In January 1998, Montreal and the region surrounding it was hit by the most disastrous ice storm ever recorded: more than four inches of ice entombed an area larger than the State of Florida, causing trees and power lines to collapse on an unprecedented scale, leaving millions in the dark without heat (some for up to four weeks). 35 people died and damages totalled more than $5 billion making it the worst natural disaster in Canadian history.
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#icestorm #canada #disaster #documentary
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LearningTranscript
00:00Montreal, Canada. It's 3.5 million inhabitants are used to extremely severe winters. They
00:12have no choice as bitterly cold temperatures and heavy snowfalls of as much as 15 inches
00:17at a time bury the city. This city knows bad weather. There is one kind of winter storm
00:25that is the toughest to beat. The ice storm. So Montreal has got its first forecast of
00:32freezing rain. This is all ice. This is absolutely surreal. Look at this. Holy crap. Wow. Everything
00:42just gets covered in a centimeter thick layer of ice. I went way further than I expected.
00:49That is too satisfying. I'm never going to get sick of that. Ice storms are created by atmospheric
00:57circumstances that are so unique, they seem impossible. Unlike New York, just 300 miles to
01:04the south, Montreal gets hit by freezing rain an average of 10 days per year. The reasons are
01:10location and geography. When warm air from the south meets cold northern air, this creates the
01:16ideal conditions above Montreal for extreme winter weather. And because Montreal lies in
01:22the midst of the St. Lawrence River Valley, the situation is intensified. As this warm air from
01:28the south rides up over the surrounding mountains, it traps the cold polar air in the valley below.
01:34As the warm air rises, it releases rain, which falls through the cold layer. The perfect amount
01:41of cold air then super cools the rain, causing it to be cold enough to freeze the moment it hits
01:47the ground. The longer these conditions remain, the more severe the weather becomes. So if the
01:54perfect ice storm were to strike, it would begin on a January day in the skies above Montreal.
02:00It's just surreal, like the entire city just coated with ice. This is honestly so much fun.
02:08Ice storms are not unusual in Canada, coating the landscape with a beautiful shroud of ice.
02:13Ice formation generally ranges from a trace to one inch in accumulation. But in January 1998,
02:21Canada was hit by a storm that was anything but usual. In 1998, Montreal suffered the most
02:28disastrous, tragic and expensive ice storm in recorded history. Even for people who grew up
02:34in Canada, in the eastern part of the country, where winter they take pretty much for granted,
02:38have never seen anything quite like this. The damage here is staggering. Montreal seems like
02:44a city truly under siege tonight, as thousands of troops move in on a mission of mercy. In Quebec
02:50alone, more than one million households, that's up to about three million people, left without
02:55electricity. I've never seen anything like this in my life. I never would imagine that something
02:59like this could happen. I'm freaking out. The 98 ice storm was Canada's worst natural disaster,
03:05affecting over 5.4 million people, or one-fifth of the country's population. Virtually no one east
03:13of Ottawa has power tonight. The storm blanketed an area larger than the state of Florida,
03:18120 miles by 600 miles. This is the largest storm event in NYSEG's history. We suffered
03:26damage to our electric lines to the tune of about 1,850 miles. One of our engineers equated
03:33to a trip from here to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Over five days, multiple layers of ice built up
03:39because of the relentless freezing rain that weighed down everything it touched. During the
03:45ice storm, in a five-day period, we had 80 hours of freezing rain that produced a hundred millimeters
03:51of ice. That's a lot of ice all at one time. Eventually, the city's infrastructure began to
03:57collapse. When you saw electrical pylon suddenly buckle in front of your eyes, you knew right away
04:04this was gonna be major, major problems. It's a total write-off. I mean, we're not talking a repair job, it's a total rebuild.
04:11Four million people lost power. Oh my God, oh my God. A devastating scene across the Champlain Valley
04:20and beyond. Thick ice, more than three inches in some spots, coating everything. Over 17 million acres of
04:28forests were damaged in northern New England and upstate New York. Some trees carried 40 times their
04:33weight in ice. And across the border, they were devastated. Montreal got hit hard. Montrealers were
04:39burning the wood off their front porches and fireplaces, in some cases, that hadn't been used
04:44for 50 years. And we saw an incredible sight, these huge power lines that people see driving from the
04:50border north to Montreal, just absolutely bent right over. Amazing sight. And Quebec stayed that way for quite a
04:56while. After the storm, 3,000 kilometers of power lines were destroyed at a cost of over 800 million
05:04dollars. The economic impact of the storm has been devastating. Insurance companies now estimate
05:09they'll pay homeowners 500 million dollars to repair their property, making this the most
05:14expensive natural disaster in Canadian history.
