The Labor Day Storm of 1998
1:30 in the morning, and something jolted me out of sound sleep. For moments I was confused by the barrage of sensations - noise assaulted my ears; blinding flashes of light seemed everywhere; I was drenched. When the crash of thunder was punctuated by a horrendous cracking sound, I came fully awake. "The tree!" I thought. "The oak tree has come down!" I was only partly right.
My bed was shoved up against an east window to catch what little breeze there might be that hot night, September 7, 1998. It never rained in that window. It never rained in except for that night, when the wind and rain came from every direction. I was fully soaked just a minute or so after the infamous "Labor Day Storm" began across central New York State.
Some typical quotes:
"I've lived through hurricanes on Long Island, but this was worse." "I've never been so scared in my life." "There's so much debris everywhere it's like driving down tunnels to get through our streets." [said more than two weeks after the storm]
The local newspaper of the next day reported:
A fierce storm ripped through Central New York early this morning, killing two people at the State Fair, injuring at least seven others, blowing roofs off buildings and knocking out power to thousands of residents.
On the State Thruway, a tractor-trailer blown over by high winds lay on its side beside the eastbound lanes.
In Onondaga County, the storm swept through at about 1:35 a.m. Onondaga County Executive Nicholas Pirro declared a state of emergency at 2 a.m., restricting traffic to emergencies and essential services.
Pirro, who toured parts of the city at about 2 a.m. and surveyed the county by helicopter at about 7:30 a.m., said the storm was unprecedented in his memory. "As a lifelong resident of Syracuse, I've never, never seen a storm like this," he said.
In Syracuse, the city fire department reported that at least 20 buildings sustained serious damage, including walls and floors collapsing, roofs blown off and windows blown out.
Streets throughout the county were clogged with downed trees and power lines, and officials warned residents not to leave home except for emergencies. Centro canceled all its routes at about 6 a.m.
Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. officials estimated that at least 150,000 of its customers were without power this morning, including more than 80,000 in Central New York. Power outages darkened much of Onondaga County, and parts of Oswego, Cayuga, Madison and Oneida counties, Niagara Mohawk spokesman Dan Dupee said.
The utility said it may take a week or more to restore power for all customers, including those in Onondaga County. Downed trees and lightning strikes knocked out power in a path across the state from Niagara Falls to Glens Falls.
I don't know how many people got to read the paper that day - most neighborhoods across the region were surrounded by roads that were impassable.
All I knew that early morning was that something horrendous had happened. There was no electricity, and there'd be none at my house for the next five days. In the dark, and with the constant crashing of thunder and just as continuous flash of lightning, I checked first on my mother, reassured her, and then went looking for our cats. The door onto the screened porch had been left open for them to catch the air. I figured they'd be scared to death, but looking at the porch, I was nearly scared to death myself. Both outer walls were gone. I feared they'd gotten out and were injured or terrified in that storm. Closing the door, I grabbed a flashlight and toured the house. Found them all! That was the first time I had breathed, or so it seemed, since coming awake.
From another newspaper report:
This was no thunderstorm. That word does not describe it. Ron Babbitt knew that right away, inside his apartment on South Geddes Street. The wind and rain, through the window, swept pictures off his wall. The roar of the storm was almost deafening. He awoke Monday to learn the wind had destroyed the storage room next to his bedroom, blowing one whole wall at least three houses away.
"This was a twister," Babbitt said, as he picked through the debris. "It had to be."
Yet the National Weather Service is calling the storm "a derecho," a fast-moving assault line of potent thunderstorms. The winds were tornado-level, from 70 mph to as high as 110. "A derecho can actually be worse than a tornado, because it cuts a much larger swath," said Bill Hibbert, a National Weather Service meteorologist.
And there is a power to the word that says something we all know - Syracuse has never seen another storm like this.
It started with bursts of color, which masqueraded as heat lightning. Then you heard the rumble of thunder, and the breeze turned into a strong wind, which built into a monster that shook the whole house. Lightning flashed like mortar fire. The rain was so intense it turned windowsills into waterfalls.
It was a long, long night.
Daylight was hours away, so with no power, we sat in the dark waiting for dawn and the ability to really assess the damage. I took my flashlight outside, saw that the car had been spared - tree limbs had fallen all around it. The neighbors' houses seemed intact and they appeared okay. The huge tree across the road was down, uprooted, but the house's occupant was unhurt. I took a quick look at my back yard. A large tree on the next property also had been uprooted (an oak) and had wiped out a large section of our new wooden fence. Our own gigantic old oak tree was unscathed.
Daylight arrived in due course and with it came realization. That had been one hell of a storm, and the damage as far as we could see from our own property was very extensive. Some buildings throughout the area were destroyed, many damaged, but mostly it was the trees. They lay on the ground everywhere and every road was buried in tree branches and whole trees, with power lines down on nearly every street.
I took the car and headed for the nearest hardware store to buy batteries, but the route was like a maze. I must have driven 15 miles to get to a store just 2 miles from my house. One block might be passable but the next one wasn't, and entire streets had no access. Trees had flattened dozens of cars, trapping many others in their driveways.
The hardware store was an adventure. People lined up and were escorted inside one at a time by the employees. A manager, a salesman, a stockboy walked with each customer, showing the way with flashlights. We were allowed to buy whatever we needed, had to pay cash, which was calculated on paper. I haven't seen that done in years! I bought batteries and a couple flashlights. Both items would become very scarce in Syracuse that week.
The rest of it for most of us was just surviving the tedium imposed by having no electricity. No radio, no TV, no reading after dusk, no music, no way to pass the hours 'til bedtime. I loaded 6 batteries into a radio, hating to use so many, not knowing how long we'd be without power. That radio was worth it, though. We kept in touch with what was happening across the region, and heard estimates about when electricity might be restored.
Food rotted in the refrigerator. More rotted in the freezer. Some people bought ice, and so did I, but it wasn't sufficient to save the food. A good many people had no facilities for cooking. We had a gas stove, so our meals were normal, and we could make coffee every morning. Many folks could not. We could heat water for bathing and dish-washing. Many could not.
Work crews from all over the Northeast came to help restore power. After five days, our street was finally visited by a crew from Pennsylvania. It was like the Cavalry showing up, the Marines landing. We cheered and decided Pennsylvania was the greatest place on earth and all its people were heroes. We waited and waited.....
It was dark again, and we sat in the windows, watching as bit by bit, street lights came on the next street over, the next block down. Finally, OUR lights came on.
We danced a jig, mom and I, one old lady and one getting there. We could stop trying to make conversation with each other, entertain each other, bore each other. She grabbed her book, I grabbed mine, and life was back to normal.
