Mississippi shivers under ice as long recovery looms

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Residents in a iced-over swath of Mississippi began to confront the ugly truth Monday as they shivered in ever-colder and darkened houses: Recovery from the state’s worst ice storm in more than 30 years could take a week or more.

While the weekend’s winter storm impacted tens of millions of Americans, the most lingering effects are concentrated in a band from far eastern Texas across north Louisiana, Mississippi and into Nashville, Tennessee.

In the Magnolia State, parents were worrying Monday about their college students at the University of Mississippi, while some residents were trying to fight their way out of a welter of trees blocking driveways. Officials were fretting not only about restoring electricity and opening warming stations, but keeping fuel flowing to backup generators that run water pumps and supply medical facilities and finding a way for darkened gas stations and grocery stores to open.

“I mean, it looks like a war zone out here,” said Adrian Ronca-Hohn, who estimated that the storm toppled around 40 trees surrounding his property in Iuka, in the state’s hilly northeast corner. He and family members plan to chain saw their way out Tuesday.

Like others, Ronca-Hohn couldn’t see the destruction when ice began toppling trees before dawn Sunday. But the 23-year-old football coach and storm chaser said he could hear it.

“We couldn’t go 10 seconds without hearing what sounded like a gunshot,” he said. “You’d hear a pop, a hard pop, and you’d hear the whistle of it falling, and then it would crash to the ground and just kind of explode. And every now and again, you’d hear one real close, like, right outside. It was a sleepless night.”

Marshall Ramsey, a longtime editorial cartoonist who now teaches journalism at Ole Miss, said trees breaking, electric transformers blowing up and thunder made for a “demonic symphony” in Oxford.

Almost 10% of power customers were without electricity Monday afternoon, the largest share of any state nationwide. At Alcorn County Electric Power Association in Corinth, every one of 19,000 electrical meters was dark at midday Monday. High voltage lines that bring power from the Tennessee Valley Authority were down, and General Manager and CEO Sean McGrath said the cooperative couldn’t fully evaluate its own damage until TVA restores power to its substations.

Scott Brooks, a TVA spokesperson, said the power provider was unable Monday to deliver electricity to 12 of its 153 local utilities. Brooks said substations are so damaged at some utilities that they can’t receive electricity.

Jackson Mills, 25, said he was staying with his wife, son and in-laws at his grandfather’s house in Corinth because his grandfather has a gas fireplace. Mills said no gas stations were open in Corinth Sunday and he trekked into nearby Tennessee to buy gas for an generator that the family is using to power a fan and circulate warm air.

“We’d like for all this to mostly go away, just melt away, but it’s just so dadgum cold that it’s not melting,” Mills said.

Things were worse in neighboring Tippah County, where not only was power out, but most people didn’t have running water or natural gas service.

“With these extremely low temperatures we are experiencing today and over the next several days, our situation becomes life-threatening,” said state Rep. Jody Steverson of Ripley. He communicated by text because cellphone service was faltering.

The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said it’s trying to move supplies to more than 60 safe rooms across the hardest-hit areas of the state. Spokesperson Scott Simmons said the agency has received 30 generators from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and is placing them at nursing homes, hospitals, rural water providers and other safe rooms. MEMA is also distributing cots, blankets, prepackaged meals and bottled water.

Back in Oxford, worried parents were trying to organize rides for their students to make from off-campus apartments to one of the warming centers in town. Ole Miss canceled classes for the rest of the week.

Ramsey said his family has been running a generator to power a space heater in his Oxford home, keep phones charged and power a light. He said his house was about 50 degrees inside Monday morning, calling it “a little chilly, but doable” with bright sunlight helping.

“Apparently, the new status symbol in this town is having electricity,” Ramsey said. “It’s a mess.”

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Amy reported from Atlanta. Associated Press reporters Charlotte Kramon in Atlanta and Kim Chandler in Montgomery, Alabama, contributed.