Dichtomy, I believe that was in Feb or March of 1994. My first trip to Texas from Alberta, I was there for a shooting competition outside of FT Worth. We flew into DFW, had a great first day, probably 2500 people in attendance. Day two, that big ice storm hit, and shut down the entire state. Us being Canadians, and being very used to driving in bad conditions, thought wth is going on, what's all the fuss over a little bit of ice? I started to wonder if maybe something was a little different than our average bad driving snow days, when I rolled down our rented van's window, and there was a second window of ice still there I had to literally punch out.
Out on the on freeway, it was beyond awful driving. Black ice everywhere, cars and trucks everywhere in the ditch or crashed into each other - a state trooper stopped us at a checkpoint and was absolutely stunned we were out driving nonchalantly, and told us to go back to our hotel, which was far further than the shooting range. We got to the range eventually, but were one of the few who made it. Took a couple of days for things to get back on track, but I will say that it was the worst driving conditions including the thousands of blizzards I've seen in Canada that I've ever drove in. Not many Texans have a lot of experience driving on that either I would bet, as I said I'd driven through many a frozen road, but nothing like that myself. Saw some chains on the rear of a fwd car, good for a laugh during a bad situation. While storm stayed in the area of our hotel once we were back, the people in the restaurants were amazingly friendly and hospitable, I've always loved Texas since that time. Nine people were killed due to the ice storm, and over 3 billion in 1994 dollars damage, it was a pretty big deal back then, and extended our stay a while, which again, I didn't mind as we had met some great local people.
