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:

    ...there was the annual Fourth of July picketing at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. ...I thought it was ridiculous to have to go there in a skirt. But I did it anyway because it was something that might possibly have an effect. I remember walking around in my little white blouse and skirt and tourists standing there eating their ice cream cones and watching us like the zoo had opened.
    Martha Shelley, U.S. author and social activist. As quoted in Making History, part 3, by Eric Marcus (1992)

    I will here shroud till the dregs of the storm be past.
    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)