Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 3, 1994 TAG: 9403030150
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
For the second time in three weeks, the New River Valley slipped, snapped and suffered under the weight of precipitation that couldn't decide what state of water it wanted to be.
Frozen rain, slush, sleet - "sleeze," if you will - encrusted cars, made roads treacherous and snapped power lines and battle-weary trees.
By Wednesday afternoon, Appalachian Power Co.'s Pulaski division reported that more than 28,000 customers were without power in its eight-county service area.
That's a far cry from the 66,000 that were zapped by February's ice storm.
But with more sleeze and snow predicted later, Apco was gearing up for additional outages.
"At this point we don't know when it's going to level off," said Glenda Wohlford, administrative assistant for Apco's Pulaski division. "Things have gotten progressively worse."
Pulaski, Montgomery and Floyd counties were the hardest hit, Wohlford said, with more than 19,000 outages.
Parts of Blacksburg's Industrial Park were without power, including Wolverine Gasket and Manufacturing Co., which sent its workers home in the afternoon.
Hercules Inc., which operates the Radford Army Ammunition Plant, shut down operations at noon Wednesday because of the weather and planned to restart at 4 p.m. today.
Virginia Tech Electric Co., which supplies power to parts of Blacksburg and the university, said as many as 700 customers were without juice at one point. Crews had solved the main problem by the afternoon but continued to grapple frustratingly with isolated outages, said Ray Powell, director of utilities for Virginia Tech.
Between 125 and 150 customers were without power Wednesday afternoon, and Powell worried that predicted winds this morning might cause more outages by bringing down ice-laden lines.
An electric line fell across Peppers Ferry Road near the Market Square shopping center about 1 p.m., knocking out power to Pargo's restaurant.
Ice or wind storms have caused the line to snap three times in 10 days, said Don Wells, Pargo's owner.
"It just destroys us," Wells said, standing about 100 yards from the downed line, which lay across the road sparking with a white-hot flare.
After the first and largest ice storm, Pargo's was closed for three days, losing about $25,000 worth of business, Wells said, adding, "I'm hoping this can be fixed quickly."
In Pulaski, town officials asked residents, businesses and industries to conserve water because of the potential for more severe winter weather to interrupt power and water service.
Pulaski County is continuing to suffer from the effects of the earlier ice storm that started Feb. 10. Uninsured damage and cleanup costs in the county have been estimated so far at close to $1 million.
The Blacksburg-Christiansburg-VPI Water Authority's plant, which lost power for more than 40 hours last month, experienced a few blips, but continued operating.
State police and authorities in Montgomery County reported dozens of fender-benders and cars sliding off roads, many of the accidents occurring in the morning.
Trees and limbs were breaking once again Wednesday, although "I'm kind of hoping that everything that's going to break is already broken," said Montgomery County Extension Director Joe Hunnings.
That was not the case, though.
Dan Brugh, resident engineer with the Virginia Department of Transportation's Christiansburg office, said fallen trees once again were more of a problem than he'd anticipated.
"I didn't think there were any left to fall," he said. The department enlisted the help of 12 hired crews that had been cleaning up tree damage from the last ice storm.
The primary roads, he said, were safe to travel, although some secondary roads still hadn't been touched. Crews were mixing salt and gravel to conserve limited salt supplies, and would be working through the night.
"Every forecast that I can get my hands on says we're going to get 4 to 6 inches of something," he said.
Harry McIntosh, chief of Roanoke's National Weather Service station, said much of the semifrozen precipitation was drifting east by midafternoon but that the valley could expect 1-2 inches of snow later.
"This has been very ordinary," said Bonnie Svrcek, Blacksburg's interim public works director, of the town's efforts to battle the winter weather. "We've got this down to a science."
But Apco's Wohlford sounded a note of weariness brought on by an already too-long winter. Broken trees, layers of ice and the power out at her home in Wythe County had her down and tired.
"I've lost count of how many storms we've had," Wohlford said.
Paul Dellinger and Robert Freis contributed information to this story.
by CNB