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Ice Storms - January 4, 1998
The Ice Storm of 1998 hit the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Québec and portions of the northeastern United States from January 4 through January 10, 1998. Unusually long in duration and large in geographical extent, this storm triggered extensive power outages across the impacted region and is widely acknowledged to be Canada‘s costliest natural disaster.
Due to the collapse of power lines and supporting structures from ice accumulation, over 4.7 million people in Canada and another 500,000 in the United States lost power during the storm. The Canadian utility company Hydro-Québec was particularly hard hit, with over 1,850 miles (3,000 km) of power network impacted by the storm. Nearly 800,000 insurance claims were filed in Canada with another 140,000 in the United States, causing a total insured loss at the time of US$1.3 billion across both countries. The event also triggered a class action lawsuit against a group of Canadian insurers for additional living expenses (ALE) due to evacuation as a result of power outages.
Business Impact
Businesses without their own means of power generation were not able to operate at all. Those that did experienced a large amount of absenteeism due to transportation and communication issues. Significant amounts of data were lost due to the sudden loss of power for businesses without unassisted power supplies. There was significant damage to structures which took sometime to be re-opened due to safety concerns. Flooding, loss of equipment and data was reported due to frozen pipe damage. Some businesses experienced customer and business loss due to not being able to meet their supply obligations.
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