THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 14, 1996 TAG: 9602130096
SECTION: ISLE OF WIGHT CITIZEN PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: STAFF REPORT
DATELINE: ISLE OF WIGHT COUNTY LENGTH: Long : 258 lines
LOCAL RESIDENTS FILED into Community Electric's Windsor offices last week to pay their power bills, and many of them expressed gratitude to the cooperative for restoring power as quickly as possible after the ice storm the weekend before.
``I think everybody was expecting a repeat of the ice storm of '89,'' office manager Steve Thompson said. ``A lot of people then didn't have power for a week or longer.''
Though it wasn't on the scale of 1989, the winter storm that coated the area's roads and highways with ice and stopped electric power cold for thousands of area customers weekend before last had the sound of the other shoe dropping. For Western Tidewater residents, it was the second major storm of this winter - and it interrupted peoples' lives in many ways.
Consider:
At the height of the most recent ice-out, a week ago Saturday, nearly 3,000 of Community Electric's 85,000 customers - in Isle of Wight, Southampton, Sussex and Surry counties and the city of Suffolk - were affected.
Power outages shut down water service for about 2,000 people in Rushmere, Carisbrooke, Bethel Heights and Benns Church over the storm weekend.
Area motels and inns were just about booked solid for a few days with local residents fleeing their cold, darkened homes and with power crews trying to get the electricity flowing again.
And schools, already having lost a week in January's Blizzard of '96, lost more days to be made up. In fact, Isle of Wight public school students were in their classrooms this past Saturday.
The state Highway Department's snow-cleanup budget for the area was busted, sand and gravel supplies exhausted. And potholes already were opening up last week.
Among the good news in all this: Police agencies were busy handling slip-and-slide fender-benders, but no serious injuries were reported. And though Isle of Wight County officials, prompted by calls to the Sheriff's Department, opened two shelters the Saturday afternoon of the power outage's peak, nobody apparently needed them.
``We received several calls from people asking if the shelters were open, but no one showed,'' said Sheriff's Capt. Riddle Hines, the county's emergency coordinator.
So while most folks are probably tired of snow and ice, and perhaps of hearing about it, you might like to hear what some of your neighbors went through - and what many of you have yet to face. School days, daze...
Isle of Wight County public schools lost four days to closure last week. They lost five in the January storm, all of which already have been made up, including with this past Saturday's session. That leaves four days still to be made up.
The School Board plans to discuss how to do that at its meeting this Thursday.
DETAILS ON THE PLANS/7
Surry County's public schools lost five days last week and five in the January storm. None of those 10 days has been made up.
School officials this week were to discuss how to do that.
Isle of Wight Academy lost four days last week, five in January. Of those nine days, students have made up two.
Academy officials have decided to use these seven dates as makeup sessions: Friday, March 1; Saturday, March 23; Saturday, March 30; Friday, April 5; Friday, April 26; Monday, May 27; Friday, May 31.
Peninsula Christian School lost three days last week and three in January, none of which has been made up. School officials were to discuss this week how to make up those days. Farmers get a break?
While most county residents were mired under by the muck and deep into winter doldrums after the second severe storm of the winter, county farmers were celebrating, says Jackie Blythe, of Tidewater Farm and Garden in Windsor.
``The farmers who have come in here seem to agree that the snow helps the soil. It adds nitrogen, and it helps to kill insects.''
Maybe so, maybe not, says county Extension Service agent Bob Goerger. He's not quite ready to celebrate.
``I'm no expert on how much nitrogen comes from snow - some minerals come from the air in snow, but it's very minimal. I won't say it's in-sig-nif-i-cant. . . . ''
``I would rather see abundant moisture now than see us going into spring in dry conditions,'' Goerger said. ``Unfortunately, our sandy soils just can't retain moisture for much more than a few weeks at the time.''
Recent weather has been good for the spring wheat crop, already popping up. But Goerger said he is taking a ``wait-and-see'' attitude before he predicts better growing conditions this summer for crops like soybeans, peanuts and cotton.
Insects, however, are another thing.
``The farmers are right, definitely, in terms of the water table and soil fertility,'' said Dr. Ames Herbert, entomologist at Virginia Tech's Tidewater Agriculture and Research Extension Center in Suffolk. ``But insects, I don't know.
``Insects have been on this Earth for millions of years. They've weathered ice ages, glaciers, recessions. I don't think these cold spells we've had are going to have much effect.''
If anything could add some hope for the problems farmers have experienced in recent years, it would be a spring cold snap, Herbert said.
``In general, I've seen some severe insect problems follow cold winters. The insects are in a dormant state right now. If it warms up prematurely, and they come out of that dormancy, and then temperatures drop back and we have some more cold weather, then we might see some decrease in the insect population.'' On the road again...
Not too many people want to see any more cold weather, though - especially not Mac Neblett, the Suffolk District engineer for the Virginia Highway Department. By mid-week after the latest extreme weather episode, Neblett said he knew his snow clean-up budget was defunct, his sand and gravel supplies exhausted.
He was just beginning to think he was getting things together again when he was driving from his Isle of Wight County home to his office in Suffolk one morning - and realized he was spending his commuting time counting potholes.
``Now the potholes will show up, and we'll be out repairing those,'' he said, sighing. ``I've already got some crews out.''
Here's what happens: Once the roadways are cleared, the melting snow and ice start to seep through the cracks. Overnight, when it freezes again, the ice expands and cracks the asphalt even more. They call this the freeze-thaw cycle. And it makes potholes.
Neblett says he hopes that's all he'll have to worry about for what's left of the winter of '96. After all, the first storm exhausted more than $200,000 in snow-removal funds in the Suffolk District. He hasn't even begun to guess how much the latest storm will cost, when ice stayed on the roads long enough to keep the schools closed for almost another full week.
