ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Monday, February 5, 1996               TAG: 9602050032
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL   PAGE: A-1  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: ATLANTA
SOURCE: From The Associated Press and The New York Times
NOTE: Lede 

ARCTIC BLAST ATTACKS SOUTH 4 DEATHS IN VA., 61 IN NATION

A deep freeze swung into the South on Sunday, bringing ice, snow and temperatures below or barely above zero to Mississippi, Georgia and Alabama.

Virginians willing to brave biting cold worked to dig out from the latest winter storm. The National Weather Service reported temperatures as low as 11 below zero in Bland and 8 degrees below in Lonesome Pine.

At least four deaths in Virginia were blamed on the weather. A 72-year-old Fluvanna County man died of a heart attack, and a Wise County man apparently froze to death in his portable trailer. A Bedford County man, Lawrence H. Whorley, 63, died Friday night during a hike home from a restaurant, and a 26-year-old Oklahoma man died Saturday after his car was hit by a snow plow in Northern Virginia.

The chill has been blamed for 61 deaths across the Lower 48 states.

In Florida, temperatures in the 20s left the $1.2 billion citrus industry hanging by an icy thread. ``A lot of the citrus trees have begun to get new buds for next year's crop,'' said Carl Grooms, a grower near Tampa. ``If we get a hard freeze, it could devastate production for next year.''

Texas recorded lows of minus 3 at the Panhandle city of Amarillo and 6 above in Abilene. Baton Rouge, La., had a record low of 15.

The Arctic air that engulfed much of the South still held sway elsewhere, with more record lows Sunday from the Rockies to the Northeast.

Sunday's low in Embarrass, Minn., was 56 below zero, the fourth day out of the past five with lows more than 50 below. That's real temperatures, not the wind chill. Georgetown, Del., bottomed out at 6 above.

And how cold was it in a little town in Michigan?

``Hell's frozen over,'' said Tom Davis, who owns the Hell Creek Ranch in Hell, about an hour west of Detroit. Sunday's low there was minus 11.

The South's unseasonable temperatures were expected to last at least one more day.

LENGTH: Medium:   51 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  AP. 1. Allen Vendor uses water skis to ride the snow in 
          a parking lot in Chattanooga, Tenn., Sunday. 2. Sunday's subzero 
          temperatures do not appear to bother Zero the polar bear, stretching
          as he awakens from a nap in the Milwaukee County Zoo in Wisconsin. 
          color.
KEYWORDS: FATALITY