By Ben Riggleman

They called it a “bomb cyclone.” While the term technically refers to a pressure-drop phenomenon called bombogenesis, it aptly evokes the destruction that the storm of Oct. 30 left in its wake across New England: snapped trees, dangling power lines, debris clogging the streets. Two-thirds of Maine was without power on Monday — that’s half a million people — and a full quarter of the state was still in the dark on Friday morning, according to The Bangor Daily News. Both SMCC campuses lost power, forcing many students out into Portland in search of WiFi. In Portland and South Portland, students of all ages got a day off, while some schools in the Brunswick area were out all week.

One of the most dramatic aspects of the storm was how many trees it felled. SMCC’s South Portland Campus lost several stately old trees that had stood beside the athletic fields for generations. Noor Ibrahim investigated how these trees met their fate; you can read her tribute to them on Page 3.

The storm drew comparisons to the infamous Ice Storm of 1998, which any Mainer over the age of 20 will remember. Dan Elliott, a Midcoast Campus student with vivid memories of that cataclysmic event, wrote about his experience hunkered down in Topsham as the storm passed through.