ICE STORM: Scott Morgan of Kane recalls a St. Patrick’s Day with weather much worse than today.

“With all the talk of the color green on St. Patrick’s Day, we can look forward to the green of Spring,” he writes. “However in 1936, green was not the color of the day. It was white. White in the form of the heaviest Ice Storm this region had had in many years.

“It is recorded that by 8:00 p.m. all of the telephone and railroad telegraph lines were down. Road travel was almost impossible but there are always a few who will step out at there own risk.”

Scott shared this photograph of the storm from his collection, explaining, “It is taken facing East behind the PRR Depot at Kane the morning of the storm. The lines shown in the picture fell after dark that night.”

“The only communication available in Kane was amateur radio operators; three in all who were kept busy with other shortwave operators in the region passing along news to local officials all night and most of the next few days. It was estimated that $50,000 in damages to telephone and electric lines were done, and it would be more than a month before normal service was restored.

“Railroad service was at a standstill. Several places on the Pennsylvania RR were washed out. A train wreck near Warren, Pa., stopped any hope of road traffic by motorists. Two 44,000 volt power lines in East Kane touched together leaving a brilliant blue green spark just before all the lights went out.”

The next day, the newspapers reported on the results of the storm: Massive flooding.

“Headlines in the Kane Republican read: Central Flood Danger Shifts to Central Pennsylvania; All River Towns are under water,” said Scott.