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By Morning Sentinel staff 01/06/2008

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HANG IN THERE: Carl Adams of FrontierVision in Rockland saws trees caught in wires along Middle Road in Sidney.

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A game warden drives through overhanging trees on Files Road in Thorndike.

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By Morning Sentinel staff

Wires sparked on frozen roads. Trees and branches snapped under the stress, causing an unforgettable sound like a rifle shot. Transformers exploded in flashes of light and everywhere homes went cold and dark. William Page remembers the calls started almost immediately the morning of Jan. 8, 1998.

Power lines were down, trees blocked roads and people were stranded in cold homes. Within hours, the Winslow Fire Department was overwhelmed, and there was no place to go for help. Without a generator, even the fire station was without power.

"We couldn't ask for anybody else to come help us. The whole state of Maine had the same problem we did," said Page, who was then chief of Winslow's fire department and is now chief of both Winslow and Waterville.

The ice storm of 1998 crept into the state almost without notice 10 years ago when a huge wedge of warm, wet air settled over a dense layer of colder air, causing precipitation to fall as freezing rain over a swath of territory reaching from New York to Quebec.

As ice accumulated on trees, power lines and roads hundreds of thousands of people were affected. Roughly three-quarters of Maine households lost power at some time during the storm.

It was a disaster in two parts, with the first slug of moisture hitting much of the state from Jan. 7 through 9 and another icing the coastline between Jan. 23 and 25.

Compared to other disasters this century, including the great fires of October 1947, which killed 10 and left thousands homeless, and the blizzard of February 1952, which killed four and kept roads closed for days, the ice storm affected more of Maine -- all 16 counties would be declared federal disaster areas.

Six deaths were attributed to the storm, including two -- a man from Waterville and one from Newport -- from carbon monoxide poisoning caused by improper ventilation of generators.

Two people froze to death after being stranded in their cars. An Oakland man died as a result of a tree-trimming accident and another when a canopy at a gas station collapsed.

A STORM APART

The meteorological conditions that caused the ice storm of 1998 were not unusual in themselves, said Art DeGaetano, professor of earth and atmospheric science at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

"What made this an extraordinary event is the amount of rain that fell during these conditions and the size of the band of below-freezing temperatures at the surface," DeGaetano said.

A quarter-inch of ice is enough to cause significant outages. DeGaetano said about two and a half inches of precipitation fell in Waterville from Jan. 6 through Jan. 9.

In Augusta, two inches of precipitation fell from Jan. 5 through Jan. 9.

A similar ice storm struck parts of New England in the early 1900s, said DeGaetano. That storm had less impact because people were less dependent on electricity.

The sheer scope of the 1998 storm, its destructive power and the fact that it occurred in the dead of winter all put the state emergency response system to the test. There were several deficiencies.

Many towns that tried to open emergency shelters found public buildings did not have backup generators. Shelter supplies, such as cots and blankets, were in short supply.

A decade later, Lynnette Miller, communications director of the Maine Emergency Management Agency, said she is confident the state is better prepared for a similar disaster, although she worries the public is not.

And at a time when climate change is becoming an accepted reality, crippling ice storms like that of 1998 could be more likely in the future.

George Jacobson, professor of biology, ecology and climate change at the University of Maine, said that while plenty of ice forms in Maine during the winter, ice storms like the one in 1998 tend to be more common in states to the south -- Connecticut, Virginia, Maryland.

But if climate models are correct and the earth is warming, Jacobson said, the weather in Maine may become more similar to those southern states where ice storms are more frequent.

SLOW MOTION DISASTER

The first indication of trouble came on Jan. 4, a Sunday, when the National Weather Service in Gray issued a warning of freezing precipitation. Two days later, the weather service warned the Maine Emergency Management Agency to expect a major storm.

By Jan. 8, huge sections of the state resembled a war zone. Ice sheathed everything, breaking utility poles and even bringing down huge transmission line towers.

Wires sparked on frozen roads. Trees and branches snapped under the stress, causing an unforgettable sound like a rifle shot. Transformers exploded in flashes of light and everywhere homes went cold and dark.

By the morning of Jan. 9, 275,000 Central Maine Power customers had lost their electricity and many their heat. And the disaster was just beginning.

Still, the rain fell, coating roads, trees and shrubs with a shimmering layer over an inch thick in places, and the temperature dropped.

Across the state, in darkened homes and state offices alike, the enormity of the disaster began to sink in. Three quarters of the state's residents would eventually lose electricity for some period of time and some would lose it for weeks.

It was a disaster that Maine simply was not prepared for. Town officials struggled to set up emergency shelters, realizing too late that they had no generators to provide power to them.

Emergency responders reported to work, leaving their own families in cold homes, but were unable to keep up with the flood of calls into dispatch centers.

Maine Emergency Management Agency's staff of about 18 marshaled the state's resources but quickly realized there were not enough to go around. They struggled to pull in more from other areas but neighboring states were also dealing with the storm.

RESPONSE FROM WITHIN

In the depth of the crisis, with little help from the outside, Maine responded from within, with ingenuity and empathy.

Gov. Angus King, whose Brunswick home was without power for three or four days, moved with his family into the home of a friend.

Urged to take up residence in the generator-equipped Blaine House -- the traditional home of Maine governors -- King declined because, "It just didn't feel right."

Touring shelters, riding in Central Maine Power Co. trucks and spending hours each day on radio shows, King reassured an embattled state, repeating a message with two parts: Maine people would get through the crisis, but only by helping each other.

"My message became check on your neighbor," said King, in a recent interview. "Not to wait for the government but to reach out and talk to the old lady who lives down the street."

He joked that he took his own advice so well that an elderly female neighbor told him, "Angus, I am OK. Leave me alone."

