Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 28, 1994 TAG: 9402280004
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CLARKSDALE, MISS. LENGTH: Medium
"I ain't begging, but I need some food," said George Jones, 77, a retired farm worker who supports a household of 11, including children and grandchildren, on less than $1,000 a month. "Surely, some of those good people are going to come out of Washington directly to check on us. They go around to everywhere else, don't they?"
"It's been real hard, especially at night," said Joyce Talbert, facing temperatures below 30 this weekend while she and six children she raises have no power. "It gets terribly cold, and we just get all bundled up and try to stay warm together."
The ice disaster doesn't compare to Hurricane Andrew, the Los Angeles earthquake or the Midwest floods, but it appears overwhelming in America's poorest state.
"We'll come out of it all right," said a bitter Dodie Danehower, who runs a retirement center for 92 elderly residents she temporarily moved in with relatives or hospitable local residents. "But this just shows us again that we're on our own."
The Feb. 9-11 storm coated the region with up to 6 inches of ice. Power lines sagged and broke, utility poles splintered and thick oak and cypress limbs snapped.
More than 200,000 customers lost power and thousands probably will remain without electricity into the middle of March.
Crews from other states are helping workers on 14- to 16-hour shifts at small rural utilities that lost as many as half their poles.
"We had a crew from Tallahassee that had worked after Hurricane Andrew and they came in, hitched up their belts and said this looks like Homestead, Fla., all over again," said Marvin Carraway, Clarksdale's utilities director.
Restoring power goes slowly because communities and rural homes are miles apart, said Judy Beets of the Tallahatchee Valley electric cooperative. Farmers with tractors have been pulling utility trucks through muddy fields.
Thousands of people depend on meals and water provided by the Salvation Army and American Red Cross, assisted by Southern Baptist Convention volunteers. But food hasn't reached some communities.
In a Catholic-run medical clinic in Tutwiler, a town of 1,300 people 20 miles from here, Sister Anne Brooks said there has been a steady stream of patients ill from contaminated water or spoiled food. Burns and house fires caused by candles or defective gas heaters are common.
President Clinton has declared 26 Mississippi counties federal disaster areas, making local governments and some nonprofit organizations eligible for federal aid on 75 percent of their disaster needs.
On Saturday, Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy returned to his home state to pledge administration support. He rejected a suggestion that waiting more than two weeks for the first high-level visit from Washington was an indicator of neglect.
"What would you rather have, aid or the person? We sent the aid," Espy said.
Espy's visit came after an appeal from his older brother Henry, mayor of hard-hit Clarksdale.
Henry Espy said he realized that with the Midwest, Northeast and Washington itself pounded by a severe winter this year, the ice storm has drawn scant attention.
"Nobody thinks about the South having an ice storm," Henry Espy said. "They just don't comprehend this. We don't comprehend this here."
"These people don't have the bootstraps to pull themselves up by," said George Walker, chief executive officer of Delta Wire Corp., which employs 120 residents.
"This ice storm is one more thing that has put us on our knees, waiting for help," said Henry Espy.
Jones said his wife had stayed up until midnight during the summer filling two freezers with fruits, vegetables and meat to feed their household of 11 this winter. Without electricity, it was all ruined.
"We'll get by," Jones said. "We got to just live. That's all we can do, just live."
by CNB