Sometimes beauty turns into devastation. Our dependence to electricity could be a matter of life or death.

The main problem was the electrical infrastructures. Nobody expected the ice to be
heavy enough to actually destroy segments of the power grid, resulting in severe
outages over large areas. Imagine this, but with chains of main pylons.

It really was a major event. Here are some quotes of this page:

"... Many power lines broke and over 1,000 pylons collapsed in chain reactions
under the weight of the ice, leaving more than 4 million people without electricity,
most of them in southern Quebec, western New Brunswick and Eastern Ontario,
some of them for an entire month. At least twenty-five people died in the areas
affected by the ice, primarily from hypothermia..."

"... The bridges and tunnels linking Montreal with the South Shore were closed because
of concerns about weight tolerances or ice chunks falling from the superstructures. All
but one power linkage to the island of Montreal were down for several days, disabling
both of the city's water pumping stations. When power was restored, parts of Montreal
remained impassable due to large chunks of ice falling from rooftops and endangering
pedestrians and motorists; large portions of Old Montreal and the downtown core were
cordoned off by police, due to the dangers of large sheets of ice falling from buildings..."

"... The area south of Montreal was so affected that the triangle formed by Saint-Hyacinthe,
Granby and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu was nicknamed "le triangle noir" by the French-
language media, and the Triangle of Darkness in English media, for the total lack of
electricity for weeks..."

"... Millions of trees were brought down by the weight of ice around the affected areas.
As many trees were damaged or fell by the heavy ice, the maple syrup and orchard
regions suffered heavy blows and massive losses in the storm; Quebec's maple sugar
industry, the largest in the world, was devastated. As another example, 5,000 trees in
Montreal's Mount Royal Park had to be cut, 80% (140,000) of the rest were damaged to
different degrees and had to be trimmed, a large number severely..."

_________________ 

Montreal is very beautiful mainly because of the Mount Royal Park. From the top of the
mountain, downtown looks like this. There are deep woods all around. Imagine the
devastation after 100mm of freezing rain.

But nothing compared to the power outages. Now people know what to do. If another ice
storm takes place, the pylons will no longer fall apart. They are strong enough to support
the ice, but not all the ice along the electrical wires, which caused the domino effect.

Next time, the electrical cords will simply disconnect themselves from the pylons.