded like cannons going off outside! It was from tree branches overloaded with ice falling and smashing into the ground. The next morning the street was nearly impassible. Fortunately, we never lost power!

After a few days, a neighbor across the street who had a large old tree fall on his electric line came over. We placed an extension cord out my attic window over the street into his attic window, and he used it for a week to power his furnace blower to heat his house.

I also remember driving to my parents house in Penfield to check on it, as they were in Florida. It took half a day, and I was amazed at the devastation across the area.

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Permalink Reply by Ken Maher on March 4, 2011 at 9:42pm

We lost power for two weeks. I believe our block (the west side of Wellington to Trafalgar to Rugby to Aldine) was one of the last restored because it was one of the smallest areas without power. We had seven kids--all of them still in the house at that time. All of us moved into the rectory of my wife parish, Saints Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Church on West Main. Our main accomplishment during this time was the confirmation of the celibate vocations and lifestyle of the priests with whom we lived for that fortnight.

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Permalink Reply by Wendy Sullivan on March 5, 2011 at 9:34am

We lost power for over two weeks also. We went to stay at my brother in laws for the first week. luckily we'd taken down our 8 dying poplar trees the year before because they would have taken out many garages in the area.

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Permalink Reply by John Boutet on March 5, 2011 at 11:33pm

When the ice storm hit we were already at our current Melrose address. We had gone to bed at a reasonable hour since we were working the next day and our daughter Jocelyn and exchange student Christine had school early the next day. I was awakened some time during the night with what I first thought was thunder. We soon realized it was the sound of tree limbs breaking. Marian and I got up to see what was happening in our yard and if there was anything we needed to safeguard. The cars were out of harms way. The only tree we had a chance to safely do anything to save was a 20 foot arborvitae at the SW corner of the house. It looked bowed to near the breaking point with its tips bowed to 10 beet from the ground. I felt a bit like a fool out spraying warm water on a tree at one or two in the morning, but it worked. I melted most of the ice off the tips and they moved back up slightly. By daybreak the ice had built back up but not enough to snap the branches.

The morning of the March 4th we were in photographers wonderland. It didn't take me long to use up the film I had on hand. Our power had gone out in the wee hours of the morning while we slept and it would be two weeks before it was restored. The next 5 days or so were very cold for us in the dark house. We had a gas stove so we could still cook and heat water. We burned wood in the fireplace in the living room where we camped for the first few days. After a few days I was worried about the pipes freezing and went down cellar with a flashlight to see if their was any way to manually turn the furnace on. It is an old coal fired boiler that was converted to gar. It depends on heat and natural convection to circulate the water. I was delighted to find the old furnace had an emergency mode for just this type of emergency. The gas could be turned on manually at a low flow rate to keep the boiler warm and the water circulating. That kept the house at a tolerable 45 to 50 degrees. After about a week with still no power restored we talked to our neighbor who still had one leg of her 220V service working. Marilyn was more than happy to let us run and extension cord over to her house and we were delighted to have a few lights back on in the living room and kitchen and to be able to watch TV again.

Two weeks went by before RG&E was able to restore power to our house or the houses to the east of us on our block. The event was certainly an eye opener and made us more aware of how dependent we are on electricity. I developed a new appreciation for my old boiler that did not depend on an electric pump to circulate the water. Here are a few of the pictures I took. Click to enlarge.

Left - Jocelyn, Christine and Marian in front of our house in the early morning on March 4th, 199. Center- Looking west from Rugby at the west flock of Melrose St.
Right - Devastated elm at 441 Rugby just west of our house. The elm survived and still stands!

Left - Looking east on Melrose was just dazzling! The trees formed a bright crystal tunnel for the Melrose bus to come through weaving its way around fallen branches.
Cntr. Left - At Wilson Magnet High School which Christine and Jocelyn were attending that year.
Cntr. Right - The Melrose/Rugby intersection.
Right - Cars in our driveway were undamaged but elm in background dropped one branch on our garage roof pocking a small hole in it.

Left - 191 Melrose Street
Center - 296 and 288 Melrose Street.
Right - My mother's house at the corner of Post and Milton.

You can click on this link to see all the picture: '910303 Rochester's Great Ice Storm of 1991

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Permalink Reply by Wendy Sullivan on March 6, 2011 at 9:02pm

great photos -- somewhere in our house, we have photos and videos. Our niece was married the day before and was always say that the storm should have been a clue to how traumatic her first marriage would be!! thanks for the photos!