Bank of Holly Springs
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Photo by David Cook
Truck traffic is backed up Friday morning on I-22 westbound near Lake Center.

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Photo by Barry Burleson
Downtown Holly Springs is blanketed with snow and ice.

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Photo by David Cook
The Mississippi Highway Patrol, with assistance from local emergency personnel, worked this accident Friday around 6 a.m. on I-22 near Lake Center. Maj. David Cook with the sheriff’s department said there were injuries with one person ejected.

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Photo by Barry Burleson
Some traffic moves slowly across the bridge on Hernando Road entering the Holly Springs city limits.

County feels winter’s bite

School children in Marshall County got a snow day Friday as some areas were blanketed with two and three inches of snow, according to county administrator Larry Hall.

Icicles were still hanging like stalactites on the drip lines of roofs and awnings Monday at noon, and there were still big patches of melting snow ice on the ground in the shadows.

One Holly Springs resident said she looked out at 4 a.m. Friday and there was no snow. The snow fell fast once it started, she said, after she got up to go to work at daylight.

Hall said areas in the City of Holly Springs received about two inches and about three inches accumulated along Highway 72. He had no snow in Cornersville when he left his house just after 4:30 a.m.

Road and bridge crews went right to work putting mix on the slick spots and on overpasses.

“It was a regular work day for us. We were doing what we do,” Hall said of himself and his 40-plus member road and bridge crew.

Traffic was extremely slow on I-22, particularly near the Lake Center exit

“Big trucks were stalling on the ice,” he said.

People driving from the east likely were surprised by frozen precipitation that showed up around the Lake Center exit, and eastbound traffic coming out of DeSoto County had to use extreme caution, as well.

He said traffic backed up all along I-22 in the area of the snow and ice.

Hall said supervisor Eddie Dixon made the first call at about 4:30 a.m. “asking what I had and I said nothing. He said, ‘it’s white up here (at Mt. Plea­sant).’ ”

The state started spreading mix when the snowstorm hit, Hall said. There was a wedge-shaped area from Lewisburg to Barton and from Mt. Pleasant to north of Byhalia that had the greatest accumulation.

Roads in Marshall County were back to normal by Saturday afternoon and lots of the snow and ice freeze dried, going from frozen precipitation to water vapor without melting, the way clothes freeze on the line and dry from the wind without the ice melting first.

Hall said the snow event was typical but the stage was set for a bad event.

“It didn’t play out the way I thought it would,” he said. “That was a good thing. Our people (Marshall Countians) stayed home.”

Major David Cook, with the Marshall County Sheriff’s Department, said there were multiple accidents in the county, most on the state highways.

“We had only two accidents reported on county roads,” Cook said, “and all else were on the state highways. We assisted the highway patrol with multiple accidents.”

One accident with injuries on I-22 at Lake Center involved a Ford 350 pickup and a Chrysler PT Cruiser.

Highway 178 from the east to Holly Springs was slick and dangerous, according to Hall.

“It took an hour and 15 minutes to go from Lake Center to Holly Springs,” he said. “But traffic was moving OK in Holly Springs.”

State highways 72 and 302 were slick from the ice being compacted by vehicle traffic, he said.

Captain Johnny Poulos, director of the public affairs division of the Mississippi Highway Patrol, reported a high number of crashes on Friday, January 6.

“On Friday, the Mississippi Highway Patrol investigated 134 traffic crashes and responded to 296 calls for assistance on interstate and highway systems statewide,” Poulos said. “Rain and icing of the roadways played a significant role in the high number of crashes.”

Temperatures dipped into the teens Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, with some temperatures as low as 9 degrees Fahrenheit. Wind chills made conditions more dangerous. It was water pipe bursting weather.

A Hudsonville resident reported 3 degrees Sunday morning.

This week temperatures are forecasted to reach the 60s.

 

Holly Springs South Reporter

P.O. Box 278
Holly Springs, MS 38635
PH: (662) 252-4261
FAX: (662) 252-3388
www.southreporter.com