I've lived in places where the "ice event" that caused the power to go out was freezing rain. That kind of ice can make trees heavy enough to lose limbs into power lines and makes roads slick enough for vehicles to crash into transformers and power poles (hence the power outages), without outdoor temperatures necessarily being cold enough to preserve frozen goods and without there being enough easily available ice outside (e.g. ~.5cm covering on all surfaces) to bring inside for stuffing the freezer.
That is almost exactly what happened here. We basically had sleet for about a full day, it was relentless. In an area that never snows and rarely freezes, a neighbor went actually ice skating down the street. I still have microspikes from my previous life in the mountains, and was one of few people who could get around confidently -- and even then, it was a bit sketchy here and there.
I've never seen anything like it. Individual blades of grass were embedded in solid capsules of ice. I regret not taking the time to get the camera out and do a bunch of photography, but I had my hands full the entire time.
A few nights later, the ice had barely begun to thaw, and then it refroze and then started snowing. I stood outside my home for a bit in the darkness, and listened to the sounds of tree limbs cracking, breaking, snapping, and crashing, like a steady rhythm, for a while. Just, "boom, crash. ... boom, crash. ... boom, crash. ..."
