JACKSON, Miss. | Mississippi dispatchers are fielding desperate calls for medication or oxygen from people stuck in their homes. Troopers in Tennessee are fanning out for welfare checks on those who haven’t been heard from in days.
And in at least one rural area, officials have resorted to using trucks typically used for battling wildfires to transport patients to hospitals.
It could be days before power is restored across the South, where more subfreezing temperatures are expected by Friday in areas unaccustomed to and ill-equipped for such cold.
The situation is reaching a breaking point for the elderly and those with medical conditions who lack electricity, some of whom are trapped by roads made impassable by ice and fallen trees.
In northern Mississippi, the situation was “life-or-death,” said Jamie Parttridge, a longtime resident of Batesville, along icy Interstate 55 in the hard-hit northern part of the state.
Nancy Dillon, 87, spent three days without power on her family farm in the rural outskirts of Nashville, Mississippi, relying on her fireplace for warmth. When her phone battery started dying and her backup battery pack stopped working, she said she became “alarmed.”
“If I were to fall, if I were to need somebody, there would be no way to get help,” Ms. Dillon said, adding that electricity was restored Tuesday night.
The growing misery and anxiety comes amid what Mississippi officials say is the state’s worst winter storm in more than 30 years. About 60 warming centers were opened across a state known as one of the nation’s poorest. But for some communities, they are not enough.
About 100,000 homes and businesses remained without power in Mississippi early Thursday, and another 100,000 customers were without power in Tennessee, according to PowerOutage.us.
More than half of the residents in 13 Mississippi counties had no power. Many of them of were in the northern part of the state but several were also in the Mississippi Delta region on the state’s west side.
At least 70 people have died across the U.S. in states afflicted by the dangerous cold.
In Hardin County, Tennessee, at the Mississippi state line, LaRae Sliger, the county’s emergency management director, said while people were prepared to manage a couple of days without power, they can’t go much longer without help.
“They’re cold, they don’t have power, they don’t have heat, they’re out of propane, they’re out of wood, they’re out of kerosene for their kerosene heaters,” Ms. Sliger said.
About 90,000 outages remained in Nashville, Tennessee, where downed trees and snapped power lines 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. There’s 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.
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