Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Snow Still Hanging Around; Losses Continue To Mount

JOHN RAGSDALE

EDITOR

NEVADA COUNTY PICAYUNE

Snow was still around Monday, the 12th day after it began to fall on Wednesday night, January 26. Only patches were prevalent in most cases. However, it was still thick in some yards and on some rooftops, especially on the north side of the yard and on homes with good insulation.

The snow is not pretty now as it was the day it fell. Now it is nasty. And it brought a nasty price with it, too.

Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance has estimated damages may be as high as $25 million across the state on poultry houses alone. It gets its estimate from an average house 40 by 300 feet (which holds 15,000 broilers) that will cost around $120,000 to rebuild.

In Nevada County alone there were over 20 poultry houses destroyed by the snow that dropped an estimated 12 to 16 inches (not the official measure by weatherman John Teeter, which was 9.25 inches).

Not just poultry houses were hit in the county, though. Barns were felled, side shed collapsed and some other buildings also buckled under the weight of the heavy snow.

Nevada County has been declared a disaster area by Gov. Mike Huckabee. He has applied for federal assistance for 17 counties across the state, with the most being in south Arkansas, the hardest hit.

Perhaps the hardest hit industry was P&W Pattern Mill in Emmet. Its main structure collapsed as did a smaller building. Damage at P&W is estimated to be $50,000.

It is owned by Danny Wood in Camden, who also owns Wood Lumber Company in Camden.

Wood has two contractors working on restoring the warped I-beams. An employee estimates it will take around two weeks for the plant to be repaired.

The plant makes patterned boards, such as what Potlatch used to make. In fact P&W bought the pattern saws from Potlatch when it began operation in 1993. This special equipment makes the tongue and groove boards, beaded boards and other special boards in various thicknesses often used in remodeling older homes or in new homes to make it appear old.

Many people have remarked at the amount of snowfall in one day. Very few have seen more in their lifetime.

While the snow on Wednesday night did not stick to the roads, it did on Thursday morning when it snowed so much.

Interstate 30 traffic couldn't fight the abundance of the fluffy white stuff and eventually motorist began to come to a standstill. More stories are still coming in about the narrow escapes from the I-30 back-ups.

Bill Allen, produce manager at Taylor's Big Star in Prescott, lives just off the Gurdon exit (exit 63). Because of the heavy snowfall on Thursday, he left at noon to go home. Little did he know it take him 24 hours.

Normally Allen gets on the Interstate at exit 46. That day he decided to take 67 North. He met so many cars coming toward Prescott he decided to get on the Interstate at the Okolona exit (exit 54). He was immediately sandwiched between two 18-wheelers, he said. When he eventually got home Friday at noon, he only had one-eighth of tank of gas left. His pickup has two tanks and he had switched to the full tank as he left Taylor's.

"If I hadn't have had the full tank I don't know what I would have done," he said. Allen said the Army National Guard brought some milk by and gave him a banana while he was in the traffic jam that was several miles long. "It was two percent milk. I would have enjoyed whole milk more at that time," Allen remarked, laughing.