Ice Storm of January 1999

The Ice Storm of January 1999 was a severe ice storm that struck the Washington D.C. metropolitan area on January 14 and 15, 1999. Heavy ice accumulation bringing down power lines resulted in around 745,000 people in the area losing power. Many of the major power companies supplying DC, Maryland, and Virginia had significant portions of their customer bases impacted. At the height of the storm, around one third of PEPCO's customers were without power, with some waiting up to two weeks for power to be restored.

Famous quotes containing the words ice, storm and/or january:

    “Sole and self-commanded works,
    Fears not undermining days,
    Grows by decays,
    And, by the famous might that lurks
    In reaction and recoil,
    Makes flames to freeze, and ice to boil.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “Here’s neither bush nor shrub to bear off any weather at all. And another storm brewing, I hear it sing i’ the wind. Yond same black cloud, yond huge one, looks like a foul bombard that would shed his liquor. If it should thunder as it did before, I know not where to hide my head. Yond same cloud cannot choose but fall by pailfuls.”
    —William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    “Here lies interred in the eternity of the past, from whence there is no resurrection for the days—whatever there may be for the dust—the thirty-third year of an ill-spent life, which, after a lingering disease of many months sank into a lethargy, and expired, January 22d, 1821, A.D. leaving a successor inconsolable for the very loss which occasioned its existence.”
    —George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)