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Thick ice strangled much of Maine, dropping trees and leaving hundreds of thousands without power for days.

By BETH QUIMBY, Staff Writer January 6, 2008

If you look closely, the scars are still visible in the crowns of the beech, aspen and ash trees growing along the interstate.

"You will see a stem that has broken off maybe 10 feet from the top and growth that looks almost like a bushy hedge," said William Ostrofsky, forest pathologist with the Maine Forest Service.

Ten years ago this week, a winter storm encased much of the state in a 4-inch layer of ice that for the next several weeks kept portions of central and southern Maine -- as well as several other states and parts of Canada -- in a state of frozen paralysis.

Some 600,000 Maine residents lost electricity for days. Just when power was restored, another ice storm hit areas that had been previously spared, shutting off electricity for another 164,500 residents. Some 10,000 households lost telephone service.

Although most of the obvious physical damage has disappeared, the storms changed some of the ways Maine responds to disasters. The Public Utilities Commission now requires utility companies to make periodic reports to the PUC and the Maine Emergency Management Agency during storms. Verizon must now maintain backup generators so phone service won't fail during power outages.

While some government agencies and utility companies may have learned lessons, it is unclear whether Maine would fare any better today against a natural disaster of 1998 proportions. Joanne Potvin, director of the Androscoggin Unified Emergency Management Agency in Lewiston, said while emergency response agencies are vigilant, most people forget the lessons and go on with their lives.

"There are so many priorities in our lives, having an emergency (evacuation) bag put together, people just don't remember to do those things," she said.

BACK-TO-BACK ICE STORMS

The great ice storm of 1998 began Jan. 5 with freezing drizzle that didn't seem out of the ordinary. But by Jan. 6 the National Weather Service was warning the Maine Emergency Management Agency that another ice storm, this time a major one, was on its way. Warm air aloft was moving into the Northeast, about to collide with cold air below heading in from Canada.

"Once the storm revealed itself, it was pretty apparent what was going to happen," said John Cannon, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Gray.

Then the storm stalled. For the next two days, freezing precipitation rained down, coating most of central and southern Maine in a thick layer of ice. Trees and branches bent, then broke under the load. Power lines and utility poles snapped, and wires hung in big ice-encrusted tangles.

On Jan. 8, most central and southern Mainers awoke in dark houses where refrigerators and furnaces had fallen silent, while outside the world seemed to be a war zone filled with the sound of trees cracking under the weight of ice. Live wires popped and flashed as they crashed to the ground.

"I woke up at 3 in the morning and realized I had no power. I just heard shots and blasts of the branches breaking off the trees and a flash," said Tom Hawley, a meteorologist at the weather service in Gray.

Although the storm made travel hazardous, it was the power outage that created the real danger. By Jan. 11, the icy rain had stopped, but the temperature plummeted to 10 degrees over most of the state. Inside homes, temperatures fell as well.

EMERGENCY RESPONSE

The staff of the Maine Emergency Management Agency spent the next two weeks responding to the crisis, coordinating state agencies, county emergency agencies and municipal governments to get supplies and resources where they were most needed.

"It was larger than anything we had handled before," said Lynette Miller, spokesman for the emergency management agency.

Generators, needed to keep public buildings warm for the 3,000 people who sought shelter during the disaster, were the scarcest resource. Homeowners reported a rash of generator thefts. Officials...