April 4, 2003 - that and the next day are two miserable ones we'll not forget. It started raining in the afternoon on April 3, and in a few minutes, the mailbox, then the driveway, were iced over. School was cancelled on April 4 for our kids, and for most kids in western and central NY. All three kids had a school dance for that night cancelled, and Meghan's long-awaited trip to Corning and Cornell for the following day got nixed as well.
We lost power at around 11:30 that night (our house is all-electric), and by the time it came back at 6:50 the next night, the temperature inside our house was 54 degrees. Dave and Katie just about crippled themselves manually bailing the basement sump pump to avoid a flood - squat, bail, pour, stand, walk, dump, repeat 200 times.
Our great local electric company heroically restored our power, and power to most of the town, within 24 hours. Of more concern though, is the tree damage. We spent the night of April 4 in bed listening to tree limbs cracking under the weight of ice that reached 3/4 of an inch in places. Katie took these pictures around our neighborhood the next day. Hold your mouse over a picture to see what it is.
Amazingly, less than an hour after these pictures were taken, the ice had mostly fallen off the trees, and those that weren't completely broken had started to come back. The magnolia in our back yard (last picture above, and the photo two before it) seems fairly good, although we had to cut off two broken limbs. We're hoping for its comeback - it provides glorious shade to our deck in the summer, and every one of our kids gets photographed by that tree on every birthday - 25 photos so far.
Compared to several of our neighbors, and especially to other parts of our town and nearby towns, we actually got away pretty well.
(Other family photos are up one level)