Officials in northern New York and Vermont are keeping a close eye on rivers across the region as warm weather begins melting ice – which can lead to ice jams. On Sunday, one formed on the Ausable River leading officials to issue a local State of Emergency.
Clinton County Emergency Management Director Eric Day stood on the banks of the Ausable River in Ausable Forks on Sunday taking video as an ice jam flushed out of the hamlet.
“It moved through pretty quickly. I think the river in Ausable Forks is pretty well cleared up. The large jam that was right in the hamlet yesterday morning actually, I don’t know exactly what time it was, it moved downstream and it did let out pretty quickly.”
Ausable Forks is where the east and west branches of the river meet and ice jams resulting in flooding is common. Town of Jay Deputy Supervisor Thomas McDonald says he has not heard reports of physical damage in the hamlet from Sunday’s ice jam.
“When the East Branch came down it was flowing very nicely all down through Upper Jay, Jay, and when it got to the forks in Ausable and hit the West Branch that’s where it jammed up. The water came up of course and flooded the lower parking lot of the Topps and some flooding in the Jersey area and what we call the Intervale area. They’re all low-lying areas. But I haven’t heard of any flooding that got into homes or anywhere. The force of the jam eventually pushed the channel out and relieved the pressure and all the flooding went away.”
The hamlet is in the Town of Jay which issued a local state of emergency beginning at 10:30 Sunday morning. McDonald explains why it was issued even though the jam broke within a couple hours.
“We’ve dealt with this so much over the years that if you get the State of Emergency in place beforehand it allows the highway superintendent and other sources to do what they need to do more quickly. And we’ve had to in the past actually get people out by boats and other ways. So it just opens up avenues for us to get things done more quickly.”
Although the jam cleared at Ausable Forks, the river is still being watched for potential ice jams further downstream. National Weather Service Burlington Senior Hydrologist John Goff notes that there are a number of rivers across the region that are under surveillance for possible ice jams over the next few weeks.
“Around the region where we know ice can jam up: the St. Regis and the Salmon River and the Raquette River in the western part of northern New York. Another one would be in the city of Plattsburgh where the river makes kind of a sharp bend below the falls. And in Vermont most of the rivers are still in play. Winooski, Lamoille. We have an ongoing ice jam on the Missisquoi up in the Enosburgh Falls area. And there’s still plenty of ice on the Passumpsic River up in the Northeast part of Vermont. So, all of those remain in play.”
Goff notes that ice jams tend to occur where rivers slow down due to various factors like bends, shoals or bridge abutments.
“An ice jam is basically a jumble of ice that is moving down the river during ice break up and that ice jams up in the river channel and blocks the water behind the ice. If the water is blocked up enough it can flood areas from the ice jam back upstream, sometimes as much as a quarter mile. The severity of ice jams can vary greatly from just minor field flooding, as often is the case, but sometimes in an urban area it can be severe like in Ausable Forks where it could actually flood portions of the town and effect homes and structures.”
The local state of emergency in Ausable Forks is effective for five days unless officials terminate it earlier.