Aiken, SC, suffered an ice storm in February 2004. They may be common occurrences in other parts of the country, but we had next to no idea how to deal with this immediately. We lost power for a few days, and every morning you could hear ice sloughing to the ground as it melted under dawn's shutter.
The following photographs record the beauty and the devastation of that storm.
When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground,
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
from "Birches," by Robert Frost
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
More hair-dryers.
The fate of those that bent too long.
Southern pines aren't toughened for ice-bearing.
Snapped and twisted.
This depicts the fate of those elder pines whose trunks withstood the ice-bending.
Some sort of winter's leprosy.
These are the remains of a whole tree that had straddled the road in front of my parents' house.
I cut it up by myself with an axe to prevent any accidents.
Note: All photographs displayed on this web page are copyrighted to James Clinton Howell. They may not be used for personal or professional purposes without the express consent of their owner.
Web design for Adilegian copyrighted 2006 James Clinton Howell.
