The night the river froze
For three days in January the town crossed the water on foot. Then the thaw came early.
Nobody alive remembered the river freezing solid. The ferry stayed at its moorings, the school bus took the long way round by the bridge, and by the second morning children were skating where the barges usually pass. The harbor master posted a notice, then another, and then stood at the edge of the ice and asked people, politely, to come back.
What the gauges said
The town's three river gauges recorded the cold more precisely than anyone's memory could. The lowest reading came just before dawn on the second day, when the air at the north gauge fell to −19 °C.
| Gauge | Day | °C |
|---|---|---|
| North | 2 | −19.4 |
| Harbor | 2 | −17.1 |
| South | 3 | −11.8 |
We had a plan for a flood. We did not have a plan for people walking to work across the river.
By the fourth day the ice had turned grey and loud, and the ferry ran again by Friday.