THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 4, 1996 TAG: 9602040047
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 103 lines
Northeast North Carolina motorists slithered along highway glaciers and plucky pedestrians egg-walked from pillar to post in communities gripped by a modern Ice Age on Saturday.
From the mountains to the Outer Banks, freezing rain or sleet enameled much of North Carolina over the weekend and beautiful but overloaded branches spread the misery of power interruptions throughout the day.
``It's been busy, busy, but so far no fatal accidents,'' said Dan Whitehurst, a dispatcher at the Williamston Highway Patrol communications center, which covers the Albemarle.
Troopers patrolled the dangerous roads and kept wreckers busy assisting motorists who had skidded into dead-ends of frustration.
North Carolina Power repair crews traveled from outage to outage, splicing broken high-voltage wires from the numbing cold of exposed cherry-picker buckets.
Dave Shelton, a spokesman for the utility company at Roanoke Rapids, where some of the power is generated, said that nearly 9,000 customers remained without electricity on the Outer Banks and in the Albemarle area Saturday afternoon.
North Carolina Power also supplies service to several private and co-op utilities that faced similar weekend battles to resurrect fallen lines.
Shelton warned that ``this is not going to be a short-term situation,'' and urged that care be planned for children, older adults and others with special needs.
North Carolina Power Manager John Hughes said in Manteo that some service may not be restored for as long as 48 hours in the hard-hit Albemarle.
``It will take a herculean effort to get even 80 percent of our customers back (on line) within that time,'' Hughes said.
All of North Carolina's major power suppliers are competing for emergency repair services, Hughes said, and crews are being brought in from distant cities. Hughes added that the competition has made the situation ``more difficult because the whole state was hammered by the storm.''
Law enforcement agencies faced another night of gale-force winds along the coast and continued sub-freezing temperatures inland that carried National Weather Service warnings of wind chills from minus 15 to minus 25.
Department of Transportation sand trucks and road scrapers worked around the clock, but a slushy mixture of snow, sleet and rain throughout the early morning hours Saturday left a thin glaze of black ice on many highways. The snow plows slid over the top of the ice and some unwary motorists skidded on pavement that looked clear.
In Currituck County, Sheriff Glenn Brinkley canceled all sheriff's department leaves and had teams of deputies on duty at strategic spots.
Western portions of North Carolina were hit even harder. Emergency shelters around North Carolina were crowded as the winter storm knocked out power to more than 300,000 residences and businesses. Some will be without power for up to five days.
Total ice and snow accumulations could reach 8 inches in the northern mountains, forecasters said.
Gov. Jim Hunt asked President Clinton Saturday afternoon to declare a state of emergency in North Carolina.
``This is one of the most widespread natural disasters to strike our state in many years, and I am very concerned about the safety of our citizens,'' Hunt said.
Mary Johnson, a Duke Power spokeswoman, said: ``This is the worst since Hurricane Hugo. We have received 400 additional service people from neighboring states and are asking for more.''
Meanwhile, 34,000 customers of Carolina Power & Light Co. were without power Saturday, said spokesman Mike Hughes. Most of the power failures were concentrated in a band stretching from Raleigh north to the Virginia border.
Faced with thousands of people with no electricity, authorities rushed to set up emergency shelters Saturday morning.
By noon Saturday, the shelter at East Henderson High School near Hendersonville ran out of cots. More than 100 people had streamed in from their cold, dark homes.
In Forsyth County, shelters were set up in schools, libraries and fire stations, and county officials said they were prepared to set up more.
``We have a big crowd in our shelters,'' said Keith Fulp, with the county Emergency Management Office. ``We are playing it by ear for now. We hope power gets restored to areas before others areas get knocked out. If not, we'll be flooded with people.''
The slippery roads also contributed to three highway deaths, authorities said.
A five-vehicle pileup Friday on Interstate 40 attributed to icy roads near the Forsyth-Davie county line killed Felix Gongalez, 49, of Charlotte and slightly injured several others, according to the state highway patrol.
On Friday night, an unidentified motorist was killed in an accident on Interstate 40 in south Raleigh when a pickup truck hit a patch of ice and slid into the median, police said.
And in Lincoln County, the storm was blamed in the death of a 43-year-old woman whose car window was covered with ice. The woman, who also was not immediately identified, died after she pulled into the path of a tractor-trailer on state route 16, authorities said. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Michael Dungee, 2, takes his afternoon nap on a cot in the gym of
the Glenwood Recreation Center in Greensboro, which was opened
Saturday as an emergency shelter. Michael's family lost power to
their home Friday and came to the shelter for warmth.
by CNB