Why don't Ice storms have names?

In some ways we are still recovering from this ice storm. We went 4 and a half days without power and then there was still cleanup. We did get some of the tree cut up and carried to the front of the yard for removal by the County. It will be weeks before they get it. Every yard in our neighborhood looked like ours. Every yard had parts of large, old trees lying in them. I seem to remember that 350,000 homes were without power due to the storm.

What bothers me is that the storm doesn't even have a name. Hurricanes get names when they are still tropical depressions. They might never even inconvenience a single person, but still they get a name. My home county was attacked by nameless ice storm 20051215. (I gave it a prisoner number.) People died, millions of dollars of damage were caused, and local officials are trying to qualify the area for disaster relief, but the storm had no name.

qv: Photos