05:45The sound of snapping branches and power lines, something that few will ever forget. We could hear
05:51the trees crashing. It sounded like thunder. Some sounded like gunshots. We could hear them just
05:57crunching and crashing and going down. My wife and I just sat there. We didn't know what to do.
06:02In Packingham, west of Ottawa, listen and you'll hear a forest dying.
06:11Like gunfire, the sound of maples falling.
06:21This is really tough to see. Shirley Fulton's family has been running this sugar bush for 150 years. You shouldn't be able to see
06:30the sky here. It'll take 40 or 50 years for the bush to recover.
06:35Meteorologists have called the storm a 100-year event. But what many people don't realize is that it may take that long for our
06:42forest to recover. Mother Nature doesn't really make rational choices. It can hit anywhere and affect anyone and kill
06:50people, injure people, ruin livelihoods without the blink of an eye. You really, really appreciate the power of nature and the
06:59power of weather. And ultimately, no matter how much technology we have, no matter how equipped we are, no matter how prepared we
07:06are, people will always be profoundly affected by weather. Days out from a storm, it's hard to predict exactly what'll happen. But in
07:14early January 1998, we saw dangerous conditions headed our way. This is rain. This is rain that means business. And we knew it was
07:23going to be bad. You're going to have a major icing problem. The way it visited itself upon us, it creeped in. It was a couple of days of
07:32just that little, little bit of rain, almost mist. It was just this slow, silent build up until we realized that we were in deep
07:43trouble. It was Monday, January 5th, 1998. Tobeka's going back to school and work after the holidays. It wasn't a very nice day. Too
07:57much ice. The ice is terrible all over the place. Dave Bronstetter, this is Dave Raikman, CBC Radio 1940 in Montreal. If you do not have to go
08:06out, do not. Unless it is absolutely necessary, stay home. Highways become skating rinks. And back roads, bobsled runs. Almost 15,000 trees in
08:21Montreal are broken or down. Dozens of streets are closed. Power lines ripped to the ground. Homes and cars damaged. As I walked up, I said,
08:29oh, lucky me, the back windshield has no ice on it. And I got a little closer to find out that I didn't have a back windshield. I don't have much of a front
08:36windshield. The city tries to clean up the mess. Mother Nature keeps making the mess bigger. The worst neighborhoods are definitely NDG, Maisonneuve and
08:47Rosemont. Late that afternoon, the city opens two shelters for people who have no power and need help. Then the real power of the storm hits during the
08:57afternoon. So much ice fell that eight high voltage power lines crumbled like toothpicks. Their cables strewn across a busy highway near Drummondville.
09:07Hydro workers have never seen it so bad. About 400,000 homes are without electricity. More than 600 crews are working to restore power. Here's a look at the
09:24area affected by the storm, a region that stretches from in and around Ottawa to Montreal and up the south shore of the St. Lawrence. We haven't seen anything
09:34remotely like this since about February of 1961. We got about 50 millimeters worth of ice today. We're getting there. We have about 18 millimeters on the ground, on the cars, on the
09:45trees. Darren Solomon, our reporter, is outside right now to fill us in with some more information. Darren, what's the latest Hydro says about how many customers are
09:52without power? In all of Quebec, 755,000 homes without electricity. In Montreal, on the island, we're talking about nearly 250,000 homes. Does Hydro have any new estimate
10:03about when people will be getting their power back? They still say it could take about three or four days. The forecast for that night and for the next day, Tuesday, January 6th, was for
10:13freezing rain. But that forecast didn't say four days of freezing rain. It didn't say the ice storm of the century that's going to turn your lives upside down. But that's what we got. This is a look back when the triangle of darkness descended on the south shore and when the ring of power around Montreal broke down.
10:31This is day two of the ice storm crisis in Montreal. The freezing rain has started again. There are still half a million homes in the southern part of Quebec that do not have electricity. Command central at Hydro-Quebec, workers have been dispatching crews around the clock, trying to deal with one of the biggest blackouts in Quebec history. So the branches are falling all over the place. They're breaking the wires. We're putting them back up. Two hours after, alarms go off and it just went down again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again
11:02Hydro wasn't the only outfit on the road. The city's crews were scrambling to stay on top of the mess.
