Mississippi sending 135 snowplows to help clear ice and snow from traffic-clogged highways

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi officials sent National Guard troops, tow trucks and 135 snowplows Wednesday to clear snow and ice from two interstate highways where massive traffic jams began piling up a day earlier on the frozen, slippery roadways.

No injuries were reported, the Mississippi Department of Public Safety said. One traveler told The Associated Press she feared she might freeze to death on Interstate 22, where her car sat idle for 14 hours before she followed a pickup truck to get around the pileup and reach a gas station.

“I just thought that we were going to die there,” said Samantha Lewis, 78, who got stuck in Mississippi during a road trip with a friend. “There was nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to save us.”

The highway shutdowns in northern Mississippi upped the misery and anxiety in a Southern state still reeling from officials say is its worst winter storm in more than 30 years.

“Ice and snow is everywhere. Lots of downed trees. This storm was worse than 1994’s historic storm,” Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said in a social media post Wednesday as he visited hard-hit areas.

Power outages linger with more arctic weather on the way

Officials said conditions were growing more dire in areas that still have widespread outages days after a weekend winter storm blasted parts of the South and the Northeast. More than 370,000 homes and businesses remained without power nationwide Wednesday.

More than 100,000 of those outages were in Nashville, Tennessee, where downed trees and snapped power lines still 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 and 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.

In northeast Mississippi, emergency managers in Alcorn County were receiving “calls of desperation” from people stuck inside their homes and running out of food, water, medication and other supplies, said Evan Gibens, the emergency agency’s director.

Dispatchers, who have been sleeping on site since Friday, have fielded more than 2,000 calls from people seeking help, Gibens estimated. He said about 200 people are staying at a local arena being used as a warming shelter.

“We are doing everything we possibly can,” Gibens said.

An `extremely frightening' night on a frozen highway

The Mississippi Department of Transportation said Wednesday the impasse on its interstates began Tuesday when drivers began using single lanes the agency had tried to keep open for emergency vehicles. Cars and semitrucks began getting stuck, agency spokesperson David Kenney said.

The blocked highways were making it harder for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency to distribute emergency supplies. Agency spokesperson Scott Simmons 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 that was partly cleared. They spent more than half a day stranded, Lewis said, turning on the car for 15 minutes to warm up and then shutting 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.”

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 scouring stores and restaurants, many which don’t have power, in search of food and supplies.

“They’re just trying to survive,” Gresham said.

The Mississippi Department of Public Safety said in a statement that all passenger vehicles were cleared from the frozen highways by 3 a.m. Wednesday. That left long lines of commercial trucks still awaiting removal hours later.

Mississippi National Guard soldiers equipped with wreckers began arriving before dawn Wednesday, State transportation officials announced Wednesday afternoon that the 135 snowplows were being dispatched to the clear the icy interstates.