Mark Ishkanian, then the spokesman for Central Maine Power, had the task of telling people that the recovery process would be slow as the utility literally rebuilt its power-transmission system.

Without electricity himself for 11 or 12 days, Ishkanian used his own family's situation -- he lives down a long driveway -- as an example of why some homeowners would have to wait.

It did not make sense for line crews to spend hours restoring service to his home, he told listeners, when they could be using that time to restore power to 50 or 60 homes.

Forced to listen to that explanation on the radio over and over, his wife bought a generator on day seven, "at the height of the market," Ishkanian remembers ruefully. Someone pointed out, however, that it was still cheaper than a divorce.

As the crisis ground on, day after day and even week after week, Ishkanian said people remained understanding.

Line crews who arrived from rural North Carolina were amazed by the warmth of Maine people, he said.

"They were used to rural friendliness and they were dumbfounded by how patient and friendly Maine people were," said Ishkanian.

Utility workers would get up from meals at restaurants to find grateful homeowners had paid their tab. So many people interrupted crews with offers of coffee and food that King had to make a public plea for people to let them focus on their work.

It was a long, grinding disaster that wore people down, but at the same time brought out their best. The storm that drove people from their houses also brought them together.

"The community was awesome to work with. We knew they were in trouble and they knew we were in trouble," said Page. "Everybody was helping everybody else out."

People who owned generators shared them with friends and strangers.

"While I was out working, somebody stopped at my house with a generator and got my house warm and I don't even know who that person was," said Page, the fire official, who was without power himself for four days.

Page said that if neighbors didn't know each other before the storm they almost certainly did after.

NEVER SAY DIE

Everywhere, Maine people invited neighbors or strangers into their homes, creating thousands of makeshift shelters and building bonds between neighbors.

In rural areas, neighbors formed ad hoc safety committees and worked together to clear roads.

David Foley and his wife, Judy Berk, heat their Northport home with a wood stove and took a friend in for most of the crisis.

Working with other neighbors, Foley helped clear roads and long driveways. At home he used chunks of ice to turn a chest freezer into an old fashioned icebox. With parts bought at a marine supply store he rigged lights in his home to run with power from a bank of marine batteries.

A pair of flip flops, some nuts and bolts and duct tape went into a pair of boots that would just about allow him to walk up a tree, said Foley.

"One thing I remember with fondness was how well people pulled together," he said.

Mike Finley, of East Vassalboro, was living with his parents when the ice storm struck.

After three days, he said he walked down the road to the public works garage and offered his help to Gene Field, who was in charge of the town's public works department.

Field found a place for him in a crew that was working to clear roads.

"We basically cut almost nonstop for three days just trying to open stuff up," said Finley. "Any big tree leaning over had to go, and it was no holds barred."

Some roads were so filled with debris they didn't even look like roads, he remembered.

RESPONDERS

For emergency responders, one day blurred into another as the calls just kept on coming.

Lynette Miller said by Jan. 8 two things became clear. The state was in the midst of a far-reaching disaster and it was far from over.

Miller remembers a meteorologist from the National Weather Service in Gray telling her that day: " 'You are not going to like what I have to say. We are in for 36 more hours of this.' "

And the storm quickly illustrated the gaps in the state's preparedness.

One was a major shortage of generators, particularly for emergency shelters and responders. When they realized there were no more generators in the state, Miller said there could be no question of simply accepting reality.

Early on, the crisis became one long problem-solving exercise for sleep deprived responders.

"It was OK, we hit this snag. How do we get around it? How do we fix it?" said Miller.

The Maine Army National Guard started arranging to borrow generators from Massachusetts.

Another need was to clear roads faster so utility crews could reach downed power lines.

The Maine National Guard was available, but, by law, members couldn't be assigned to help Central Maine Power, a private company.

The answer to that problem was simply to assign the Department of Transportation to the task of helping line crews by clearing roads and to task the National Guard with assisting the state agency.

LESSONS LEARNED

Another problem as the crisis ground on was the burnout suffered by emergency workers.

"We had folks who were very close to the breaking point in terms of their emotional stability," said Miller. "One of the big things we took out of it was we needed to do a better job of looking out for ourselves and build that into the process."

Miller remembered MEMA staff members worked for days with little sleep, constantly coping with the needs of others.

The lack of television was actually a good thing for her, she said, because it meant she didn't have to see pictures of people suffering as she went about the business of getting them help.

Others who handled calls from desperate people for 12 hours a day, days at a time, had a difficult time dealing with the constant flow of emotional pleas for help.

Some of the calls were from people in truly trying circumstances -- a mother trapped in a cold house with her baby. Other calls were actually funny.

One woman worried about her pet fish because the aerator no longer functioned.

Miller recalled that the person who answered that call suggested she try blowing into the tank with a straw.

When the first signs of recovery appeared, nowhere were they greeted more gratefully than by the people who had been leading the response.

"I remember driving to work one day and coming through Manchester and the (electrical line crew) trucks were lined up down the road to fuel up and they were from all over the place and I started to cry," remembers Miller.

While life for most of the state went back to normal soon after the lights went on, she said that for many Maine residents, especially those whose homes suffered structural damage, recovery was a matter of years.

A decade later, Miller is confident the state is better prepared to respond to another ice storm.

All 50 states are now members of a mutual-aid agreement that speeds the process of giving and receiving aid in times of emergency, she said.

Emergency agencies at the county level have also learned valuable lessons, she said.

But Miller is less sure the general public is better prepared now.

"Advising people to be prepared for emergencies is never an easy message and it is not something that is easy to do if they do not have a lot of resources," she said.

Alan Crowell -- 474-9534, Ext. 342

acrowell@centralmaine.com

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