11:10Across town, several apartments were evacuated. People had used propane-powered generators to stay warm and ended up poisoned by carbon monoxide fumes.
11:20Everyone told Montrealers to keep off the streets. More shelters open for people without electricity.
11:26Do you want a soup, ma'am?
11:28After an emergency cabinet meeting in Quebec, the Premier issued a warning.
11:33I think that we must tell the population that they should not hesitate to leave home if they feel like it.
11:40Those who tried to tough it out at home. Some people's problems only got worse. This man's house caught fire after using his fireplace for two days straight.
11:50It's going to go down in history as the ice storm of 98. It's bad and it is not over. Hundreds of thousands of people in Montreal and across Quebec are still without electricity right now.
12:00Things aren't going to get better fast either. More freezing rain is set to be on the way.
12:05It's freezing rain once again tonight. The second wave of a storm system that has caused chaos since Monday night.
12:12More than a hundred temporary shelters are open and at least two deaths are being blamed on the big freeze.
12:20Now with the freezing rain expected to continue right through the night, the big concern here now is that what is already a very dangerous situation could get even worse.
12:30Bad news, Dennis. The second part of this ice storm is going to be more vicious than yesterday's for two simple reasons.
12:37We're going to see in some cases twice as much ice and winds, which weren't a factor yesterday, will be a factor tonight into tomorrow.
12:46The ice storm has been locked in place above the city by a huge area of high pressure in the Atlantic Ocean.
12:54This system has brought all of the North American weather systems to a standstill. The normal pattern of west to east weather flow is blocked.
13:04Montreal is about to be entombed in ice.
13:09I never see so many times a long lasting freezing rain period like we had Monday into Tuesday.
13:17And meteorologists could offer no words of encouragement. The front of warm wet air coming from the southern U.S. states will last for days.
13:25Well, I don't want to be pessimistic, but this is objectively what is the situation going to be.
13:31It's not just Canada that's being hampered and hammered by these winds and bad weather.
13:36The northeastern United States is also being battered very hard by this storm.
13:41Well, the power went off at about nine o'clock and then we didn't pay too much attention to it.
13:45But we had in the back of our mind the trouble in Canada, they're without power and this big storm coming with all the ice.
13:51What are we going to do? So we started thinking we got to look up a generator.
13:53Up along the Canadian border in the tiny hamlet of Perry's Mills, there's already ice.
13:58But at this point, the ice is more spectacle than disaster.
14:02This is going to sound awful, but at first it was kind of exciting because you've never seen anything like this.
14:08And you would run from one window to the next and go, oh my God. But then it gets terrifying.
14:13North of the border, an eerie preview of what's coming. Trees crashing through cars.
14:18More than a half million Hydro-Quebec customers in the dark.
14:22This is News Channel 5 at 6.
14:27By the six o'clock news, Tom Messner is starting to sound the alarm.
14:31You're going to have a major icing problem. That's what we're thinking about.
14:34Waiting for the day's second computer model.
14:37When I saw that one, I was really concerned because you could see that this was something we hadn't dealt with probably ever.
14:43Overnight, trees and poles weighted down with ice will come crashing down.
14:48And the number of people without power and without heat will suddenly skyrocket.
14:53What started out as a nasty winter storm is becoming a full-fledged natural disaster.
14:59It's day three of the ice storm, and everything in Montreal is covered.
15:04Over an inch of ice has accumulated as the continuous freezing rain smothers the city.
15:09Day three of Quebec's ice storm crisis.
15:12More than a million households and businesses across southwestern Quebec mainly are now without power and in many cases heat.
15:19A big hit today is on the south shore from Chateau Gay in Beauharnois all the way to Boucherville down to Gramby.
15:25560,000 plus Hydro customers.
15:29What kind of deadline are you holding out for people when things might come back to semblance?
15:34What kind of deadline are you holding out for people when things might come back to semblance of normal?
15:40Well, I think it would be realistic not to expect power for a few more days.
15:45Some people will be out of power until next week.
15:49Hydro crews are overwhelmed.
15:52The federal government sent in hundreds of Canadian Forces personnel to help out, but nobody can stop this ice storm.
