The Willimantic Journal

A REAL ICE STORM.
Trees Broken Down and Communication Interrupted.

The great ice storm of Saturday and Sunday broke down thousands of trees throughout Connecticut, paralyzed telegraph and telephone communication, tore down wires of all kinds and laid them one on another so that the current from the electric works might run from any remote part of the state, built magnificent groves of ice where bare brown trees had stood and glazed every exposed surface with a film of ice. If the sun had come out there would have been a scene of wonderful beauty. But the scene was impressive if not brilliant.

The storm was the heaviest since that of March 7 and 8, 1884, and in fact the only heavy ice storm during these seven years. The snow began to fall about sunrise Saturday morning and about 8 o'clock it had turned to hail, which fell all day. About sunset the hail turned to rain, the wind blowing gently from the north and the thermometer standing at about the freezing point, and ceased not far from 8 o'clock. The whole amount of precipitation reduced to water was 1.25 inches, or about 140 tons of water to the acre. The appearance Sunday morning of trees, wires fences and everything which catch water and hold it for an instant was beautiful in the extreme, except for the thought of possible damage done. Throughout the state trees and electric wires were down and communication was interrupted. In Hartford all electric currents were turned off and the city was in darkness Sunday night. The tops of many of the finest shade trees in the city were broken out and the streets and sidewalks were piled up with the broken limbs already fallen, to say nothing of a great many limbs that must be trimmed out. Many trees will have to be sacrificed. Apple orchards suffered severely by the breaking down of limbs of trees under the weight of ice, which seems to be greater in the Connecticut valley than in this section of the state. All the way east from Hartford on the New England road there were evidences of destruction, broken trees, and telegraph wires in a complete tangle, hanging in festoons of ice from the poles. The scene was one of great beauty, the bushes, especially, bending low to the ground, with their fruitage of winter, and glittering in the light with the translucence of clearest crystal. The forests were like those of fairy tales and it would not have been surprising to see the Ice King with attendant gnomes come forth clad in all the silvered regalia of winter. In this section of the state the damage was not so severe, and farmers are remembering that great fruit crops almost always follow such ice storms, the ice checking the flow of sap until the proper time, and killing the germs of destructive insects, relieving the blossom and set from their ravage.