The Ice Storm of 1961

February 1961 
Montreal was paralyzed by one of the worst ice storms in its history. Wind gusts reaching 130 km/hr at times coupled with 30mm of freezing rain caused heavily loaded utility wires to snap.  A week after the storm, parts of the city were still without electricity.  Damage was estimated at 40 million dollars.

I remember it well.  I was 17 years old and everything had shut right down - schools, businesses, transportation.  The radio, when we could get reception, described the hardship this was causing.   I decided I had to get out there and help.  Against the protestations of my mother, I bundled up in my ski clothes and ventured out.  I walked through the ice storm, carefully dodging fallen trees and electrical wires.  My destination was the civil defence headquarters, three miles away.

What possessed me to do that?  I was a girl, after all; and this was 1961.

I made it.  But, I was very disappointed when they told me I would not be allowed to work with the civil defence team; I hadn’t been trained, they said; I was too young, they said. Go home, they said.

I didn’t want to go home, I wanted to help.

And so, I spent the evening and that whole night making coffee and sandwiches, and serving the exhausted workers as they came in from ‘war’.  In the morning, the storm had calmed and someone drove me home.