An Icy Disaster
“THE worst natural disaster in the nation’s history.” That is what The Toronto Star called this January’s ice storm that ravaged the Canadian provinces of Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick. In the United States, President Bill Clinton declared Maine and New Hampshire as well as sections of Vermont and upstate New York disaster areas.
Some 35 deaths were attributed to the storm, which involved up to five days of freezing rain. Such rain usually lasts for only a few hours, but on this occasion a warm upper layer of air remained stationary over a cold air mass. So when the rain hit a surface, it instantly froze. This built up layers of ice two and three inches thick. Under the weight of the ice, many trees, power lines, utility poles, and transmission towers collapsed, often with frightening consequences.
In Quebec, hundreds of huge steel transmission towers toppled as if they were made of tinfoil. One anxious commuter related: “I saw a [tower] in front of me twist like it was plastic. It twisted in two, then became a ball, and crumbled. The lines were all over the highway. After the first one fell, three others behind it collapsed.”
Ice accumulation brought down more than 74,000 miles [more than 120,000 kilometers] of power lines, enough to encircle the earth three times! In Canada, three to four million people were without power and heat, some for three weeks and longer.
In Maine, where Governor Angus King declared a state of emergency, over 200,000 were without power. “This is the biggest disaster of this kind that has ever hit this state,” the governor said. New York Governor George Pataki proclaimed: “You have entire cities with zero power.”
Along the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, some 30,000 wooden utility poles were destroyed during the storm. After 17 hours of freezing rain, Jim Kelly, who lives near that river in northern New York, wrote: “We can’t see out the windows anymore. It’s not just frost or vapor but solid ice. Noises are coming from every side of the house.”
Kelly explained: “In the distance you can hear what sounds like gunfire. Bang! Silence. Bang! Silence. Bang, bang!” Later, he learned that the sounds had come from trees breaking and from the snapping of telephone poles.
Ironically, the landscape took on a dazzling beauty, even as devastation was wreaked upon it. Fears were expressed that Ontario may have lost 20 million maple trees, impacting the maple syrup industry. One grower lamented: “The trees are just spikes heading towards the sky.”
“A Beautiful War Zone”
The above was a Toronto Star headline describing Montreal, Canada’s second-largest city. “The streets here look like bombs hit them!” one resident exclaimed. An early estimate of damage in the Montreal area alone was put at more than $500 million.
A resident of Belleville, Ontario, said: “It looks like a nuclear war has passed. There’s a white dust on everything, it’s eerie.” He called it “an eerie beauty.”
The week following the storm, when hundreds of thousands were still without power and the cold was severe, the police began evacuating people to shelters. “Do we ask them or do we order them?” an officer asked.
“They have to get out,” the one in charge replied. “But be diplomatic about it.” He added: “You’d think we were in wartime.”
Near Calamities
With loss of power in much of Montreal, traffic lights failed and the subway system was closed. By the last day of the storm, four of the five transmission stations serving the city had failed or collapsed. With what possible consequences?
“We found ourselves in the afternoon with the perspective of a total blackout in Montreal—without water,” explained Quebec Premier Lucien Bouchard. “There were two hours of water left because the two plants were stopped.” With people using candles and the prospect of no water at all, the possibility of a calamity was great.
Another calamity was averted about two weeks later when a crowd of 1,889 were assembled on January 24 for a circuit assembly at the Montreal Assembly Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Overnight, ten inches [more than 20 centimeters] of wet snow had blanketed Montreal, and during the morning assembly program, damage was detected in the walls and ceilings. The afternoon program was canceled, and an appeal was made for those in attendance to go home, change their clothes, and return to the site to work.
Within an hour 300 volunteers equipped with shovels, picks, and other equipment began to clear the huge 77,000-square-foot [7,100-square-meter] roof. After the surface snow was removed, it was discovered that in places the ice was more than two feet [more than 60 centimeters] thick! Chain saws were used to cut the ice into square pieces, and these were dragged to the edge of the roof and dropped off. Some 1,600 tons of snow and ice was removed! Inspection later revealed that as a result, the ceilings popped back into place and the cracks in the walls closed. The program resumed safely on Sunday morning.
They Helped One Another
True, some people in the area sought to profit from the misery of others during the time of rain and cold, but as in the first century, many showed “extraordinary human kindness.” (Acts 28:2) The Daily Sentinel of Rome, New York, told of Jehovah’s Witnesses who headed out to help people: “The men met at the Kingdom Hall in Watertown to get organized and from there were assigned to various members’ houses. But they wound up helping their neighbors up and down the street too.”
The article said that these relief efforts were coordinated for people “across the region in Adams, Potsdam, Malone, Ogdensburg, Plattsburgh, Massena, Gouverneur, and Ellenburg.” Some volunteers provided heat to homes for a few hours by wiring up generators to run furnaces. Unhappily, temperatures had dropped to below zero in many areas following the storm.
On one occasion the police saw Witnesses visiting homes and mistook them for thieves. When the Witnesses explained what they were doing, one of the policemen said that following the storm, his father, who lives in Montreal, had been helped by Jehovah’s Witnesses, even though his father is not a Witness himself. The son expressed his appreciation for the help given.
Especially hard hit by the storm were some 100 towns south of Montreal in an area called the “triangle of darkness.” Ten days after the storm, these towns were still without power. In fact, many people were without power for over a month! Arrangements were made by the branch office of Jehovah’s Witnesses near Toronto for special visits to provide help to ones in this area. Supplies including lamp oil, batteries, and flashlights were trucked to a designated distribution center, and from there they were dispensed to those in need.
Arrangements were also made for Christian elders to determine the needs of those living in these areas. One group of elders visited 11 congregations within a week, holding many encouraging meetings. After these gatherings, where spiritual encouragement was provided, no one wanted to return home. People just stayed and stayed, talking and comparing stories, basking in the fellowship. In fact, regular meeting attendance was at an all-time peak in the weeks following the storm.
Many who had a source of heat, such as a wood stove or a generator to provide electricity, welcomed those who had no heat into their homes. Some Witnesses had as many as 20 people staying with them. Also many outside the area that had lost electricity provided accommodations. For example, Witnesses in Sept-Îles, a city some 500 miles [some 800 kilometers] from the “triangle of darkness,” offered to accommodate 85 families.
Witnesses in distant rural areas, such as Rimouski, cut and shipped firewood. Some took the time to write scriptures on the logs they sent. One Witness shared his gift of wood with a non-Witness neighbor, who received a log with Psalm 55:16 written on it: “Jehovah himself will save me.” Log in hand, he looked up and said: “Thank you, Jehovah.”
What Lessons From It All?
Many were shocked by the fragility of electrical power and by their dependence upon it. “I’ll tell you, when we build a new home,” one man said, “there’s going to be a wood stove, there’s going to be a generator . . . , and there’s going to be a gas stove.”
Nearly six weeks after the storm, a commentator reflected: “It was a lot of ice, a lot of darkness, a lot of time to think, which is much easier to do with the television off.” Then, he noted: “We’ve been surprised by our vulnerability to the elements.”
Bible students reflect on the Creator’s promise to restore earth to a global paradise after removing this system of things, even as he removed such a world once before. (Matthew 24:37-39; 2 Peter 2:5) Pointing to his potential arsenal, God inquires: “Have you entered into the storehouses of the snow, or do you see even the storehouses of the hail [including freezing rain], which I have kept back for the time of distress, for the day of fight and war?”—Job 38:22, 23.
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Transmission towers crumbled like tinfoil
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Potential disaster was averted when volunteers removed snow and ice from the roof of the Assembly Hall
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Firewood for storm victims