During the night of December 23, 1998, an ice storm now referred to as The Storm, pummeled Chester leaving an astounding amount of damage in its wake. By morning the ice had built up on branches enough to cause their collapse, and when the boughs broke they brought down with them power lines, power poles, phone and cable lines. Chester was disabled. Most had no power; some were without phones and cable did not matter.
Pictured above: several trees and branches wiped out power lines on Petersburg Street closing the road for several days. Some 75,000 households were out of electricity in the Tri-City area including Chester, 388,000 households statewide, which was really only south and east of Richmond. Virginia Power had help from crews from Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, Delaware, Kentucy, Tennesee, North and South Carolina, totally 2,000 employees working on restoration of power. Two to three miles of power lines were actually on the ground and had to be reattached.
