BELZONI, Miss. (AP) — With another wave of dangerous cold heading for the U.S. South on Friday, experts say the risk of hypothermia heightens for people in parts of Mississippi and Tennessee who are entering their sixth day trapped at home without power in subfreezing temperatures.
“The longer you’re exposed to the cold, the worse it is,” said Dr. Hans House, a professor of emergency medicine at the University of Iowa. “The body can handle cold temperatures briefly very well, but the prolonged exposure is a problem.”
The National Weather Service said arctic air moving into the Southeast will cause already frigid temperatures to plummet into the teens (minus 10 degrees Celsius) on Friday night in cities like Nashville, where more than 79,000 homes and businesses still lacked power nearly a week after a massive storm dumped snow and ice across the eastern U.S.
People who are more vulnerable—the elderly, infants and those with underlying health conditions—may have started experiencing hypothermia symptoms within hours of being exposed to the frigid temperatures, explained Dr. Zheng Ben Ma, medical director of the University of Washington Medical Center’s northwest emergency department. That includes everything from exhaustion to slurred speech and memory loss.
But almost a week in and the situation is nearing a turning point, he explained: Younger people who are generally healthy could potentially begin to fall victim to these symptoms as well.
“Once you get into days six, seven, upwards of 10, then even a healthy, resilient person will be more predisposed to experiencing some of those deleterious effects of the cold temperature,” he said.
‘I Just Couldn’t Take the Cold Anymore’
Glyn Alexander, 73, endured three days without electricity before deciding to leave her home in Belzoni, a small city in the Mississippi Delta. She was cozier Thursday at a local warming shelter, where a generator kept the indoor temperature at a balmy 82 F.
“Three days in the cold, sleeping in the cold, eating in the cold,” Alexander said. “I just couldn’t take the cold anymore.”
The prolonged freeze left some residents increasingly desperate in a region unaccustomed to such conditions. Emergency dispatchers in Mississippi received calls from people running out of food and medications while stuck at home. In Tennessee, social workers coordinated with police and firefighters to check on residents who hadn’t been heard from in days.
“No one really knew that it was going to be like this, or how bad,” said CJ Bynum, who used his Jeep to help drivers stranded along Interstate 55 in northern Mississippi, where 18-wheel trucks still lined the icy highway two days after traffic ground to a halt
Hundreds of National Guard troops mobilized Thursday in Mississippi and Tennessee to clear debris and assist people stranded in cars or stuck at homes.
National Guard Delivers Food, Supplies
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said Guard troops were delivering meals, blankets and other supplies by truck and helicopter. And in Tennessee, Gov. Bill Lee said crews had distributed more than 600 units of warming supplies and over 2,200 gallons (8,328 liters) of gas and diesel.
Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell said that they have the most line workers, crews and vegetation support workers in the city utility’s history as they work to get electricity back for everyone.
But the exact timeline for power to be restored, especially in more rural areas, remains unclear.
At least 85 people have died in areas affected by bitter cold from Texas to New Jersey. Roughly half the deaths were reported in Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana. While some deaths have been attributed to hypothermia, others are suspected to be related to carbon monoxide exposure.
Dr. Abhi Mehrotra, an emergency medicine physician with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said it’s important to make sure heat sources used indoors, including generators, are not emitting carbon monoxide, which could be deadly.
More than 230,000 homes and businesses were without electricity Thursday night, according to the outage tracking website poweroutage.us. The vast majority were in Mississippi and Tennessee, with roughly 87,000 each.
Warming Centers Are Open Across Mississippi
In Batesville, Mississippi, where most of the city’s 7,400 residents were without power, Mayor Hal Ferrell said officials were dealing with outages at nursing homes, a shortage of generators for shelters and ice-covered interstates that slowed deliveries.
“We’re just stymied with everything we’re trying to do,” Ferrell said.
Mississippi officials say it’s the state’s worst winter storm since 1994. About 80 warming centers were opened across the state, known as one of the nation’s poorest.
Forecasters say the subfreezing weather will persist in the eastern U.S. into February and there’s high chance of heavy snow in the Carolinas, Virginia and northeast Georgia this weekend, possibly up to a foot (30 centimeters) in parts of North Carolina. Snow is also possible along the East Coast from Maryland to Maine.
The National Weather Service said there was a chance of freezing rain Thursday night in parts of Mississippi, and light snow showers could hit Nashville overnight Friday. Forecasters said the extreme cold and subzero wind chills (minus 18 C) represented the greatest danger.
A full list of warming shelter locations is available on the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency’s website.
Read continuing coverage of Winter Storm Fern here.
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Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia, and Thanawala from Atlanta. Associated Press writers Jeff Martin in Atlanta; Jonathan Mattise and Travis Loller in Nashville, Tennessee; Sarah Brumfield in Washington; Devi Shastri in Milwaukee and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed.