Describing an Ice Storm To My Friend in Florida
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A Photo Essay
Thursday, February 3rd: Storm Warning
When we say “historic ice storm” in New York, we’re not talking about a mere glaze of frost or a paltry 10th of an inch of ice coating flat surfaces.
A historic ice storm means at least a half inch of what weather experts call “radial ice accretion” on elevated surfaces like branches and power lines.
It’s the kind of ice that makes everything look like Narnia’s eternal winter — beautiful but lethal. It seals things shut — mail boxes, car doors, garbage can lids. It turns the lawn into a carpet of glistening shards.
The threat of an ice storm of this magnitude prompted my power company, Central Hudson, to send out a portent-of-doom email urging customers to be prepared.
If you’ve spent all of your life in a warm climate, then you might not realize that “preparing for an ice storm” means you need to keep your primary heat source working.
Staying warm is the number one priority. That means stocking up on wood if you’re lucky enough to have a wood stove or fireplace (this includes wood pellets for pellet stoves). You need ample gas for your generator, lots of bottled water (or a full bathtub) because no electricity means no running water. Most water systems around here use well water which requires electric pumps to run.
You also need an escape plan if you have none of the above or find yourself running out of all of the above. Depending on how cold it gets, staying in your house without power for more than 24–48 hours is not an option.
Friday, February 4th: The Storm
Ice storms bring with them the very real possibility of bodily harm from falling trees and tree limbs, treacherous roads, and potential electrocution.
Ice is heavy. When enough of it accumulates on tree branches, it can take the entire tree down. Power lines get yanked from houses and trees slam into telephone poles. Transformers explode. The world dances with electric chaos.
This is the scene my husband woke up to at 5 am Friday morning when our power went out and it was still dark outside. Somehow I slept through the drama as he got our generator and pellet stove started. He described the skyline in every direction as a flickering light show.
“It looked like the apocalypse,” he told me when I finally stumbled downstairs into the rapidly cooling house a couple of hours later.
We soon learned that the flickering lights were from arcing power lines and exploding transformers.
That morning, we had three bags of pellets on hand (good for about 24 hours of heat), and 5 gallons of (old) gasoline for the generator. I eyeballed the branches and based on the thickness of the ice, I figured that wasn’t nearly enough to last us until the power was restored.
We were stuck with these paltry supplies until the storm played itself out because there is no driving during an ice storm unless you’re an emergency vehicle.
The storm was a slow mover. Freezing rain had been falling for hours by the time I got up in the morning and it continued to fall until about 5 pm.
Central Hudson’s website was down and their app didn’t work for hours, but we eventually got a text from them which estimated that power would be back on at around 8 pm Friday evening.
“Seems optimistic,” I said to my husband. Trees were still falling and emergency sirens constantly blaring.
The generator didn’t like the old gas, so it wasn’t putting out enough electricity to keep the pellet stove running. Consequently, the stove kept shutting off. My husband started and restarted it all day long.
During the storm, we worried about trees falling. We worried about running out of gas for the generator. We worried about the pellet stove flickering out for good.
When ice finally stopped falling from the sky, my husband braved the slick roads to the nearest open gas station, navigating downed trees and power lines, to get more fuel. He made it back just after dark. The power did not come back on at 8 pm.
Saturday, February 5th: The Aftermath
Morning arrived and we still had no power. It was considerably colder inside the house. The forecast called for sub freezing temperatures all day, plus it was supposed to drop to below zero on Saturday night.
This meant that the ice wasn’t going anywhere. Trees and branches, still laden with ice, continued falling. This was bad news for the power crews trying to fix downed wires. Central Hudson, bless their stoic hearts, updated our power restoration time to Saturday night at 8 pm — 15 hours from when we first lost power.
“We can keep the stove going until then,” I said to my weary husband, trying to remain optimistic. He went to Lowes to pick up 12 bags of pellets and stopped at a gas station for more fuel for the stove.
The temperature in the house dropped from 60 to 55 to 50 degrees where it hovered until bedtime on Saturday. I began worrying about hypothermia, recalling horror stories of people who had frozen to death in their homes during the 2021 winter storm in Texas.
If you live in a warm climate and have little or no experience being cold for a prolonged period of time it’s hard to underestimate how distracting it is to try to keep yourself warm hour after hour.
Everything becomes cold to the touch— coffee mugs, electronics, the top of the dog’s head. My daughter could not get her hands warm for hours until I finally piled blankets on top of both of us and held her hands in mine.
Sunday, February 5th: Time to go
It was 46 degrees on Sunday morning and we’d been without power for a full 48 hours. The pellet stove was now running continously, but it wasn’t putting out enough heat to counter the frigid temperatures. It had dropped to -1 in the hours between midnight and 6 am Sunday.
Our county had set up warming stations in various public spaces like community centers, churches, and vacant department stores where people without power can warm up, get dry ice and bottled water, and wait until their power comes back on.
Two full days after the storm, the ice hadn’t melted at all. Central Hudson was estimating that those hardest hit likely wouldn’t have power restored until Monday at noon.
By that point, it was cold enough in some parts of my house that I could see my breath. I warmed up the car and sat in it for 20 minutes before deciding that I’d had enough. I woke my daughter and husband, and said we needed to go to my sister-in-law’s house where there was heat and power.
My husband wanted to remain home to keep the pellet stove running and the pipes from freezing(frozen pipes are a nightmare). So I took my daughter and my tiny dog to my sister-in-law’s and stayed there for a few hours.
By late Sunday afternoon, my daughter’s school had sent out a notification that they would close Monday because of the widespread power outages and issues with downed wires and trees.
My daughter went to a friend’s warm house to sleep over. I went home to my long-suffering husband, prepared to settle in for another cold night. Then, at 5 pm Sunday, our power came back (thank you, Central Hudson, thank you!)
And that, my dear friend from Florida, is what it’s like to survive an ice storm in New York. Side note: we were lucky. We had the stove and the generator and plenty of willing friends and relatives to take us in when we needed it.
