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1994 Ice Storm Memories

W WarEagle1982Familiar Face
As the weather forecast calls for a possibility of freezing rain, I cannot help but remember/cringe as the words "freezing rain" always bring back terrible memories of the February 1994 Ice Storm that devastated North Alabama. I will never forget being terrified as several large trees surrounding my family's home continued to crack and break throughout the day. I will never forget narrowly missing being smashed by a very large tree as we tried to escape our home. I will never forget spending 3 1/2 weeks without electricity and having to cook on a kerosene heater throughout that period of time. That is one storm that I will never forget as long as I live, and one storm that I hope I never see another one as long as I live. I wish I had pictures to post. Any other memories out there?
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dark dreamerdark dreamerOld Faithful
I remember it well. The power was off for almost 2 weeks and we cooked everything on a gas grill on the front porch. Couldn't take showers or baths cause we were on a well pump at the time so we just had to boil some water and fill up a bathroom sink and wash off and share the water. Seems like it was right around Christmas, am I right? Cause I remember the power was off that christmas anyhow so it may have been right before Christmas.

Luckily we had a fireplace and one of those propane bottle heaters. Also remember listening to WQLT all the time to hear updates and to see what was going on everywhere. I don't want to go through that again but I guess we don't get to choose do we?
thomaswayne0907thomaswayne0907Post Master
the 94 storm started out kind of fun for me. the trees were beautiful covered in all that ice and i was amazed by the sight. but once they started falling and the power went out it quickly turned to be terrible. we used the grill to cook, and luckily our power was only out for 3 days or so. i remember the power being out around christmas, i think that was around 98 or so, because i remember i had just started playing golf and had got a new wedge that year for christmas. seems like that was only for a couple of days as well.
E easynblueFamiliar Face
this storm in 94 was the first week in Feb. the one that was at Christmas was somewhere from 98-00. me and my now husband had been dating less than a week, and he was at my house when the ice started. we were about 18 or 19 at the time. a tree fell on a powerline across our drivway, and the roads where we lived were iced. so he was stuck at my house with my family for over a week, with no electricity. when we could finally leave the house, but still had no electricity, we loaded up the car and went to stay at the Holiday Inn in Huntsville, with the indoor pool, and ate at Shogun.
CrustyMacCrustyMacOld Faithful
I remember dropping my kids off at school, and the people on the radio saying, "the weather bureau says it is going to warm up today, and this bit of sleet we are having will be gone by this afternoon."

At the time, I thought "stick your head out the window, man - this ain't going away."

Took me two hours to get the kids home from school, fortunately didn't get involved in the downtown/O'Neal traffic jam or it probably would have taken longer.
FirenzeVeritasFirenzeVeritasOld Faithful
quote:
Originally posted by The Raven:
Nobody mentioned the 13-14 inches of snow in Jan or Feb of 1988? Lot's a snow, lot's a fun!


That took a week to melt, but wasn't that much at my home in Florence.

'94 - My power was out only 45 minutes and I had one line down that was fixed almost immediately. My memory is years later working in NI in Huntsville Hospital where there's a plaque dedicated to the nurses that took care of Jackie Rainwater who was injured during that storm.

'85 - Horrible storm. To take the lid off garbage can, I had to lean down (standing on 13 or so inches of ice). My supervisor's husband took us to work in his Bronco for a week.
The RavenThe RavenHall of Famer
'94 was terrible! I lived in the county between Killen and Greenhill and my power was out 10 or more days.(I think) My wife and I had a 2 yr and 6 month old babies, a water-bed(couldn't use) and lots of canned goods. 1 large tree prevented us from getting out of our driveway, but many trees on our road stopped you from there. We were lucky to have a freestanding fire place in our den and my P39 can opener and I had just bought a truckload of firewood a week or so before.
After 4 or 5 days we managed to get out and make it to my in-laws who had gas heat for my babies!!!

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