16:00And to help get the power back on, Hydro is calling in reinforcements from the United States.
16:06How are you doing?
16:08I've never seen sea like this here. It's unbelievable.
16:12Unbelievable.
16:14Everywhere, trees are breaking, power lines are falling.
16:18More and more people are going into the dark.
16:21The situation with power outages on the West Island is changing by the hour.
16:25Forcing some shelters to close.
16:28So if you need a place to stay, call your city hall first and find out what's available.
16:33The Aquatic Centre in Pointe-Claire will be home to more than 200 people tonight.
16:37Residents have to sign up to secure a bed.
16:40The shelter is providing food, even entertainment for the kids.
16:44It's operating at full capacity.
16:46And city officials fear the situation will only get worse.
16:50Going into the fourth day, more and more people are coming in.
16:53Going into the fourth day, more and more people give up and head for the shelters.
16:58With no power, it takes less than 72 hours for the temperature of an unheated house to drop dangerously low.
17:05And this is when people are more susceptible to unseen dangers.
17:09The brain stops functioning well, you become less able to use your muscles.
17:14The feeling of overwhelming tiredness hits, causing you to fall into what could become a deadly sleep.
17:21The story is we are stuck with this freezing rain and these ice pellets for at least another 24 hours.
17:28By the end of the third day, the storm has taken a firm hold on the city.
17:33I hope the worst is over.
17:36Me too.
17:38But for the people of Montreal, the worst is yet to come.
17:43The city becomes mummified as it's wrapped tightly in layers of ice.
17:47All forms of transportation start to become immobilized.
17:51Street by street, parts of the city are now plunged into darkness.
17:56But this ice storm is far from over.
17:59You can't go through this room. Grand Isle County is pretty much closed down.
18:03The battle against power outages is a losing one.
18:07Last night, the number of people without power in the Champlain Valley has multiplied 10 times.
18:13Well, it's not just the trees and the ice and the wires. Now we have flooding occurring.
18:17The Winooski is running high.
18:20But the real concern is along the Au Sable and the Missisquoi,
18:24which is starting to dam up with a mangled mess of trees, branches and huge chunks of ice.
18:30I've lived here all my life and this is the first time we've ever seen it up this high.
18:34Even in the spring when it gets really bad, this is worse than it's ever been.
18:40Well, this storm is like none that we've ever seen here in the Champlain Valley.
18:43It is bad in the Champlain Valley, but it is worse than other places.
18:47Yeah, they're having a lot of problems, as you probably know by now, north of the border.
18:51A million Canadians have no power and they've been dealing with this ice since Monday now.
18:56The freezing rain poured down again all night long.
18:59When Quebecers woke up Friday morning, more of them were without electricity than ever,
19:03and things were about to get worse.
19:06Go!
19:07Go!
19:11The signs of another bad day came early this morning.
19:15The skies rumbled with thunder and then opened up yet again with freezing rain.
19:20The fourth straight day.
19:23Day four. The worst day yet.
19:27I'm going to cry, I think. I'm very tired.
19:32By late tonight, millions of Quebecers will be out of power.
19:36Power is still coming in, but we do not have any backup anymore,
19:41so we are in a fragile situation at this moment.
19:44More fragile than we knew.
19:47A few days later, the Premier would admit we came close to disaster that Friday.
19:53Five lines supply power to Montreal.
19:56Only one was still working.
19:59While Hydro-Quebec desperately tried to calm fears at this press conference, the power went out.
20:04The reality is, by the end of the day, three million Quebecers were still in the dark.
20:10The Rougebon area is an icy wasteland.
20:14The ice is relentless. It covers everything,
20:17including the many high-voltage lines that have fallen around here.
20:21The city of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu is trapped in ice.
20:25Powerless for four days now, damage everywhere.
20:29This town is at the heart of the Triangle of Darkness,
20:31a region southeast of Montreal where there is virtually no power and no hope of getting any soon.
20:38The build-up of ice here is staggering.
20:41It's hard to imagine just how much ice they got here around Rougebon.
20:44Take a look at this, this bush.
20:46Look at the thickness of ice compared to my hand.
20:49Getting any supplies to the south shore was difficult.
20:53Late in the afternoon, the bridges closed.
20:56Ice was falling from the superstructures.
20:58People found out the hard way that Montreal subway trains run on electricity.
