VERMILION —  Bill McCarthy woke up at 2 a.m. Tuesday and trekked to the banks of the Vermilion River to see if the Christmas tree lodged in the ice there had started moving toward the lake.

Nope, no movement.

So he repeated the process at 4 a.m. Still nothing.

Finally, when the 65-year-old operations manager for the Vermilion Port Authority checked at 6:30 a.m., there was the tree, clear as day, sliding toward the lake.

At 6:51 a.m., McCarthy watched the tree float past the red arrow near McGarvey’s Landing and disappear into the lake. And so ends the first Christmas Tree Ice Jam Pool, which was McCarthy’s idea to raise funds for Port Authority projects. Hundreds of people bought $5 tickets to guess the date and time that the ice would break and the tree would float away.

But this year, the ice didn’t even need to break up for the tree to get moving.

 “There was just enough water on top of the ice that the tree could slide along into the lake,” McCarthy said.

He said it probably got started because the heavy rains Monday night, coupled with the unseasonably warm weather, softened up the ice.

The ice jam itself finally started around noon Tuesday.

Luckily, the ice was only about 3 to 4 inches thick, so it didn’t take much to break it up and crews were out Tuesday doing just that.

“Having water on top of the ice makes it rot and break pretty quick,” he said.

The ice jam this year is nearly a month earlier than last year, when it took until March 2.

In that regard, Mother Nature disappointed hundreds of bettors who bought tickets that clustered around dates in late February and early March.

But the early jam made one person very happy.

Sue Ayers got the call around lunchtime that her pick of 7:30 on Feb. 5 was the closest to the actual time — earning her $1,000.

  The rest of the money raised from the contest will pay for green space improvements at McGarvey’s Landing.

Ayers said that she had no special insight when it came to predicting the time, but she did use a little logic.

“I had originally bought a ticket for Feb. 21,” the Elyria resident said, “but as the weather got warmer, I thought I should buy a new ticket for an earlier day.”

So last Wednesday, she purchased the winning ticket — and not a second too soon. If she had waited two more days, her winnings would have been cut in half in accordance with contest rules.

“I was lucky and I can use it,” she said.

 With such an early thaw this year, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that there might be a second ice jam this year. A cold spell could freeze the river again.

 “But we won’t have another contest,” McCarthy said, “until next year.”

Contact Michael Baker at 329-7128 or mbaker@chroniclet.com.

 

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