Pike County largely escaped a winter storm’s threat of impassable roads and widespread power outages, although not everyone got through a frigid Monday night with their lights on, and some streets were slicker than normal by daybreak Tuesday.
The weather’s main concern as of Tuesday morning were temperatures in the teens and below-zero wind chills that brought exposure risks and threats to plumbing.
“We’ve got a wind chill of minus 1. That’s dangerous, I don’t care who you are,” Pike County Civil Defense Director Richard Coghlan said.
One wind chill advisory was set to expire at noon Tuesday before another takes effect from 6 p.m. Tuesday through 10 a.m. Wednesday, the same time a hard freeze warning expires.
Meanwhile, few if any outages were reported on Entergy’s grid in the McComb area on Monday night through Tuesday morning, and Magnolia Electric Power linemen appeared to be making quick progress on restoring power in rural areas.
Coghlan said the effects of the storm were more severe not too far to the north, with more reports of wrecks and outages in the Brookhaven area, and Lake Dixie Springs seemed to be a line of demarcation for slick, icy roads.
“There have been a lot of wrecks,” he said. “Brookhaven was far worse.”
He was relieved the mix of precipitation and freezing temperatures left as little ice as it did locally.
“The timing on the thing, precipitation versus freezing, we still got a little, it’s just patchy,” Coghlan said. “The ice is really light.”
But the area isn’t in the clear yet, he warned, with even slicker roads ahead after a thaw and refreeze on Tuesday night, and it could take as long as Thursday for homeowners to discover that their pipes froze and burst.
“Some of this is going to get out of here today and what puddles up is going to freeze again tonight,” he said. “The bridges are not going to get a lot of help today. It's going to be slick at night and especially in the morning.”
He advised residents to park vehicles facing south “so that north wind won’t get up on your engine.”
Pets and plumbing are now the main concerns, Coghlan said, urging residents to continue dripping their pipes until temperatures are well above freezing.
“Just keep an eye on that. You’ve got to leave them dripping,” he said. “If you put heat on them, that helps. Open up all the cabinet doors in your house.”
Coghlan said pipes tend to break after a series of thawing and refreezing.
“Some of them may have frozen tonight and today they may have thawed out and they don’t run them,” he said. “The second time it freezes it has more pressure. Just because it got daylight doesn't shut them off. Leave them dripping.”
