Central Mississippi crippled by major ice storm 25 years ago

February 1-2, 1996, central Mississippi was crippled by a major ice storm.

Ice accumulation of up to one inch left thousands without power followed by a brutal arctic cold outbreak.

Eyewitness news 16reinforcements are called to helpprepare power lines damaged by the icestorm of 90 16 times.

The storm is toblame for a number of tragedies, somemore personal than others.

Hello,everybody.

I'm Gina and I'm Whitney Van.As the temperatures dip, conditionsturn worse.

This could be just thebeginning of a brutally cold spell.That's right.

And I was I witnessed yousixteens.

David Hartman is in our nextrad 16 weather center.

He's beentelling this this was coming, and hereit is, David, that's right.

Now we canreally nail it down.

Compare this tothe frigid Arctic blast we had the weekbefore Christmas 1989.

It's gonna bevery similar to that.

The storm.

Thegood news is, that passed us by.

It'sto the east that is taking all themoisture with it up the East Coast now,but on its backside of frigid airmasses gripping the Deep South goingall the way to the Gulf Coast line.

Andright now, wind chill factors wererunning minus 10.

That's the effect ofthe wind blowing on your skin, andthat's what it feels like, that they'reminus 10 temperature of 25 wins.

20 outof the north makes it feel like minus10.

That means you spend 12 minutes outthere.

You run the risk of frostbite,and the time will get even less becausewind chill factors are expected to drophis Lola's 20 or 30 below later tonight.That means if you got 30 seconds, youcould get frostbite.

Dangerous windchills will average zero to minus 15,but with gusty winds, the wind chillwill get lower.

Frigid temperatures allweekend long, with highs no higher thanthe middle twenties.

Anytime thetemperature remains 25 or lower for 36consecutive hours, you run the risk ofbroken pipe.

So a couple things you cando at home make sure you're exposed.Pipes are wrapped.

You may want to keepwater dripping, especially if you havea colder part of the house, which isexposed to an outside wall.

Keep thewater in the ***, it dripping.

Sure,you have plenty of antifreeze in thecar.

You're gonna need it.

Plans foryour pets elderly and you wanna dresswarming now not to get confused.

Carengines don't feel the wind chillfactor.

That's the only the effect onyour skin.

But with temperaturesexpected to dip close to 10 degreestomorrow night and perhaps singledigits Saturday night into Sundaymorning, right on through Mondaymorning, I'm telling you, you're gonnaneed that.

And a free so brutally coldweather sets up for the weekend now.And that's what we have to focus ourattention on, at least weather wise forthe weekend.

Okay, David Hartman.

Thankyou so very much.

Or the lights arestill out tonight for thousands ofMississippi power and light customers.Right now, 35,000 customers across thestate have no power.

At least 20,000 ofthose air right here in the metro.Eyewitness News sixteens Jay Nix tellsus.

Repair crews will be working aroundthe clock.Alvin Price, Ike and his two Childrenwatch anxiously is MP NL Workers repaira power line in front of their home.This tree down the street is theculprit.

It fell on some power linesaround 10 o'clock Thursday night.

Pricesex have been without electricity forover 12 hours.

We had fireplace keepswarm.

You know, we've been doing prettygood.

They I've been working on.

It isjust slow that is out of work.

Repaircrews have been extremely busy the past24 hours of braving bone chillingweather to fix fallen lines.

You staybusy.

You stay kind of warm, but it'skind of movable, this sleep stuff right,but it's not too bad their hard work isappreciated.

E.

But as quickly as lineswere repaired and power's restored inone area and another part of town,another tree falls and the cyclecontinues.

E could get a telephonemoment.

125 empanel operators Airworking, Exhaustive scheduled.

Answerall calls from customers throughoutMississippi.

They're being assisted bya state of the art computer system.Yeah, the customers have been realpatient and understanding.

They can saythe extent of the damage, and they'vejust been real patient with USdamage that will take a couple of daysto repair, depending on the weather.Tonight.

Jay Next Eyewitness News 16.Meanwhile, help arrived late thisafternoon from Louisiana 45