Jan. 15, 1998 -- A woman walks past a downed hydro pylon near St-Constant, Que. where hydro crews worked to reestablish power following the ice storm.

Jan. 15, 1998 -- A woman walks past a downed hydro pylon near St-Constant, Que. where hydro crews worked to reestablish power following the ice storm. Thousands of power transmission towers and poles collapsed or snapped under the weight of the ice.
Photo Credit: Robert Galbraith/CP

History- the deadly ice storm: Jan. 5, 1998

It has been called one of the worst natural disasters in Canadian history.

Late on January 4, 1998, freezing rain began to fall in eastern Ontario and kept falling.

As people throughout the region and into the northern US states and Quebec began to awake on the 5, the sleet had begun to build up on cars, streets, trees, power lines, indeed everything. The first blackouts began in neighbourhoods and farms, as ice covered branches broke off taking some power lines down.

Branches weighed down by ice drop onto power lines causing firey connections. Overloaded and short circuited transformers also blew up causing still further blackouts.
Branches weighed down by ice drop onto power lines causing firey connections. Overloaded and short circuited transformers also blew up causing still further blackouts. © Radio-Canada

A unique combination of weather systems had formed over a huge swath of the two provinces, from Kingston, Ontario in the west  including northern New York State in the US, up to Ottawa Ontario in the north, to Montreal and throughout much of Quebec’s Eastern Townships to the east.

The systems converged and lingered as more freezing rain fell in a series of three to five successive storms which built up layer after layer of sleet on everything for the next 5 days not letting up until January 10th.

Depending on location anywhere from 85 to over 100 mm of rain, sleet and snow fell during the period.  The largest previous ice storms, Montreal in 1961, and Ottawa in 1986 had recorded only 30 to 40 mm of ice.

Thousands of trees and branches began breaking under the weight, snapping power lines as they fell.

In addition to falling branches taking out even more power lines, hundreds of cars were damaged, many severely, by the branches
In addition to falling branches taking out even more power lines, hundreds of cars were damaged, many severely, by the branches © Radio-Canada

Then the giant pylons supporting the power lines supplying Montreal and much of the southern and eastern portions of Quebec began collapsing under the weight of the ice.  When one collapsed it would result in additional strain on others and like dominoes, over 1,000 of the support structures crumpled or snapped: large and medium pylons, and power poles.

Without power in the chill winter weather over 100,000 people were quickly forced from homes into hotels or other shelters with emergency power backup, a number that quickly grew to double that number.

Kept secret so as not to induce additional panic was the fact that power had been lost to Montreal’s water filtration plants and potable water supply from reservoirs was almost gone before the situation began to be resolved.

An emergency was quickly declared and the military was called in to clear roads of branches and debris, bring help or remove stranded families in remote locations, and help with repairs to power lines and other infrastructure.  It was the biggest deployment of Canadian military forces since the Korean war with 16,000 troops called in, 12,000 to Quebec, 4,000 to Ontario, in the biggest peacetime deployment ever.

Electric power crews from six provinces and eight states were called in to help restore downed lines,

Deadly effects

Although accounts vary, at least 25-30 deaths in Canada were attributed to the ice storm, several from carbon monoxide poisoning as they tried to heat their homes with gas barbecues and other means, and about 10-15 in the US.

Streets covered with ice-covered snow banks frozen solid, with heavily laden power lines drooping an breaking, along with thousands of broekn branches littering the streets ms
Streets cblocked with ice-covered snow banks frozen solid, with heavily laden power lines drooping an breaking, along with thousands of broekn branches littering the streets © Radio-Canada

At it’s height, several million people throughout the provinces and US states were without power, some blackouts lasting for weeks before crews were able to restore power everywhere.

It financial terms it was also one of the most costly as well. Although figures vary greatly depending on sources and methodology, estimates of economic activity loss were between one and three billion dollars.

There were some 600,000 insurance claims totaling over a billion dollars. Another billion was spent on Hydro infrastructure repairs, another billion on provincial government costs, and millions of dollars in expense incurred by the federal government and military.

Although nothing of this scope has occurred since, there have been other major and highly damaging ice-storms since: in the Toronto area in 2013,  and a lesser one in Montreal in 2015.

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