Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 20, 1994 TAG: 9411210070
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Most of her calls ended in downed telephone lines in ice-coated Virginia.
``When I finally reached my son, he told me half the neighborhood was at our house with the wood stove,'' Arthur said. ``But we only had one load of wood.''
This winter, Arthur and her husband, Fred, will be ready. They have piled 40 pickup-truck loads of firewood in the back yard.
``Winter ain't gonna catch me with my britches down this time,'' Fred Arthur said.
Virginians remember the days of cold and dark during the ice storms of February and March - and they mean to be prepared this time. Merchants report that customers are coming in with visions of last winter's icicles and power outages and leaving with heaters, lanterns and flashlight batteries.
``I can tell people are getting their wood stoves ready,'' said Dewey Ferguson at Madison Heights Hardware. ``We're selling plenty of stovepipe.''
At Lyle's Home Shop Inc. in Lynchburg, the hot item has been kerosene heaters.
``Winter's coming,'' Carl Lyle said. ``A fellow came in a little while ago with a fur coat on. People are getting ready.''
But Lyle believes only a small percentage of people will be ready.
``People forget all about it as soon as the ice melts,'' Lyle said. ``Most people wade through the snow to buy a snow shovel.''
Not Roy Dudley. In June 1993, when the windstorm cut off electrical power to his Concord home, he bought a generator. By the time the ice storms struck last winter, he had wired his house so every room had an electrical outlet tied into the generator. Even the basement is wired into the system to avoid a power interruption to an incubator he uses to hatch pheasant eggs.
``When the ice storms came, we were in good shape,'' Dudley said. ``We heat mostly with wood and we had power from the generator.
``We can watch television with the generator if we want to.''
Since the ice storms, Dudley has installed more improvements. Now he has a four-eye propane gas range on the porch and a propane hot water heater next to his electric one.
Back in February, Paul Krolewski, manager of the Kmart at Madison Heights, couldn't order batteries, stoves, heaters and lanterns as fast as people bought them.
``I could have sold 500 generators in a day,'' Krolewski said.
Now he's stockpiling as much as he can and finding that sales are brisk for hats and gloves, heaters and fuel, flashlights and batteries.
``People were asking for ice melt before it came in. It was 70 degrees out, but people were saying, `Not for long,''' Krolewski said.
``Everybody anticipates another bad winter,'' he said. ``The signs are there, from the Farmers Almanac to the acorns on the back porch.
``I think we're ready, but I wish I had room to stock 500 generators.''
by CNB