The North American Ice Storm of 1998 (also known as Great Ice Storm of 1998 and Great Ice Storm '98) was a massive combination of five smaller successive ice storms which combined to strike a relatively narrow swath of land from eastern Ontario to southern Quebec to Nova Scotia in Canada, and bordering areas from northern New York to central Maine in the United States, in January 1998. It caused massive damage to trees and electrical infrastructure all over the area, leading to widespread long-term power outages. Millions were left in the dark for periods varying from days to weeks, and in some instances, months. leading to more than 30 fatalities, a shutdown of activities in large cities like Montreal and Ottawa, and an unprecedented effort in reconstruction of the power grid. The ice storm led to the largest deployment of Canadian military personnel since the Korean War, with over 15,000 Canadian Forces personnel deployed in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick at the height of the crisis.
Read more about North American Ice Storm Of 1998: Background, Meteorological Synopsis, Impact, Operation Recuperation
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—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)
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—Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947)
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—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
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—Martha Shelley, U.S. author and social activist. As quoted in Making History, part 3, by Eric Marcus (1992)
“The victors and the vanquished then the storm it tossed and tore,
As hard they strove, those worn-out men, upon that surly shore;
Dead Nelson and his half-dead crew, his foes from near and far,
Were rolled together on the deep that night at Trafalgar!”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)