The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1905-02-16
FROZEN WATER
BECAME A GIANT
In Strength, Destroying
Timber, Blockading
Streets.

The second visitation of ice and sleet,
almost before the departure of the first,
came upon Marietta and this entire
section on Wednesday of last week in
great fury AS the rain fell it began to
freeze, the temperature being about %
degrees above zero, and the accumula-
ton OF ice on the trees became so mass
i've that large and small limbs we're
wrenched off of huge trees as if in the
grasp of giant, and went crashing to
the ground; the result was an unpre-
cedented destruction of timber from
an unpretentious force.
Many trees in town and country were
stripped of their branches, and piles of
broken limbs bestrewed the ground as
if cyclone had passed with merciless
ravages
Our streets were rendered almost
impossible for vehicles owing to their
blockaded condition.
The beautiful elms and water oaks in
the city park and around the square
were badly wrecked and dismantled.
The shade trees, lining our streets
and in the yards of private residences,
were subject to the same destructive
grasp of the Ice King, and were left
shapeless and ragged.
The falling limbs throughout We'd
nesday night, cracking beneath their
weight of ice, made noise as if sharp
shooters on the picket line of battle
were engaged in a deadly skirmish
somewhat alarming to the timid, and
prevented pedestrians from venturing
out that night, as the city was in total
darkness owing to the extinction of the
electric lights, as the electric and tele-
phone wires all over the city, as Well
as some poles, were Frustrated.
The damage to the telephone and
electric lines in this place, it is said +,
will run up to several thousand dollars
The city was put to considerable ex-
pense also in removing the wreckage
from the park and streets and repairing
damages.
The country roads were so badly
blocked with broken limbs Of trees,
that the mail carriers were unable to
traverse their routes and deliver the
mail.
The telegraph wires being down along
railroad lines, trains had to run by
schedule time and not by dispatches,
and even then they were belated and
irregular.
The oldest inhabitants say they new
err saw as much destruction of timber
from clinging sleet and ice as was &C.
casioned by this visitation of the silent
little Ice King, who gathered the
strength of a giant with each drop of
rain as it fell and froze to the limbs of
the trees.
But with all his mighty force and
crushing grasp, dismantling huge trees
of their stout limbs, when on Thursday
the sun began to throw its rays of
warmth, even slightly, upon the cold
surface, the ice gradually relaxed
its grasp from the trees and fell
! away as culprit shrinking from the
face of justice for the ruin wrought.
The tentacles of the icy octopus yielded
to gentle but greater force and the
trees stood forth once more disenthall-
ed from the icy manacles that fettered
their limbs,
While these formerly beautiful trees
will present an unsymmetical appear
ance by this cruel amputation OF their
limbs, yet, benignant nature, in due
course of time, will repair the damage
and obliterate the wounds, and their
beauty will be restored to gladden. and
please human vision.