It wasn't the temperature, it was the combination of 4 inches of rain on Friday + just-below-freezing temperatures and wind. That combination caused crap-loads of ice to form on trees, wires, and even telephone poles (some poles fell over from the weight of the ice). There were seemingly healthy 18" trees that just fell over from the weight of all the ice, blocking roads and pulling down power lines with them.

My parents live in NH, at the end of a dead-end dirt road and they're probably going to be without power until Wednesday. I spent most of the weekend trying to keep their generator working for them (my hands still smell of gas). All the Home Depot's in the area are price gouging, selling the generators as they come off the truck for $200 more than they're normally priced (and only allowing one per-customer). I even heard that people were driving truck-loads of generators up from further South and selling them off the back of their trucks.

(I attempted to write something creative about all this on my blog if you're bored at work: http://tinyurl.com/5uyu6n)