21:02For the first time in 30 years, all the metro lines stopped working.
21:07In neighborhood after neighborhood, there is simply no electricity,
21:11forcing many residents here to evacuate until power can be restored.
21:15Utility companies say it could take weeks before repairs are made.
21:19Nearly one million homes and three million people are now without electricity.
21:24The military has been called out to help.
21:25The storm is expected to move out to sea tonight,
21:28but forecasters say it will be followed by a major snowstorm.
21:32Bill Redeker, ABC News, Montreal.
21:35With this severe of an ice storm,
21:38the coating of ice that disabled much of the man-made infrastructure
21:41also takes a huge toll on nature.
21:44A single 50-foot conifer will accumulate as much as 45 tons of ice
21:50during a prolonged period of freezing rain.
21:52Many trees won't survive this extra weight.
21:55As ice starts to glaze on trees and power lines,
21:58it doesn't look like it weighs that much.
22:00Don't be fooled, it does.
22:02Get this, one inch of ice thickness per one foot weighs seven pounds.
22:06Not only were they down, they looked like they'd been just exploded.
22:10When they hit the ground, they would shatter.
22:12I heard a crack, and right as I looked up,
22:15that part of the tree was coming down at me, so I dove out of the way.
22:19I never screamed so loud in my life.
22:22Desolation all over the city.
22:24The trees, ecological disaster for Montreal.
22:26By the end of day four, Montreal is weary.
22:30The sheer weight of the ice from this storm
22:32is crushing the remaining cables and utility poles.
22:35Forecasters are saying the end may be in sight,
22:38but clearly it's been getting worse before it gets better.
22:42Much of eastern Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritimes are affected,
22:46but nowhere is it bleaker tonight than right here in Montreal.
22:49One of the worst places to be in Canada today was downtown Montreal.
22:54Till now, it had been almost untouched by the catastrophic blackouts,
22:58but tonight, it too was hit.
23:00This is the view from Montreal's lookout,
23:03a city in the depth of darkness
23:05after the most difficult day of this crisis so far.
23:08I figure it's a total blackout,
23:10because if downtown has no light,
23:12there's probably none at all in my area.
23:141.3 million customers of hydro,
23:16that means there are more than 3 million Quebecers
23:19who still tonight have no power.
23:21These four days have been a constant battle
23:24against the force of nature,
23:26where it could be weeks before power is restored.
23:29Tonight, Montreal is a city marked by great swaths of darkness
23:33with the odd island of light.
23:35Tom, it has been an incredible evening here on the island of Montreal.
23:38With each passing hour, more bad news coming.
23:41What's the latest?
23:43Well, the big development on the island of Montreal
23:44is that one of the two plants that supply water
23:47to the millions of people who live here,
23:49one of those two plants is down.
23:51It is not functioning.
23:53One of two main water treatment facilities
23:55servicing 15 municipalities has gone down.
23:58So, on top of all of the misery,
24:00the blackout, the cold houses, no heat,
24:02and this has been going on for four days,
24:04on top of that, there's a large chunk
24:06of the population of Montreal tonight
24:08that does not even have water.
24:10The situation in this city tonight is really, truly desperate.
24:12I guess if there's any good news at this moment,
24:14it's what's falling in front of you there.
24:16It's snow, and that means it's not freezing rain,
24:18but it also means it's getting colder,
24:20and that brings with it its own dangers.
24:22Tom Kennedy reporting to us tonight
24:24from the streets of Montreal.
24:26The people of Montreal have been taking
24:28everything this storm could throw at them,
24:30and they have persevered.
24:32Well, I think Montrealers,
24:34I think they're hardy by nature,
24:36and I think that basically,
24:38they're going to cope with this,
24:40and they've coped with other things.
24:42At the Westin Hotel on the dark side of Sherbrooke Street,
24:44there are rooms and a hotel's restaurant
24:46for a cold buffet,
24:48and some hot music kept up their spirits.
24:53Basically, we want to keep people busy,
24:55change their mind,
24:57because everyone is fairly stressed.
24:59In the shelter I visited today,
25:01I found people in remarkably good spirits,
25:03remarkably grateful to,
25:05and patient with the people who are helping them.
25:07Things are bound to get better,
25:09because right now, many are saying
25:11they just can't get much worse.
25:15Then we lost power
25:17for more than half of the province.
