Ice Storm 2023 — a throwback to Feb. 1994
Father North blew a monster ice storm across Texas into Arkansas, Tennessee into North Mississippi Tuesday leaving many residents and businesses in the dark for days.
Limbs and power poles began to snap Tuesday and outages increased as weather conditions deteriorated increasing buildup of ice on into Thursday.
It looked like it was going to be a short icicle event for most areas of Marshall County beginning Monday evening. But hopes were dashed as drizzle continued to build up ice on limbs over three more days.
Some areas were spared Tuesday, and others not.
The event wreaked havoc with the electric grid in the Holly Springs Utility Department and Northcentral Electric Cooperative leaving many without power into the weekend.
Northcentral Electric Cooperative closed their office at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday as the weather entered the area. By 2 a.m. Wednesday morning there were 11 separate outages affecting 1,010 members and linemen were working to replace two broken poles due to icy conditions. Outages continued to increase by the hour as conditions worsened.
Thursday morning Northcentral called in neighboring cooperatives to help make repairs.
By 7 a.m. outages took a big jump with 38 outages reported and 3,000 members off. Then at 8 a.m. Thursday Northcentral outages had jumped to 50 with 4,551 members sitting in the dark.
The update by Northcentral at 10:30 a.m. Friday showed 97 outages with just over 1,500 members affected.
“We’re checking outages off the list,” Northcentral said on it’s Facebook page. “We’re glad to welcome a crew from Twin County Electric Power Association. They will join the others in restoring power.”
Holly Springs began losing power Tuesday with on and off outages reported by noon. Later in the day some areas lost power and were off during the wee hours after 8:30 p.m.
As conditions worsened much of HSUD’s grid was affected, requiring assistance from neighboring distributors like New Albany.
Some roads were iced over or had patches of black ice Wednesday at daybreak in Holly Springs and Byhalia.
In Laws Hill Tuesday night around 8:30 p.m. power went off for the rest of the night. The Waterford area lost power sometime during the middle of Tuesday night and came back on Wednesday at 7:26 a.m.
Linda Jones reported power at her house on 310 was off most Tuesday night, came back on for a half hour Wednesday morning and then was back off at 8:45 a.m. Residents along Highway 310 on the HSUD system were still without power through Thursday morning, with only brief interruptions when the power came back on or blinked the lights.
Stories were similar over the HSUD system.
The Holly Springs School District closed Wednesday and did not reopen for the week. County schools also closed.
Holly Springs Mayor Sharon Gipson reported on the City of Holly Springs Facebook page that the Multi- Purpose Center on Memphis Street would remain open for those who had no secondary heat source. Blankets were also provided free by TVA for pick up at the multipurpose building.
She reported outages in the Meadows and on Higdon Road.
Wednesday at 11 a.m., power never was lost at a residence on Levi Bell Road off Hernando Road, but his house went dark Thursday.
“The trees are all coated with ice,” said the homeowner. “It’s scary. It looks like the trees may break any minute now.”
Road conditions
Mario Jeffries, manager of Marshall County Road and Bridge department, and assistant manager Steve Boone reported on road conditions beginning Tuesday night.
The most damage took place in Chulahoma and on North and South Red Banks Road.
“There was more damage on the north end than the south end,” Jeffries said. About 80 percent of the road crew members were out Tuesday night applying salt to bridges and removing fallen limbs and trees from county roads, he said.
The worst damage took place on the north side of Highway 178 all the way to the Tennessee line, Boone said.
“The trees just couldn’t handle that ice,” Jeffries said. “We’re still working at Hudsonville Road and Russom Road (Wednesday at 1:30 p.m.). It started getting bad Tuesday night at about 6 p.m. We’ve been working all over.”
Rain picked up again Wednesday after 1:30 p.m. on both the north end and the south end of the county.
Other roads hit hard on the south end of the county included Marianna, Hernando, Laws Hill, Higdon, Murdock, and Old Highway 7 South.
Commissioner steps in
Highway Commissioner for the Northern District of Mississippi Brandon Presley commented on the situation in Holly Springs Utility District Thursday by way of posts on Facebook Feb. 3.
“(I) just hung up with MEMA Director McCraney in reference to Holly Springs Utility District’s ice storm outages. Additional crews are on the way along with other resources. Thanks to the good folks at MEMA for their assistance.”
In another update, the commissioner said he spoke with the Manager of New Albany LG&W Friday and confirmed they have 10 employees on the way over to help restore power.
“More TVA employees are helping” he said. “With the weather warming up, efforts on restoration should be easier.
“I’ve pleaded with the Tennessee Valley Authority for over a year to do a comprehensive review of the management of HSUD and essentially they have done ZERO. Every outage complaint (over 200 yesterday) that comes to my office is sent directly to TVA since they claim to be the sole agency with authority over HSUD. We will continue to get this information into the right hands and work for a permanent solution.”
A statement released by Malary White, MEMA Chief of Communications officer, said MEMA’s state coordinating officers are en route at the direction of Gov. Tate Reeves to Marshall County to assess the ongoing power outages.
“MEMA has activated our State Emergency Operations Center,” White said. “We are coordinating with local electrical power associations to bring in additional assistance to Holly Springs Utility District and surrounding areas to to restore power. We are coordinating with a number of our state and federal partners to assist our north Mississippi residents. MEMA is on the move and will update as soon as we have more ground truth.”