``We've been pretty fortunate the last four or five years,'' Neblett said. ``This year is a different story. I know I've shot my budget and more.''
He's not taking any chances. Soon after the pothole count, he was already at work replenishing supplies of salt and sand. Power to the people . . .
The ice and snow were one thing. Losing electrical power was quite another to cope with, as several thousand area residents discovered.
Take Edna Cheatom. She is a secretary for the state Department of Education and commutes daily to Richmond from her home near Ivor, just across the county line off U.S. Route 460. And she lives with her 92-year-old mother.
She had just been ordered to bed by her doctor for a back injury when the ice storm hit a week ago Friday. About 9:30 that night, Cheatom's electricity went off. No lights. No heat. And no water. Her well pump, of course, runs on electricity.
Her power didn't come back on until about 5 p.m. Sunday, she said, but still no water.
``I found out yesterday that my pump was frozen,'' she said at mid-week after the onslaught. ``We've had no water since Friday. At least we have heat now.''
Had it not been for helpful friends and neighbors bringing in food and water, Cheatom said, she's not certain she and her mother would have survived.
Frozen pipes weren't a matter of survival for T.G. Harrison of Carrollton, but they were inconvenient.
``I'd been driving to my son's house in Hampton to take a shower,'' Harrison said. ``I've been trying to put heat on my pipes, but the plumber I finally got to take a look at it thinks it might be in the pump. All of my neighbors have had pipes burst. The weather has caused all kinds of problems. We're all hoping for the great thaw.'' Help's on the way . . .
Community Electric called in crews from four other cooperatives in Virginia and one from Maryland to help with the emergency, Thompson said. The total workers from outside the area more than doubled the local cooperative's crew, and everybody worked around the clock to bring power back up, he said.
He said help came from Rappahannock Electric Cooperative, Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative, Northern Neck Electric Cooperative and Prince George Electric Cooperative, all in Virginia, and from Choptank Electric Cooperative in Maryland.
Through the icy weekend, the workers were fed on the road, with other employees delivering warm food and drinks, Thompson said.
``For a while there, lines were falling down faster than we could put them back up. Then, with trees springing back up after the ice melted, we still had scattered problems. But the majority of our customers had power restored quickly.''
Virginia Power, which serves most of Suffolk and smaller portions of Isle of Wight and Southampton counties, still had about 3,000 area customers without electricity the first of last week, said Pat Gayle, administrative specialist in the community and government affairs department. That figure, Gayle said, was down from nearly 32,000 affected at the height of the icy conditions. Room at the inns...
If you were in the business of renting rooms, business was booming during the ice storm. Except for a couple of hours at the Econo Lodge in Carrollton, no ande of the area's motels reported losing power.
While snow was falling through the weekend, several families splashed about in the tepid waters of Best Western's heated pool or played video games.
``All weekend we were busy with local people who didn't have electricity,'' said Debra Harrell, manager of the Best Western Inn in Franklin. ``It was nice to see people using the indoor pool. We had plenty for people to do while they were snowed in here - a game room, exercise equipment.''
come onreety from people who had lost their power.
``For the last couple of days, we have been booked with crews from the power and cable companies,'' Harrell said last week. ``They have come down from other parts of the state and are working in shifts to get things up and running again.''
Motels in the northern end of the county were equally busy. Both Smithfield Station and the Econo Lodge were booked all weekend, mostly with locals seeking refuge from the storm.
``It was hectic around here,'' said Eddie Allen, manager of the Econo Lodge on Brewers Neck Boulevard. He estimated 60 percent of the motel's weekend occupants were locals escaping from the storm.
Likewise at the Isle of Wight Inn, on Church Street in Smithfield. Manager Jackie Madrigal said that, although the inn was booked solid before the storm by out-of-towners, eight rooms and four suites quickly filled up with locals seeking refuge. 'Right on the money'
And then there's the matter of the almanac.
A lot of snow and heavy ice come to a rural, agricultural county like Isle of Wight - and people suddenly want to know whether the Farmer's Almanac called it.
Remember Jackie Blythe of Tidewater Farm and Garden in Windsor? She keeps up with the thing, and she dug out Grier's Almanac, the 190th annual issue.
``They were right on the money!'' she said late last week.
Here's what Grier's has to say for February: Clear, changing to colder, snow. Snow in the upper South.
``And that's exactly where we are!'' Blythe said. She gets excited when the almanac's predictions look good.
It continued by calling for a freeze at the first of last week. By Thursday, it said, sunny skies would finally appear. Friday, the 9th, was to be milder. Stationary for the next three days. Cloudy Sunday. Sunny on Monday and Tuesday. A little cooler today.
There's no mention of the white stuff until Feb. 20, and then the almanac still doesn't mention the ``s'' word - just ``flurries.'' And it doesn't mention the word snow for the rest of February and all of March.
And keep in mind that the effects of this latest bout with winter didn't equal those of the 1989 ice storm.
Nearly seven years later, people still talk about that one. MEMO: This story is based on reporting from staff writers Linda McNatt, Jody
Snider and Allison Williams.
ILLUSTRATION: THE BIG CHILL
[Cover, Color photo]
ON THE COVER
Terry Lee plows up snow with one of two tractors that Smithfield has
equipped with snow blades.
Dwight Doggett Jr. drives a tractor pullling eight of his
grandchildren on sleds at A.D. Doggett's farm while some cows watch
and others ignore the playtime.
Staff photos by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
Smithfield High School buses gather snow and ice while students get
a midwinter vacation.
Snow accumulates on the lap of a casting of Ben Franklin in
Smithfield.
Staff photos by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
Smithfield Station, like many local motels, was booked up for the
weekend.
The Isle of Wight Courthouse was picture perfect, blanketed with
snow.
by CNB