By SOPHIE BATES, JEFF MARTIN and RUSS BYNUM Associated Press
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Conditions were growing more dire 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 Wednesday 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.
“We are doing everything we possibly can,” said Gibens, noting 200 people were staying at a local arena being used as a warming shelter.
More than 100,000 outages remained in Nashville, Tennessee, where downed trees and snapped power lines blocked access to some areas. Utility workers will need at least the weekend, if not longer, to finish restoring power, said Brent Baker, a Nashville Electric Service vice president.
Forecasters say the subfreezing weather will persist in the eastern U.S. into February, with a new influx of arctic air arriving this weekend. There’s a growing chance for heavy snow in the Carolinas and Virginia.
The National Weather Service said chances of additional, significant snowfall are low in places like Nashville, but weekend temperatures will reach dangerously low single digits with wind chills below zero.
An ‘extremely frightening’ night on a frozen highway
The impasse on Mississippi interstates began Tuesday when drivers began using single lanes the state’s transportation agency had tried to keep open for emergency vehicles. Cars and semitrucks began getting stuck, Department of Transportation spokesperson David Kenney said.
The blocked highways were making it harder for authorities to distribute emergency supplies. Scott Simmons, spokesperson for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, said its drivers were having to find alternate routes to avoid the backups.
Lewis said she and a friend, Catherine Muldoon, were driving through Mississippi on a trip from Florida to Oklahoma when they got stuck on I-22 at about noon Tuesday. Cars and trucks were backed up in a single lane.
For hours, they would turn on the car for 15 minutes to warm up and then shut it off for 45 minutes to conserve fuel. Finally at about 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, they followed a pickup truck on one of the ice-covered, traffic-free lanes and reached a gas station.
“It was extremely frightening,” Muldoon said. “If we didn’t have the blankets and clothing that we had, it would have been dire straits.”
All passenger vehicles were cleared from the frozen highways by 3 a.m. Wednesday, according to the Mississippi Department of Public Safety. But there remained long lines of commercial trucks still awaiting removal hours later.
In the small community of Red Banks, Mississippi, local authorities were asking people with all-terrain vehicles to bring water, food, blankets or gas to stranded motorists, said Lacey Clancy, who works at a cafe near I-22 and neighboring Highway 178.
“The highway kind of looks like a parking lot,” Clancy said in a phone interview. “A lot of people have run out of gas, abandoned their vehicles.”
Angie Gresham, who lives in nearby Holly Springs, Mississippi, said hundreds of stranded vehicles were lining I-22 as well as streets in the city. She said stranded truck drivers were searching for stores and restaurants that had power.
“They’re just trying to survive,” Gresham said.
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Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia. Martin reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writers Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee; Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Jonathan Mattise in Nashville, Tennessee, and Sarah Brumfield in Washington contributed to this report.