I know exactly what you're talking about with ice storms.
I entailed one a few years ago. Brought the 10 meter ground plane down. This is an antenna that thus far had zero failures, being installed at the north pole and on a drill rig in the north sea. Mine folded in half with the radial ice load. I posted pics of it on this board when it happened. The mfg went above and beyond, sleeving the section that broke internally and all new aluminum. To date, this is the inky known failure.
http://amfone.net/Amforum/index.php?topic=25927.0A few years before, over Xmas, someone hit the power xformer feeding the community after losing control of their car. 72 hours with no power. We ended up starting the stove up with power extracted from the inverter in my 1 ton diesel. At some point the pellet stove came out and we used fire for cooking xmas hamburgers!
Regularly lost power for a day until they put new cross members that where designed to shed ice. Same thing with the transformers on the poles, they had new poles installed because woodpeckers where destroying them and when they where putting the replacements in, the new cross members and transformers with covers where installed. After that we didn't lose power due to weather again.
This was all in California. Kern County. Tehachapi mountains. 6k foot elevation.
And our wind Generators never went down, either. Even jn single digits!
Weather is one of those things that can kill, and we sometimes forget it.
--Shane
