Conditions were dire earlier this week in parts of the South still reeling from subfreezing temperatures and widespread power outages as vehicles got stranded for hours on major highways and officials warned that people stuck at home were running out of food, medicine and other essentials.
Mississippi dispatched 135 snowplows and National Guard troops equipped with wreckers to sections of Interstates 55 and 22 gridlocked by vehicles abandoned in the state’s ice-stricken northern region. Tens of thousands of homes and businesses remained without power as cold daytime temperatures sunk below freezing overnight in a region unaccustomed and ill-equipped for such weather.
Cars and semitrucks trying to navigate the frozen highways single-file began getting stuck Tuesday. No injuries were reported, the Mississippi Department of Public Safety said. But one driver told The Associated Press she feared she might freeze to death on I-22 when her car sat idle for more than 14 hours.
“There was nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to save us,” said Samantha Lewis, 78.
“Calls of Desperation”
The growing misery and anxiety comes amid what Mississippi officials say is the state’s worst winter storm in more than 30 years.
Roughly 332,000 homes and businesses remained without power Wednesday, the vast majority of them in Tennessee and Mississippi. At least 70 people have died across the U.S. in states afflicted by the dangerous cold.
In Hardin County, Tennessee, at the Mississippi state line, many people remain trapped in homes without electricity because of roads made impassable by ice and fallen trees, said LaRae Sliger, the county’s emergency management director.
Sliger said people who were prepared to manage a couple of days without power can’t go much longer without help.
“They’re cold, they don’t have power, they don’t have heat, they’re out of propane, they’re out of wood, they’re out of kerosene for their kerosene heaters,” she said. “They have no food, they have no additional fuel for their alternative heating sources, so they’re needing out.”
In northeast Mississippi, emergency managers in Alcorn County were also receiving “calls of desperation” from people running out of food, water, medication and other supplies, said Evan Gibens, the emergency agency’s director. He said dispatchers who have been sleeping at work since Friday have fielded more than 2,000 calls.
