Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Winter Makes Early Visit, More Expected

Winter paid Nevada County an early visit, with sleet and freezing rain literally shutting down the south third of the county.

The freezing rain and sleet began falling early Wednesday morning, dropping two inches of precipitation on the ground.

It left most of the county without electricity Wednesday and Thursday, with some parts still having no power Monday.

Along with the lack of electricity, phone service was knocked out for the south part of the county as well.

Rosston had another more serious problem as its water system went out with the electricity.

Lewis Jackson, mayor of Rosston, said the city's generator didn't work, which left him scrambling to find a way to get water to the people.

Nevada County Judge James Roy Brown came to Rosston's aid by loaning the city a generator the county had.

From there, Jackson said, Rosston and Willisville swapped the generator back and forth, each using it to fill their tank, then sending it back to the other.

However, parts of Rosston are still without electricity, though the city is under a boil order on its water use.

Jackson is trying to find someone who can repair the city's generator so it will be ready in case severe weather hits again.

In order to make calls to find a generator Jackson had to use his cell phone, and go to the top of a hill to be able to use it.

"Everything's OK now," he said, with the exception of some residents still being without electricity.

The weather problems caused delays in Rosston getting its new fire station built.

Construction crews from HCC of Waldron were able to get the steel skeleton in place, but were prevented from putting up the rest of the metal building when the sleet and freezing rain hit.

However, Jackson said, the crews are back and should get the building finished out by the end of the week if bad weather holds off.

The weather also shut the Nevada Schools down, as it did in Prescott and Emmet.

Rick McAfee, Nevada superintendent, said students will be taking their semester tests this week, with school to let out Thursday, Dec. 21, for the Christmas holidays.

McAfee said the school had electricity back on Saturday, which allowed classes to resume Monday. Phone service was restored late Sunday.

"The County Sheriff and County Judge did yeoman's work in this part of the county," he said, "getting the roads clear."

This allowed school to resume as quickly as it did, he said, adding more than 1,000 people were working in Nevada County at one time to get things back to normal.

The problem in this part of the county, he said, is the Nevada School is designated as a Red Cross station, but had no power. The nearest Red Cross station after Rosston is Texarkana.

"We need to find a way to get set up with the Red Cross," he said.

While the potential for disaster was great, it was avoided.

Nevada County Sheriff Steve Otwell said there were no weather-related accidents from Wednesday on.

Deputies pitched in to help get the roads clear. Otwell and his brother Mike road around, cutting trees out of the road where they found them.

The lower end of the county, he said, got more ice than sleet.

Parts of Emmet, he said, was without power a couple of days, but there was no problem in the downtown area.

"We lucked out," he said. "I expected Thursday and Friday night to be bad, but they weren't."

Davis Benton, Cale weatherman, agreed, saying the situation could have been much worse.

"I wouldn't classify this as a major ice storm," he said. "The roads didn't freeze over, but there were problems with trees across the roads and power lines."

Benton said Cale received about two inches of precipitation in the form of freezing rain and sleet, with the temperature dropping to 25 degrees Thursday.

Prescott meteorologist John W. Teeter, said this weather is unusual, but has happened before. In 1983 a similar winter storm hit the area and lasted longer.The Prescott area, he said, received about two inches of snow and ice, with the low temperature being 18 degrees Sunday.

"It stayed below freezing all day Sunday," he said.

According to Teeter, the National Weather Service says the area could see the pattern repeating as two systems are pushing against one another.

Teeter said residents of the county should expect to see something fall, but had no idea whether it would be rain, freezing rain, sleet or snow.

Nevada County Judge James Roy Brown said road and bridge crews were kept busy clearing roads.

The crews began working Thursday morning and worked through Saturday evening.

However, he said, they quit working for the day at dark because they couldn't see which trees were on power lines and weren't sure if the lines were hot or not.

By the end of the day Saturday, he said, all roads in the county had at least one lane open. Road crews returned Monday morning to begin work on getting both lanes of all roads open for traffic.

Brown said the southern two-thirds of the county was hit worse with trees down.

According to a release from the South Central Arkansas Electric Cooperative, getting power restored will be different from co-op to co-op, as each uses a repair plan for such emergencies.

South Central tries to get the main lines back on first, thereby restoring power to as many customers as possible as quickly as it can.

After this is done, the co-op begins working to clear up problems leading off the main line.

Once the high voltage lines have been repaired the co-op starts on other repairs to homes and farms.

South Central has round-the-clock crews and office staff on duty when such storms hit to allow the customers to talk about their problems and be placed on a repair list.