20 years later, the ice storm still looms large in Quebecers' memories

Remembering Montreal’s catastrophic ice storm on its 20th anniversary Electrical engineering professor Francois Bouffard of McGill University joins us to talk about Montreal’s devastating ice storm in1998 and what was learned from it.

It started with mild temperatures and just a few drops of rain -- but soon that rain began to freeze.

And it didn't stop.

Friday marks the 20th anniversary of one of the worst natural disasters ever in Canada - an ice storm that left millions of Quebecers in the dark and cold, some for as long as a month.

Ice-covered trees crashed down on power lines. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz

The ice storm of ‘98 was actually three ice storms, back to back to back; a train of freezing rain storms that rolled through huge swaths of Quebec and Ontario for almost a week.

The weight of the ice damaged millions of trees, toppling 1,000 electrical transmission towers and destroying 17,000 Hydro-Quebec utility poles.

“The ‘98 ice storm is the weather phenomenon that affected more people than any other in Canadian history,” said Alexandre Parent, a meteorologist with Environment Canada.

At its peak, the storm plunged half the province – 3,000,000 Quebecers – into cold and darkness, some for weeks on end.

Especially hard-hit were those who lived in the so-called ‘Triangle of Darkness’ south of Montreal between Saint- Hyacinthe, Granby and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu.

The 'Triangle of Darkness' was hardest hit.

“The first three days were the hardest period and after that, we decided we needed to make changes, so we went around setting up the house so it was livable,” said Saint-Zotique resident Jeff Malboeuf.

The retired mechanic rigged up his house so his family could stay put and ride out the storm.

Jeff Malboeuf used a little ingenuity to keep his family warm with this Coleman stove.

He fixed up an old Coleman propane stove he was set to throw away before the storm hit. Because it didn't get tossed, his family was able to cook and heat water with it.

“I installed the furnace… cut a hole in the top and I ran a motorcycle coolant fan to blow the hot air through the house. And I had a series of batteries and I ran wires upstairs for lights,” he said.

His family and three of his in-laws rode out the storm without power for a month, making do with what they had.

“We played board games, we played cards. You just change your life around,” he said.

Another family, the Bradleys, dines on take-out by the fireplace in Montreal on Thursday, January 8, 1998, spending a fourth day without electricity. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Robert Galbraith

Malboeuf remembers firefighters showing up at their door one day to make sure they were coping.

“(My daughter) answered the door in shorts and t-shirt and the fireman looked at her and said, ‘Well, I guess you people are alright!’” he recalled.

The family now has an electric furnace, but never threw out that Coleman stove – just in case.

Many families were not as well able to ride out the storm. About 600,000 Quebecers had to leave their homes, seeking warmth and comfort in 50 shelters across the province or with family and friends.

Fifty shelters were open to help Quebecers stay warm. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Robert Galbraith

Meantime, Hydro crews worked around the clock to restore power around the province.

Steve Flanagan awoke to an early morning phone call on Jan. 6. He was the main spokesperson for Hydro Quebec at the time.

“On Tuesday, I was called at 5 and when I left home, I didn't know I would not get home for three weeks,” he said.

On Jan. 7 came a big blow – a major line failed, putting Montreal into crisis.

A day later, with the ice still accumulating, over 16,000 Canadian Forces troops were called in, and were even given powers of arrest.

“Operation Recuperation” the largest peacetime deployment of troops in Canadian history.

Flanagan recalled a particularly tough night, three days into the storm.

Returning to Montreal from a visit to the South Shore, he was with Hydro Quebec's chairman Andre Caille.

“We were on Highway 20 and we saw the explosions and some flares around poles, so we knew that it was important,” he said.

Those flashes were transformers blowing up. With a major substation now lost, their hearts sank.

“It was very emotional for everybody, because we knew that we entered in another phase of this crisis,” he said.

Jan. 9 came with another dramatic moment. It is remembered as Black Friday, when downtown Montreal – which had remained untouched until that point – plunged into darkness.

“Downtown Montreal was dark, completely,” said Glen Carlin, CEO of the Jacques Cartier and Champlain Bridges Corp. “There were some discussions about possibly having to evacuate the city.”

To add to the tension, there was no evacuation plan for the city and all of the bridges were now coated in ice.

On day five of the storm, the Jacques-Cartier Bridge alone was covered in 800 tonnes of ice.

The Jacques-Cartier Bridge was caked in ice.

The concern was not only what the weight of a large-scale evacuation could do to the structure, but also what could happen if that ice were to suddenly begin falling onto cars below.

That same day, the bridge corporation took the unprecedented decision to close all the bridges, so 30 workers could try to de-ice them.

“It took the full weekend. We worked around the clock,” said Carlin.

Without power and automatic bank machines, even simple things like finding hot food and coffee for the workers was a problem.

“I remember saying, ‘Where are we going to get the money?’ and everybody putting in making a pot of money so that somebody could pay for the meals, because you couldn't withdraw money,” he said.

It was cold and difficult work, but eventually they discovered the best technique was to use heavy machinery to make the bridge vibrate

“This was one of the methods that allowed us to lose maybe 70 to 80 per cent of the ice,” he said.

Meantime, two of Montreal's water filtration plants were also without power.

What Montrealers didn't know was that the city's remaining water supply was becoming dangerously low. That information wasn't revealed to Montrealers until after power to the city was restored.

Throughout most of the crisis, Caille and then-premier Lucien Bouchard held daily news conferences, hoping to keep Quebecers calm.

“In a crisis situation, everything is about leadership. They did a great job,” said Flanagan.

Also praised were Hydro line workers – not only from Quebec, but from other provinces and U.S. states, as well as countless other emergency workers and volunteers.

Volunteers in Quebec City pile firewood to be sent to the Montreal region. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Jacques Boissinot

Those workers kept up the efforts until Feb. 6, when the last homes had their electricity restored.

“I got to sleep for I think a week,” said Flanagan with a laugh.

By the time it was over, the ice storm had cost Quebec over $3 billion and claimed 30 lives.

CTV Montreal's look back at the 1998 Quebec ice storm continues here.