December 28, 2015 Ice Storm and Flooding- Pontiac,IL скачать в хорошем качестве

December 28, 2015 Ice Storm and Flooding- Pontiac,IL

After being battered with severe thunderstorms and heavy rainfall since the previous week, the crazy weather was topped off by a powerful storm system that caused all kinds of bad weather across the Central U.S, ranging from large tornadoes in Dallas,TX to a major blizzard in New Mexico. Once the storm system arrived in Pontiac, widespread heavy rainfall began. The problem was that we remained right around the freezing mark all day on the 28th. This caused the rain to become freezing rain, resulting in major ice accumulations on trees and powerlines. The ground was a bit too warm, so there was very little ice accumulating on the roads. Pontiac received around 1/3 of an inch of ice accumulation on elevated surfaces. On Monday morning, strong winds began battering the region. Winds came out of the east and gusted between 40 and 50 MPH at times throughout the day Monday. This set the stage for a very dangerous situation. The winds combined with the weight of the ice on trees and powerlines, plus the saturated and weak soils to cause widespread tree damage. Tree limbs were falling in almost every location you could think of. Some even saw entire trees snapped. The tree in front of Lincoln elementary school was UPROOTED! In addition to tree damage, the ice and wind broke numerous power poles and downed many power lines throughout Pontiac and across Livingston County. By around 1:30 PM Monday afternoon, virtually the entire power grid in Pontiac had collapsed. No one had power. The city went completely dark. Everything shut down. Mother nature still wasn't done with Pontiac! After the ice storm settled down, water runoff from the recent heavy rains entered the Vermilion River basin, which was already swollen from rain the week before. By December 29th, the Vermilion was pushed well beyond flood stage, to levels we have not seen since the big January 2008 flood. Residential areas that experienced significant flooding during the big flood of 08 were once again flooded out by river waters. This was the 4th time the Vermilion has exceeded the flood stage in the year of 2015, but this flood was definitely the worst. I hope you guys enjoy this video! I collaborated with some people in the area to share some footage from this damaging event. Big thanks to them for helping out!