Residents and officials across the Golden Triangle are ramping up preparations ahead of a winter storm forecast expected to arrive at the end of the work week.
For 4-County Electric Power Association, that means preparing for the worst while hoping for the best, Jon Turner, director of public relations and marketing, told The Dispatch on Wednesday.
“You can only prepare so much because you don’t know what you’re going to get, and you don’t know where it’s going to hit,” Turner said. “It could just be a portion of our service territory. It could be all of it. It could be none of it. … We’re in the mindset that this could rival some of the worst weather events that we’ve seen, and we will proceed accordingly.”
The National Weather Service is forecasting a wintry mix of precipitation starting Friday in the Golden Triangle, potentially including freezing rain, sleet and snow. The storm is expected to bring dangerously cold temperatures and impact travel and infrastructure through the start of next week, Michael Hill, warning coordination meteorologist, said in a Facebook video posted Tuesday by NWS Jackson.
“Expect through Friday night to Sunday, hazardous travel on roads and bridges, downed trees and powerlines will cause power outages. And we’re also expecting cold temperatures with that,” Hill said in the video. “… We’re probably going to probably go below freezing on Saturday, and not get back above freezing maybe (until) Monday into Tuesday. Possible power outages on top of the cold weather.”
The winter weather is expected to hit the Golden Triangle sometime between midnight and noon on Saturday, though frigid temperatures are expected Friday afternoon.
In anticipation of the storm, Turner said 4-County crews are stocking supplies, from salt and sharpened chainsaws to new poles and transformers, reviewing response plans and even preparing snack packs to send with lineman working in the field.
“We’re making sure that everybody is available, especially over the weekend because right now, that’s when it look like it’s going to come in,” he said.
Turner said responding to ice storms can be especially challenging because accumulating ice adds weight to power lines and poles, sometimes causing them to snap or bend into powerlines, knocking out service.
In some cases, he said, crews have to delay repairs because limbs weighed down by ice could rebound as temperatures fluctuate, potentially damaging newly restored lines.
“So you’ve got to be judicious in what you do,” Turner said. “… It’s not like a tornado or a windstorm, where once it’s gone through it’s done, it’s a sunny day, and you put everything back together again. These can get a little trickier.”
Turner said the cooperative focuses on maintaining rights-of-way by removing hazardous limbs near powerlines.
In Starkville, Mayor Lynn Spruill said the city is taking a similar approach, hoping to make frequently traveled areas passable as needed.
“We’re prepared to take care of our streets,” Mayor Lynn Spruill told The Dispatch on Wednesday. “Our crews are on standby. We’ve got salt available for making sure the streets are driveable or passable when necessary.”
That being said, Spruill heavily encouraged residents to avoid being out on the streets in the event of severe winter weather.
“We’re going to do our very best to make sure that the areas are all passable when we find out that there are locations that are especially slippery, usually the well-traveled areas that allow people to get where they need to go,” she said. “But again, no encouragement at all for people to get out.”
Preparing for the storm
Residents are also starting to prepare for winter weather on Friday.
Dan Price, store manager at Food Giant in Columbus, said the store was starting to see an uptick Wednesday in customers purchasing the usual storm-prep staples, like bread, milk and canned soups.
Buying groceries after Friday could become more difficult if the weather disrupts travel conditions, he said.
“We get our groceries out of Hernando, … which is right out from Memphis. If the weather is poor there – poor traveling conditions – they will not be able to deliver to us, say on Saturday or Monday,” Price told The Dispatch. “So there could be impact for (getting) groceries. … I’m sure the other stores in town have the same problems, being supplied from areas that are out of town.”
Executive Director Brandi Herrington said Starkville Strong has already started distributing winter weather supplies to its clients. Starkville Strong is a nonprofit that provides support to residents facing food insecurity, homelessness and housing insecurity with a focus on community advocacy.
Additionally, the nonprofit received about 50 winter weather survival kits to distribute that were packed Wednesday as a part of Mississippi State University’s Martin Luther King Jr. Days of Service.
“It will go to our homeless clients or those who are just needing a little bit of extra warmth,” Herrington said. “We’ve got blankets and coats and gloves and scarves in our winter weather bin (outside of Dunkington). We’re still really needing people to drop those things off because stuff is getting taken out of it a lot more frequently.”
Despite the supplies, Herrington said the incoming weather raises serious concerns for community members without stable housing.
“In regular winter weather, it’s already a struggle to be out in the elements, and then you compound that with the kind of weather we’re getting now, then it’s imperative that the city and county work together to either open up the storm shelter or to run the warming center,” she said.
With no emergency shelter plan in the works, Herrington said the nonprofit will be checking in on unhoused clients throughout the weekend.
“If we can get out, we’ll try to go get up with them to make sure that they have blankets,” she said. “But without a local shelter it’s just very challenging.”
Golden Triangle Regional Homeless Coalition Executive Director Susan Garton said there are no plans for shelters to open this weekend, but the nonprofit will assist in helping those in need find a place to stay.
Anyone in need of help or assistance can contact GTRHC at (662) 549-2643 or email [email protected].
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 29 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
