Winter storm and January thaw

Yesterday (25 Jan) we had a BAD storm.  A storm of small hurricane proportions (56-60mph winds).  On top of the storm we had high temperatures (50º) all day long.


The winds didn't do too much damage aside from the typical downed trees and a few poles that were snapped off.


The damage that the town has sustained was from the river ice thawing and breaking up...and taking out some viatal supports to the main covered bridge and depositing part of a road (pavement) into a farmer's corn field.


There were also some homes that were flooded out and we had to evacuate some folks.  To that end, we (Linda and I  are the Town's Emergency Management Directiors)  received a phone call at 0300 asking us to come to the Upper Village and pick up an eighty-five year old woman that had two feet of VERY COLD water in her house.  We contacted her daughter in Bethelem, NH and arranged to meet her at the Police station in Lisbon to take her mother to her house.



Here are some pictures...
Can you see the large vertical support on the right of the picture?  The support that should be on the left is somewhere down river.

Some of the supporting beams of the "roadbed" have also been damaged.  Therefore, the bridge has been closed to vehicle and pedestrian traffic.  The major problem with this is that the bridge connects the two halves of the town.  Now, to get to the other side, one has to go twenty miles around the other way.

                                                                

 See the two people on the ice?  The basement of this house  was flooded.  The river is at the bottom of  the picture.

                                                                                                                                                   

 

There is a road there somewhere

This isn't an island...the river has gone up and over this piece of land...

                                                                                
       This is ice left in the field across from Riverbend Rd...

Along Abbott Av...

This tree wasn't here before the storm / iceout

Ice that used to be on the river, then the road...

Note the scrapped bark.  That is how high the ice was as it went through...

More road ice

Corn field of ice...

We seem to be missing some pavement...

Oh, wait.  Here it is - in the front yard...

There is a road here, somewhere.  Really...

And how is your winter going??