25:23The ice formed by freezing rain
25:25is the toughest ice on earth.
25:27The main reason for that is
25:29there's very little, very few air bubbles
25:31in the water trough.
25:33The storm has now laid down
25:35a solid pack of ice
25:37of over four inches deep,
25:39thicker than a sidewalk slab,
25:41and just as strong.
25:42Once the ice layers reach
25:44over four inches deep,
25:46their sheer weight threatens
25:48every major structure,
25:50and there is nothing more important
25:52to a city in crisis
25:54than the giant steel transmission towers
25:56that bring its power.
25:58The freezing rain has spread
26:00over an area of 70,000 square miles,
26:02taking out towers
26:04across the entire region.
26:06Montreal sits on an island
26:08connected to the outside world
26:10by bridges and tunnels.
26:12The city relies almost exclusively
26:14on hydroelectric power
26:16generated far to the north
26:18in James Bay and Labrador.
26:20This creates a logistics problem.
26:22It takes over $15 billion
26:24worth of transmission lines,
26:26almost enough to reach
26:28once around the world
26:30to feed electricity
26:32to the power-hungry South.
26:34Ultimately, eight main
26:36high-voltage transmission lines
26:38bring over 20 gigawatts
26:40of power to the city.
26:42The power to Montreal
26:44will rely on these delicate arteries
26:46that are covered in ice.
26:49One by one,
26:51six of the eight power lines
26:53that feed Montreal
26:55have collapsed.
26:57The last line to the north
26:59of the city is groaning
27:01under the extreme weight of ice,
27:03and one ice-laden line
27:05hangs on to the east.
27:07Each cable is now carrying weight
27:09over ten times its design load,
27:10the equivalent to a person
27:12hanging on every ten feet.
27:16Montreal's only remaining lifelines
27:19are at the breaking point.
27:21Now the giant towers
27:23that have held out against the ice
27:25face their final test.
27:27At the end of the day,
27:29on last Thursday,
27:31we really thought
27:33that we might leave Montreal,
27:35that we might have a total blackout
27:37in the Montreal area.
27:38Only one line.
27:40The line was watched
27:42by all people the whole night.
27:45In a last desperate bid
27:47to save the only power line left,
27:49the energy companies
27:51literally take matters
27:53into their own hands,
27:55smashing it off by hand.
27:57A delicate operation
27:59to de-ice the line.
28:01The strategy?
28:03A crew hovering
28:05in an armed forces helicopter
28:06to block the ice off.
28:08Overshooting. Overshooting.
28:10Unconventional. Unprecedented.
28:12But it worked.
28:16As the sun rises,
28:18Montreal breathes
28:20a collective sigh of relief.
28:22The remaining power lines were saved
28:24and much needed power
28:26slowly returns to the city.
28:28John, can you give us
28:30the good news we've been waiting for?
28:32Ah, Debra, there is good news tonight.
28:34Dear friends at home,
28:36we can now bring closure
28:38to the worst ice storm on record.
28:40The changeover has taken place.
28:42We've got light flurries
28:44falling in the greater Montreal area.
28:46As for ice, forget it.
28:49After the big freeze,
28:51the big thaw.
28:56Ahead, the long process
28:58of recovery and cleaning up.
29:01This window of decent weather
29:03may be very small.
29:04It's supposed to get colder and colder
29:06over the next few days.
29:08So you can imagine
29:10what went on here today.
29:12A huge effort to make the most
29:14of this opportunity.
29:16To get ice off bridges.
29:18To clear debris off the streets.
29:20Most of all, to restore power
29:22to the city of Montreal.
29:24This was an uneasy calm
29:26after the storm.
29:28Downtown Montreal,
29:30much of it still without power,
29:32was turned into a massive
29:34storm pit.
29:36Ice, huge chunks of it,
29:38continued to rain down from above.
29:40Despite the break in the weather,
29:42life has not returned to normal.
29:44Far from it.
29:46Montrealers were told
29:48not to drink the tap water.
29:50That prompted a rush on bottled water.
29:52This store was cleaned out.
29:54Even one of the proudest symbols
29:56of the city,
29:58Hockey's Montreal Canadiens,
30:00couldn't escape the effects
30:02of the storm.
30:04Despite this lot of ice pellets,
30:06there was still shell shock
30:08from the ravages of the ice war.
30:10This looks like worse
30:12than any hurricane I've ever seen.
