In a matter of minutes Thursday, parts of the Ausable River in New York went flooded.
"The ice was rolling over each other. Chunks were anywhere from 4 to 6 to 8 feet," said Bill Hickey.
Hickey's wife took this photo as the jam broke.
Less than a hour before, Hickey got a knock from emergency responders telling him to prepare for the worst.
"Started getting the TV's and everything, packing bags," said Hickey.
A scary thought because Hickey had his home destroyed by Tropical Storm Irene.
This time however the river only caused minor flooding.
"We got lucky. It went by nice and easy," said Hickey.
When the ice breaks up it doesn't just cause concern over flooding but also those large chunks that float down stream, and they can do some pretty severe damage like knocking down trees, which can cause debris issue the next time the river floods.
There was another concern Thursday too.
The wind kept emergency responders busy.
"We've been picking up tree limbs all over the city," said Plattsburgh Police Lt. Scott Beebie.
Traffic lights dangled from wires.
Tarps had a hard time staying put.
And debris from a SUNY-Plattsburgh project caused issues when it blew onto Cornelia Street causing it to close for an hour.
A crazy day for some, but they're thankful it wasn't worse.
"We were very, very fortunate," said Town of Jay Supervisor Randall Douglas.
While a number of trees were knocked down, police say they were pleasantly surprised power lines weren't knocked over, keeping power on as once again the temperature dropped throughout the day.
