Illinois Ice Storm Pics and Peoria Photos

[beaudodson]

Headed home from Peoria today. Amazing storm system! The winds were strongest on Friday Morning. They were howling through the parking garage.

Took a few snap shots on the way home. Central Illinois was hit hard by the ice storm.

http://www.usawx.com/centralillinoisicestorm2006.htm

The Peoria Photos are here (very long page of misc maps and photos)

http://www.usawx.com/peoriasnowblog.htm

Play by play action here
http://www.easternuswx.com/bb/index.php?showtopic=115062


All in all it was a great snowstorm. A five hour drive up there took about seven coming home. Not too bad.

Hopefully we will have many more in the coming weeks. Without the ice would be nice

 

[beaudodson]

 

[John Farley]

A report and some pics from Edwardsville, IL

Last night (Sunday, Dec. 3) I arrived home from my trip out west (see "My Biggest Snowstorm" in W & C for a report on that aspect of the storm) to my home in Edwardsville which had been without power since 10 p.m. Thursday night. My wife, as well as our two cats, were very glad to see me. The temperature in the house had fallen to 45 - first time I have ever slept with gloves and a stocking cap on, among other things.

As of this morning, there were still around 300,000 customers without power, actually up a bit from last night, but a lot of crews are out today and hopefully making some progress. They said they hoped to have power on in our neighborhood, but not yet as of 2:00 p.m. today.

Anyway, both the beauty and the devastation of this ice storm are amazing. I was able to get a few pictures today showing some of both:

Destruction

More destruction

Beauty

Beauty and destruction

 

[Andrew Sorce]

I've been through a lot of ice storms, and most recently the 10/13/06 snowstorm in Buffalo and thats some pretty impressive damage. How thick was the ice accumulation in the area you took the shots. Judging from those pictures I'm guessing 3/4" to just under 1".

 

[John Farley]

Here in the Edwardsville area, I would estimate 1/3 to 1/2 inch ice thickness. But keep in mind that I was not back in the area until Sunday evening, and the storm occurred Thursday night and Friday morning, and there was some thawing that occured in between - so the thickness of the ice just after the storm may have been greater.

BTW, our power FINALLY came back on around 10 p.m. tonight, after 4 days of cold darkness.

 

[Adam Lucio]

Amazing photos. My friends down in Bloomington were without power for 2 days. Here in Chicago we dodged a major bullet with this one, i think we owe it to lake Michigan for keepin us above the freezing mark a majority of the time. We had a little bit of ice, nothing in comparison tho.

 

[John Farley]

I've added several more pictures at:

http://johnefarley.com/icestorm.htm

Still nearly 30,000 without power as of this morning (Thursday, December 7), now nearly 1 week after the storm. I talked to one person who lost power again this morning after getting it back a couple days ago. Apparently the strong winds that came with the cold front last night caused some additional damage.

 

[Andrew Herron]

John: I noticed a bunch of the trees down on your street were Ash trees, which, if are anything like here in Michigan, have been eaten alive by the Emerald Ash Borer. I keep telling my parents to take down the tree in the front yard, also an Ash that has been hit by the bug, but they won't listen. With temps seemingly always around 30F, I'd say it was only a matter of time before SE Mich is hit with some sort of ice storm. Maybe if I show them some of these pics they'll listen.

 

[John Farley]

It wasn't just ash trees; a wide variety of types of trees were affected. Two of my next door neighbor's mimosa trees are down in my backyard, and lots of branches came down from the swamp maples, too, which are usually pretty sturdy. Our aspen tree did OK - just bent with the weight rather than breaking, but one of those down the street took a pretty big hit. And, as one might expect, long-needle pine trees in my neighborhood did very poorly - lots of needles to accumulate ice and add weight to the tree.

After spending much of today cutting, chopping, and dragging around wood, I can tell you that some of these trees were not compromised by beetles or anything of that nature - solid hardwood that just broke off from the weight of the ice, tough to saw or chop through.

I do agree, though, that trimming and pruning of trees, and removing ones that have been compromised by disease or previous damage, is important - especially if the tree is above anything you don't want it to hit. One branch from my neighbor's swamp maples came through our screen porch, and another grazed the motor of our pontoon boat - don't think that did any damage, though - and a third is dangling from the limb of another tree near the boat. Two doors down, a large tree is still down on the roof of the house.