Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 13, 1994 TAG: 9403130031
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: COPPER HILL LENGTH: Long
Years from now, farmers probably still will be sitting on the bench at Smith's Grocery & Hardware, talking about the bad winter of '94.
Whether they'll be offering descriptions as colorful as Junior Wimmer's, now that's another matter.
"Rough?" the old fellow exclaims between sips of his Mountain Dew. "It's rough as a cob a yard long!"
He takes another swallow of soda.
"Roughest winter I've ever seen."
And he's seen 75 of them in this high corner of Floyd County.
That ought to give him some authority to speak on weather matters. But noooooo, says the state climatologist, some high-falutin' fellow with a Ph.D. up at the University of Virginia.
Pat Michaels claims that, climatologically speaking, this has just been an ordinary winter. Maybe a nice little cold snap back in January, and a few interesting ice storms here and there, but nothing to write any academic papers about.
"When people plow through the historical records 50 years from now and look at the mean temperature and the total snowfall," Michaels says, "they'll just go `ho-hum.' "
Ho-hum?
You want to go "ho-hum" about the winter of '94, Professor Michaels? Fine. That's your business. But down here at Smith's store, there's a bench full of farmers who know a thing or two about the weather, too. Why don't you ask them about the mean temperature? Yeah, it's been mean, they'll tell you - and the ice storms have been meaner.
No matter what the record books have to say about the winter of '94, this winter will be one that folks will remember - and some of those memories may be every bit as bizarre as the weather that inspired them.
For instance:
This was the winter that the most pathetic ice-skating story wasn't about a Harding; it was about some Holsteins.
"It got so the cows would stand still on that ice," Floyd County farmer John Harmon says. "They'd been falling so much, they were afraid to walk. You'd roll the hay out to them, and they'd stand still."
This was the winter when truckers had to worry more about thickets than tickets.
By now, just about everyone in Franklin County, it seems, has heard the woeful tale of trucker Ed Cassity. He was hauling a load of wood chips from Rocky Mount to Covington during the most recent ice storm when he had the misfortune of driving past a stand of trees near Wirtz.
Or, at least, what used to be a stand of trees. When Cassity drove by, one of the ice-laden trees ceased standing and started falling - right toward him.
"He saw it start falling," says his boss, W.B. Cundiff of Cundiff Trucking in Wirtz, "and knew he couldn't stop in time, so he gassed it."
The cab escaped, but the trailer didn't - a karate-chop right across the back end.
Financially, the trailer's a total loss, Cundiff says. But its remains have become a mini-tourist attraction in his part of the world. "There's been a lot of people come look at that trailer. Some came out and took pictures," he says. "It's a helluva-looking thing out there."
All in all, this was the winter we learned to hone our survival skills.
Or acquire them in the first place.
Take Virgil and Debbie Polston, some urban refugees from Baltimore who left the big city in early January and moved to Bent Mountain to get away from it all.
They got away from it all, for sure.
Away from electricity, away from heat, away from running water . . .
When the ice storms unplugged them from civilization, the Polstons made do the best they could. "The first night, we were cooking hot dogs with a propane torch in a cake pan," Virgil says. "It was fun."
Well, maybe not that much fun.
"It was so cold in the house, I could see my breath," Debbie says.
From there, the Polstons graduated to cooking by kerosene.
"I made steak and potatoes one night on top of a kerosene heater," Debbie says. "I got to where I could even fry eggs if I wanted to, but I didn't."
Then, during the final ice storm, the power not only went off, but the power lines also came crashing down into the trees in the front yard - "the trees were catching on fire," Virgil says - and onto the family van.
"Appalachian said don't touch it," he says. "They said it wouldn't do anything to the van, but it would to us if we touched it."
So the Polstons stayed put, shivering, and wondering what kind of wild, untamed countryside they'd moved to. "We've called 911 more since we've been here than we did in Baltimore," Virgil says.
And they didn't know what to make of a strange country custom in which the most trusted source of meteorological information isn't The Weather Channel but the Farmers' Almanac.
"After the other storm, our neighbor came over and said we're going to get another, and sure enough, we did," Debbie says.
"I believe it," Virgil says. "From what I hear, the almanac's been on track. I've got to go get one."
He's already bought the other two essentials of country living: a chain saw and a wood stove.
"I'd never used a wood stove before," he says. "I was scared the first time I started it. Where do the sparks go? Do they land on the roof?"
But last week, the Polstons were out in the front yard, chain-sawing away tree branches just like regular Bubbas.
"I guess we'll be real country people," Virgil says.
"We're survivors," Debbie proclaims.
Aren't we all?
Although some of us have survived the winter of '94 with more aplomb than others.
Take your pick.
There's the rich man's survival kit:
One day this winter, a fellow walked into Omega World Travel in Roanoke, plunked down $4,000 - in cash and said pretty much what Eric Burdon said in that classic '60s tune: We've got to get out of this place.
He's now in Hawaii. The ice-weary Roanoker, that is, not Eric Burdon.
Then there's the poor man's guide to winter, as exemplified by Rabon Smith, a clerk at Angle Hardware in Rocky Mount:
He found himself a tiny television set that runs on AC/DC power and snaked an extension cord out to the cigarette lighter of his car.
"I'd watch for an hour and then go out and crank the car for 15 minutes," Smith says. "I survived. I watched TV every night."
Ah, the good life.
Some of us, though, adapted better than others to the hardships of winter. The others, in this case, included some of the big-city crews Appalachian Power Co. brought in from the Midwest to help restore power. Especially the Ohio crew that went to investigate some downed lines one night in a hollow near Wyatt Wimmer's place in Floyd County.
Being the neighborly fellow that he is, Wimmer - no relation to Junior - warned the crew that they were headed into rough terrain. Oh yes, and they should watch out for bears, too.
Bears?
Oh yeah, there are bears up in those woods.
Not long after the electrical workers headed into the hollow, they skedaddled right back out.
"That bunch was scared," Wimmer says. "Their eyes were wide open. They said they'd heard something running toward 'em."
Wimmer didn't have the heart to tell them it was just the horses in the field.
"I haven't seen 'em since," Wimmer says. "I shouldn't have said anything. I'd have had my power on two days ago."
Well, maybe. Or maybe not.
Regardless, this winter has either plunged people into a deep funk - or inspired them to deep thinking.
Now Michaels, our killjoy state climatologist, wants to take all the fun out of bad-mouthing the winter of '94.
"You can't blame it on Mount Pinatubo, or the ozone hole, or acid rain or even the pernicious influence of man," he says. "You can blame it on the Statisticians Creed: Unusual events happen."
Truth be known, statisticians probably say something slightly different, but you get the point.
Scientifically speaking, this winter was no big deal.
But try telling that to Junior Wimmer.
"It's the good Lord's doings," he says. "Just to show you that he's still around."
by CNB