Ice-damaged forests expected to recover

BOSTON, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- Forestry officials say thousands of storm-damaged trees in Massachusetts and New Hampshire will eventually recover.

The trees were damaged in a Dec. 11-12 storm that left hundreds of thousands of people without power, The Boston Globe reported Tuesday.

Thousands of trees in the two states lost their crowns in the storm, leaving them susceptible to potentially fatal fungi and beetles.

It was the worst ice storm to hit the region since a 1998 storm coated 25 million acres of trees with ice, the Globe reported.

Recovery from that storm has shown that even extensively damaged forests recover over time, said Charles Levesque, executive director of the North East State Foresters Association.

"The damage was terrible -- and those forests are still there," Levesque said.