County recovering from icy weather

Officials throughout Madison County said they are glad last week’s winter storms are over even as they are dealing with the residual effects of the storms.

At the peak of last week’s storms approximately 6,200 of some 49,584 Entergy customers in Madison County lost power overnight Wednesday, Feb. 17, when a second winter storm brought more sleet and snow through the area.

The majority of those customers had their power restored within 24 hours, said Mara Hartmann, Entergy spokesperson.

“We had just over 6,200 out early Thursday, and Friday, the next day at 10 a.m., we still had about 2,105, out,” Hartmann said. “By 24 hours later, we had two-thirds of those customers restored.”

It was not until Sunday by 10 p.m., however, that all of Madison County’s Entergy cutomers had power restored, Hartmann said, adding that the more customers they get restored the longer it takes to get the remainders.

“We very quickly restored two-thirds of the county,” Hartmann said, adding the company works to get first responders, media and water companies back on first, then transmission points that feed large numbers of customers. Later efforts are for lines that feed smaller numbers of customers, Hartmann said.

“We were able to get everyone in Madison County restored Sunday by 10 p.m.

Madison County Sheriff Randy Tucker told members of the Madison County Board of Supervisors on Monday that the county had no major incidents from the storm.

“We had a lot of ice, a lot of snow, a lot of bad road conditions,” Tucker said. “I want to thank all of the other first responders and emergency county personnel, road department, fire departments. … We did not have a lot of issues. I don’t think we had any significant emergency accidents. We had a lot vehicles that slid off the roads, we had a lot of trees down. I don’t think we had any major road blockages that lasted any lenght of time. All in all, it went well.” 

David Hodge, director of public works for the City of Madison, said he believes Madison was lucky not to have had any more issues than the city experienced from last week’s storms.

“We encouraged everyone to stay off the roads, and we weathered the storm pretty well,” Hodge said, adding his department’s employees put in extra effort to get throught the storms. “We had some long hours monitoring our systems.”

This week in the aftermath of the storms, Hodge said the city crews have been watching the water pipes to make sure no leaks emerge and monitoring the roads.

“We had abnout 15 potholes we are filling today,” Hodge said Wednesday morning.

Mississippi Department of Transportation Public Information Officer Michael Flood said MDOT has its full maintenance employees working to fill potholes on state highways and interstates.

Flood said crews had been working the past three days to repair potholes in Madison County at the I-55 Madison exit and along I-55 between Old Agency Road and the Madison exit.

Flood said MDOT does not have an exact number of potholes created by or worsened by last week’s storms but that they are aware of several including one on U.S. 51 just north of Hoy Road.

“All of our maintenance forces are working to get them all patched up as quickly as possible,” Flood said.

Ridgeland Mayor Gene F. McGee said Ridgeland came through the storm well thanks to the efforts of city employees.

Toward the end of a special-called meeting of the Ridgeland Mayor and Board of Aldermen on Tuesday, Magee said he would be "remiss" if he did not take a moment to recognize the Fire Department, Police Department, Public Works Department and their department heads for their reaction to the ice and snow and rain last week.

Most of the City of Canton was under a boil water notice since last week but on Tuesday afternoon the order was lifted for much of the city.

Canton placed the following notice on the city’s website Tuesday afternoon: “The Boil Water notice put in place for the City of Canton has been lifted EXCEPT in the following areas:

• Way Road

• The North side of Pisgah Bottom Road

• Davis Crossing

• Tyson Road

• Green Road

• Way Road Circle

• Dinkin Road in the county

• Loring Road extension on the West side of HWY 51

• Loring Road to Truitt Road

• Old HWY 51

• HWY 51 from Way Rd intersection to Load Road intersection.

All citizens living inside the Canton City Limits boil water notice has been lifted.”

Duncan Dent contributed to this report.