30:14I mean, the West Island,
30:16I thought where we are was pretty bad,
30:18but this is incredible.
30:20This is devastation.
30:22I was in Winnipeg yesterday.
30:24This is the first time in my life
30:26I wish I stayed in Winnipeg.
30:28People start to venture out,
30:30inspecting the damage
30:32and telling stories
30:34and it's like a war zone.
30:36It's just I can't get over
30:38how bad it was.
30:41And as the power crews
30:43begin to get back up,
30:45they also begin to get
30:47almost unbelievable estimates
30:49about outages.
30:51Nearly 200,000 customers out
30:53in Vermont and northern New York.
30:55More than a half million people.
30:57NYMO says, get this,
30:5999% of its customers
31:01are without power.
31:02It's unbelievable.
31:04I've never seen an ice storm
31:06of this nature.
31:08You go through the,
31:10even the main streets,
31:12forget about the back streets
31:14and you see the trees
31:16and the power lines down
31:18and you just realize
31:20that this is something
31:22that's going to take
31:24quite some time to get over.
31:26In Kingston,
31:28close to 75% of the area
31:30remains in the dark.
31:32The scope of this disaster
31:34is hard to take in,
31:36especially in the area
31:38that took the biggest hit,
31:40Montreal's South Shore.
31:42No one has escaped.
31:44Nearly every household,
31:46every business is blacked out
31:48in a string of cities and towns
31:50that have become known
31:52as the Triangle of Darkness.
31:54You can see what happened
31:56right here, even small wires
31:58became like thick,
32:00heavy cables of ice.
32:02It's spectacular.
32:04We met up with this convoy
32:06of linemen who drove
32:08to the South Shore
32:10all the way from Long Island,
32:12New York.
32:14They worked for a Connecticut-based
32:16power utility and to our surprise,
32:18most were of French-Canadian heritage.
32:20I'm originally from Quebec.
32:22And what's your name, sir?
32:24Remy Perrault.
32:26Another Francophone.
32:28Yeah, we're working down
32:30New York right now.
32:32This is Montreal in an area
32:34that is particularly hard hit.
32:36A hydro tower came crumbling
32:38to the ground,
32:40buckling under the staggering
32:42weight of the ice.
32:44The tower brought with it
32:46power lines attached to
32:48the massive steel structure.
32:50The CTV crew was trapped,
32:52wires surrounding them
32:54on all sides.
32:56And you were trapped there
32:58for how long?
33:00Well, we were trapped there
33:02for over a year.
33:04They were using
33:06all kinds of devices,
33:08propane and other heaters
33:10inside their powerless homes.
33:12And they're ignoring
33:14warnings about touching wires
33:16or cutting trees down.
33:18With the power out,
33:20it's more a question
33:22of not hearing the warning
33:24in the first place.
33:2635 people died in this disaster
33:28and half a million people
33:30were forced from their homes.
33:32Emerging from darkness, the lights are coming back on.
33:36After what was quite literally the darkest weekend in Montreal's modern history,
33:40at last there was light.
33:42By daybreak, power was back in the downtown core.
33:45Regular business was not.
33:47Downtown officials say the roof of the Eaton Centre is in danger of collapsing
33:51under pressure from thick ice in Montreal.
33:53There had been an earlier report that the roof had collapsed
33:56and 100 people taking shelter in the complex had to evacuate.
34:01Electric utility workers from across North America, the army,
34:04and just about anyone who could lend a hand,
34:07was trying to get the lights back on and clean up the mess.
34:12One of the first things to do was to get rid of the tons of ice.
34:15There were some unique ways of doing it, like the team of police sharpshooters
34:20getting the ice off a communications antenna.
34:27In Montreal, most people will have electricity in a day or two.
34:31Here on the South Shore, hundreds of thousands of people
34:34will stay in the dark for two more weeks.
34:38This crew is one of about ten working in the area of Saint-Yossin,
34:41a city with no power for a week.
34:44The men are working from 12 to 18 hours a day.
34:47The pylons are taking shape quickly.
34:49Cable lies waiting to be strung, but it takes time.
34:54The lines here will not be up, the foreman says, before next week.
34:58And as temperatures plunged to minus 20,
35:00a major operation was underway to convince people without power
35:04to leave their homes.
35:06After about a week or so, eight days, I couldn't stay in my apartment anymore
35:10because it was way too cold.
