LET'S REMINISCE: The great ice storm of 1949
By Jerry Lincecum
Special to the Herald Democrat
After reading my column on the Blizzard of 2011, one of my veteran Telling Our Stories writers suggested that I look up one of my previous columns about the Great Ice Storm of 1949. I’m talking about the one that started on Jan. 22 and didn’t end until Feb. 4. I checked the dates on the internet, finding it listed as the worst ice storm in company history of Texas Power and Light. Steel towers crumpled and two inches of ice accumulated on some transmission wires.
I was not quite seven years old, and on our farm near Groesbeck we had several old oak and pecan trees that lost large limbs. There was the fun part, too, in that our pond froze hard enough for skating (using tow sacks). Fortunately, my family was still burning wood in stoves and fireplaces, because butane froze in the tanks of some of our neighbors. So we managed to stay warm and my mother cooked a lot of red beans and cornbread.