Silence can always be broken by sound of footsteps walking over frozen ground. In winter when the melancholy trees stand abject and let their branches freeze. Merrill Moore-American poet 1903-1957
Midway through last week the sun was shining, the temperatures approached the seventies, the coats went back into the closet. It was a beautiful respite from the previously cold temperatures when I had wrapped up inside the house in a huge comfy sweater with a cat on my lap.
The cats and I walked out to the lake to feed the ducks and bream. Harry likes to dart here and there; a quick five feet up a tree and down again only to do the same a few trees down. After the feed we wandered by the deer feeder where I spun the lever scattering a bit of corn here and there before the deer came. We continued on to the goldfish pond to feed them and then the greenhouse where we turned the heat lamps off enjoying instead a ray of sunshine.
The weatherman forecasted in the days following there would be frigid temperatures, perhaps into single digits. I started receiving emails and texts and seeing Facebook posts to be aware of the freezing weather coming and be prepared for a winter event. One warning said the approaching cold could be the coldest temperatures Mississippi had seen in thirty years. The alert suggested the four “P” rule- Pipes, People, Pets, Plants. It suggested stocking up on drinking water in case of broken pipes. As I walked about in the warm air, it ran through my mind provisions we would need to make. I also thought of winters past when north winds blew their arctic air.
In 1974 there was an ice storm in the Delta where I was living. I remember seeing trees broken by ice. From my window on the world, it looked like a crystal fairyland. We lost power for days but had a gas stove and heat. We played cards and boardgames; we read books and went to sleep early. The only concept of time was the waiting. Searching the internet there was little information of the 1974 ice storm. It was referred to obliquely when the 1994 Delta ice storm usurped the title as “the second worst ice storm in Mississippi history.”
Daniella DiRienzo reported in an internet article “The storm struck with virtually no warning. In fact, at around midnight on February 9th, temperatures were around seventy degrees in the Mississippi Delta.” The storm caused more than 80,000 utility poles to tumble. Trees and limbs littered the landscape. It would be weeks before power could be restored even with countless workers putting in sixteen-hour days. Utility workers reported areas with 6 inches accumulation of ice as well as 95-foot-tall transmission towers with 42-inch concrete bases had collapsed. Freezing rain continued to fall causing flooding due to storm drains blocked by falling trees and limbs. It would be three days before temperatures rose above freezing.
On February 9, 2021, as I write this, twenty-seven years later to the day, winter storm warnings are being issued across news media and the internet for our viewing area and beyond. It’s my hope and prayer as you read this we were spared.
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