35:12I realized when I stepped out of the apartment,
35:14it was an old four-storey building built in the 20s.
35:17The hallway was totally dark.
35:19I realized that everybody was out of the building.
35:21I was the last one to leave.
35:23As night falls, the temperature drops.
35:26Wind chills tonight will hit minus 30,
35:29the coldest since this crisis began more than a week ago.
35:33Firewood and other supplies are pouring in from other parts of Quebec,
35:38Canada, and the United States.
35:41We're coming out of Richmond, Virginia,
35:43and we're bringing the beds and the tents for the people to sleep in.
35:47My dispatcher called me and said, well, we've got an emergency.
35:50There's people up there in Canada that's sleeping outside in these beds.
35:54And I told him, I said, well, I'll be in.
35:57This storm is more than just freezing rain and downed power lines.
36:02It's also people coming together to help,
36:05neighbors helping neighbors,
36:08people volunteering for countless hours in shelters,
36:11and the kindness of strangers.
36:15The guy that came around the corner and hooked me back up to the electricity
36:19came in a truck that had a Massachusetts license plate on it.
36:22Oh, yeah.
36:23And this kid looked like Adonis,
36:26the Greek god of electricity hooking up, you know?
36:30I was never happier in my life.
36:32And more signs things were getting back to normal.
36:35Schools started reopening.
36:37Did you enjoy your extended Christmas holiday?
36:40Yeah.
36:41You did?
36:42Yeah.
36:43You enjoyed being home without power?
36:47And everyone had a special story to tell about his or her extra-long vacation.
36:52I had an oven stove.
36:54You had an oven stove? What's an oven stove?
36:56I mean, a wood stove.
36:57A wood stove.
36:58In the fridge, some of our things went bad,
37:01but we're still okay.
37:03And my mom now is, like, going in for groceries today.
37:09You wonder exactly how we survived that devastating ice storm of 98?
37:14Just look to your neighbors.
37:16Everybody was in it together.
37:18You were without power, so were 20,000 other people right around us,
37:21and it didn't have it any worse than anybody else.
37:24But you helped your neighbor, and your neighbor helped you.
37:27Adversity, somehow, has brought out the best in people.
37:31I think everybody's working together and enjoying it.
37:34It's made people far more human
37:36and realize what we can do for each other.
37:40Oh, it's wonderful!
37:43A little laugh therapy to lighten things up.
37:46Considering the time that we're all facing right now,
37:50it's been very stressful for our family
37:52and for a lot of people around here,
37:54so it's definitely very uplifting.
37:56Show you that people care, you know?
37:59They really do care.
38:01I've actually been helping out today,
38:03so it's given me something to do.
38:05Now, could I judge by your accent
38:06that you may have never seen anything like this before?
38:08No, we're from England, so we've only been here a year,
38:11so we're still coping with the Canadian weather,
38:14let alone this, so...
38:16Well, you only see this once in a lifetime, they say,
38:18such as this. Yes, yes.
38:20What were some of the lessons learned from this?
38:22You mentioned generators.
38:23I think a lot more people and farms have generators now.
38:27Well, they're probably lessons learned,
38:29but it's going to be so long,
38:31and before something like this happens again,
38:33we'll probably have to learn all over again.
38:36Mother Nature reminded us that she can still wreak havoc
38:39with our high-tech, modern way of life
38:41with almost no warning in a way we almost never expected.
38:45We also learned that here in Quebec,
38:47more people heat with electricity
38:48than in just about any other part of the world.
38:51But what we should really remember
38:53is how much we depended on our friends and our neighbours,
38:57on strangers from nearby and from far away.
39:01You know, from a meteorologist's point of view,
39:03this was certainly the most interesting thing I've ever seen.
39:06I mean, it was mind-boggling what was going on.
39:09As far as I'm concerned,
39:10it's definitely the biggest weather-related thing
39:13I've ever covered in my life.
39:15And no doubt, most of us who live through it
39:18will never forget the ice storm of 98.
39:211997 was said to be the warmest year on record,
39:25in fact, since records were kept at all.
39:27A lot of folks think that the ice storm of 98
39:30was a once-in-a-lifetime event,
39:32but the reality is it will happen again.
39:35Milder winters may mean the conditions
39:37to create the perfect ice storm
39:40could be just around the corner.