By Jeanne Sager
MONTICELLO — November 19, 2002 – The Village of Monticello was still in recovery mode Monday after ice, snow and rain took much of the eastern side of the county by storm over the weekend.
The ice storm moved in on the village and the surrounding area Saturday, leaving behind up to a half inch of ice, branches and tree limbs down on every lawn and four inches of snow by Monday morning.
Most village residents were without power and many lost their phone service as the storm took down power lines, shutting down a portion of Broadway while cars were redirected around the arcing wires.
Local restaurants were swamped as village residents ventured out to find dinner and warm up before heading home to a chilly night around the fireplace.
Even Mayor Gary Sommers was one of the quarter of the village’s residents still waiting for electricity to be restored yesterday morning, and radio station WSUL returned to the air early Monday morning after a long outage, just in time to report on snow closings and delays at local schools.
According to Monticello Police Chief Doug Solomon, the storm didn’t cause any catastrophes.
“There were no major injuries,” he said. “The major problems were a lot of trees down, a lot of wires down.
“There were a lot of inconveniences,” Solomon noted.
Sommers was impressed with the response from the area organizations, including Monticello’s emergency corps, the American Red Cross, NYSEG and the public works department.
Employees of the village’s DPW were in on Sunday cleaning up after the storm, and returned Monday, some giving up their day off to go hunting on the kickoff of deer season to get Monticello back on track.
“I can’t say enough about the people who pulled through for us,” Sommers said. “They’re the real story here.”
The remainder of the county escaped the weekend virtually unscathed, though snow dropped throughout Sunday evening sent superintendents rushing to the phones Monday morning to put students on alert.
By mid-morning, all of the county’s schools had shut down except Eldred Central School which followed a two-hour delay schedule.