Fielder's Choice

What happened 28 years ago was the talk of the town last week.

Thank goodness, this time around, Marshall and Benton counties took a minimal hit.

That wasn’t the case in February 1994.

The six-column headline across the front page of the February 17, 1994, South Reporter said, “Ice storm delivers knockout punch.”

There were other headlines on the page ­ Thousands without electricity when limbs fall on power lines; FEMA visit focuses on life-threat assistance; Utilities scramble to restore lights.

The storm had hit a week earlier, Thursday, Feb. 10.

Virtually all of Marshall and Benton counties were without electricity that night. Transformers, main lines and poles were down across the Holly Springs Utility Department and Northcentral Electric Power Association service areas.

Walter Webb, then the editor of the newspaper, said the power at his house went out at 3:30 Thursday and it was Monday before “we saw the glow again.”

“What a wonderful sight,” he wrote.

Others were without electricity much, much longer.

Also in his weekly column, Webb wrote that C.B. McClatchy at True Value met a truck at Pontotoc loaded only with chainsaws, generators and lanterns and sold everything he had the next day.

The Holly Springs Utility Department estimated the cost of repairing the system would be more than $430,000.

Assessment of damages by HSUD included 175 utility poles on the ground and 60 transformers out of service. Major transmission lines had to be rebuilt.

Service areas with major problems, according to one of the front page articles, included wooded areas in the Holly Springs National Forest, mostly in Benton County and eastern Marshall County; areas north of Highway 72; and the Laws Hill area.

Another front page article included this paragraph ­ The deafening quiet was ripped by the roar of chainsaws as crews and citizens worked in the city and county to begin removing fallen trees and branches that had to be cleared for electricity to be restored.

Highway crews worked continually, clearing roads of sleet, fallen trees and limbs.

Forty percent of Marshall County’s 274,000 acres of privately owned timber was destroyed.

In Holly Springs, shelters opened at the National Guard Armory and First Baptist Church.

In his weekly column, the late Gale Denley of Bruce wrote that more than 60,000 North Mississippians were without power “in the deep freeze.” His area was on the fringe of the bad stuff.

The Burlesons lived in Aberdeen in February 1994. We were blessed to be just below the line of the huge ice storm.

Last week, when I was around people who mentioned “The Ice Storm of 1994,” others in the conversation would quickly say, “Don’t talk about that.”

The front page headline on February 24 read, “Utilities seeing light after storm damage believed worst ever.”

It was a nightmare that no one ever wants to go through again.