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 cannot think this creature died
    By storm or fish or sea-fowl harmed
    Walking the sea so heavily armed;
    Or does it make for death to be
    Oneself a living armoury?
    Andrew Young (1885–1971)

    and you undid the reins
    and I undid the buttons,
    the bones, the confusions,
    The New England postcards,
    the January ten o’clock night,
    and we rose up like wheat....
    Anne Sexton (1928–1974)