Beauty Amidst Destruction

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From wherever you read this blog, you may have heard of the ice storm that struck the north-east section of New England (USA) Thursday night and Friday morning. The pond I write about in this blog is in that region.

My first hint of the impending weather came at about 9 p.m. Thursday night. I was walking my dog as rain fell. I noticed as I passed under a tree that the rain was freezing as it hit the branches. A beautiful crystallized effect was occurring. I was so interested in the phenomena – liquid rain immediately freezing upon contact with the tree – that I came out again with my camera and tried to get a picture of it. The photos didn’t come out well as it was too dark to shoot without using the flash, and when I used the flash the ice didn’t show as clearly as I was seeing it.

A couple of hours later, I heard what I thought were two gun shots. But shortly afterward, I heard more snaps and cracks, and soon after, the sound of branches as they crashed through the woods and landed with a thud. For the next eight hours branches and trees fell with heartbreaking regularity. The best description I heard of the sounds that night was that it was as if giants were trampling trees as they passed through the woods. Interestingly, there was no wind here all night. All the damage was the result of the weight of the ice.

As we are surrounded by pines on two sides of the house, I twice during the night moved an air mattress to safer areas within the house. The photo below doesn’t accurately depict the trunk diameter of these trees. Many are more than fifteen inches in diameter midway up the trunk. Two smaller trees fell near the house, and a 30 foot tip of one like those shown here crashed to the ground about twelve feet from the house.

Everyone had their story of the night. Some sat vigilant through the whole night, others were awakened when their house was struck, some slept right through it and were stunned to see the debris in the morning light. Here’s what I saw from my driveway and along the path around the pond. Wherever a branch had fallen, shattered ice surrounded it. (The photo below is worth clicking to enlarge, as the background will be more distinct, and the full stretch of downed branches is clearer. Use your back arrow to return to the post.)

This next picture is especially sad to me as it is the branch that I had photographed the night before.

Here is a picture of my fist view of the pond the day after the storm. What was puzzling to me was that the ground was not frozen. There was no ice on the pathway or walk. And, the pond itself had no ice* on it. But everything above ground level was covered in ice.

All around was an eerie but beautiful, crystal world. If ever I’ve seen ice on trees before, it’s not been as pervasive and the ground has always been covered with snow as it’s typically an affect of a snow storm.

Please click on any of these photos to see them in an enlarged version. Use your back arrow key to return to the post.

Just before I took the photo below, the sun broke through and immediately the ice began melting and fell like a hail storm. It sounded like glass breaking as it hit the ground. I knew that these photos of the path were capturing a once in a lifetime event.

From the far end of the pond was this view of pine tips – rising above the deciduous trees, which normally obscure them, but that this day were bent by the weight of the ice. The phrase ‘Grand Teton‘ came to my mind each time I looked at the pines.

Up close, the density and heaviness of the ice could be appreciated.

Further afield and later in the day, this was the scene in my neighborhood. Note: these images were taken through the windshield of the car by one of my children as I drove. And, at this point, my camera had been exposed to so much moisture, the lens was covered in condensation as some moisture had come between it and the protective lens.

Ice on Power Lines

Tree bent by the weight

The clean-up, which continues as I write.

Many people (I’ve heard 300,000) have experienced a power outage and some are still without heat and electricity. I cannot complain as ours was the only house on our street that never lost power. But my cable line was out until tonight. Otherwise, I would have posted sooner.

Today (Sunday), the scent of raw pine is still in the air.

* In my last post I showed the pond covered in ice. In fact, the post is about the ice on the pond. In a matter of a few days, all that ice was gone. There’s an expression common to this area. It is, “If you don’t like the weather in New England, wait a minute.” Case in point – two nights ago the temp was eleven, tomorrow it’s predicted to be in the sixties.
Scroll down a few inches and see the ice covered pond – and the trees around it, not covered in ice. All of this weather is within a week’s time.

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