Winter storm slams McDowell

McDowell County, along with much of the East Coast, is still digging out from the big snowstorm of December '09.
The blast of winter weather left McDowell blanketed by 12 to 16 inches of snow, depending upon the area of the county.
The snow began falling around 7 a.m. Friday and continued until approximately 11 a.m., when it changed over to sleet. It then turned back to snow by mid-afternoon. By 5 p.m., 6 inches of snow had fallen.
The white stuff continued its descent on McDowell, eventually shutting down westbound Interstate 40 from Old Fort Mountain to Parker Padgett Road, Coxes Creek Mountain and U.S. 70 West at Mackey's Creek. Stranded and wrecked tractor-trailers caused traffic to snarl.
"On Friday night, one of our biggest challenges was I-40 and Old Fort Mountain," said McDowell County Emergency Management Director Terry Young.
Officials set up two shelters in Old Fort: one at the First Baptist Church and the other at Old Fort Wesleyan Church.
Around 275 to 280 people – mostly stranded motorists -- stayed at both churches, according to Young.
Another shelter was set up Friday night at East McDowell Junior High School in Marion. A total of 12 people stayed there. Eleven of them were motorists who had gotten off the interstate and needed a place to stay.
"They had actually got turned around and headed to the shelter," said Young.
The other person at the East Junior High shelter was an elderly man who had lost his power.
In many ways, the foothills of western North Carolina were harder hit than the mountain counties.
The huge snowstorm left numerous wrecks, stranded motorists and downed trees across McDowell. It also left thousands of people in the county without electricity in this cold and brutal weather.
Young said 2,169 people, all Duke Energy customers, were without power on Saturday. Emergency crews were unable to get any numbers about how many Rutherford Electric customers were without power Saturday.
As of Sunday afternoon, power had been restored to all but 187 Duke Energy customers in McDowell.
"It's sporadic," said Young. "It's different places."
He added that Rutherford Electric reported none of its customers were without power as of Sunday afternoon.
The N.C. National Guard was called to help stranded motorists and others affected by the storm. The National Guard had four crews (a total of eight people) with four Humvees working in McDowell. They began their assistance here at 3 p.m. Friday. The Guardsmen patrolled the roads at night, looking for stranded motorists. They assisted Friday night with pulling cars off the interstate and getting some people to the shelters.
The Guardsmen also helped EMS with some emergency calls and pulled tractor-trailers out of the snow.
Four of the members of the N.C. National Guard remained on duty Sunday in McDowell. Emergency Management officials requested that they stay here until at least this morning.
A total of 24 Guardsmen helped out in western North Carolina. They are working out of the Hendersonville and Marion armories. About 50 Guardsmen, both the Army and Air National Guard, have been on standby since Friday morning as the winter weather moved into North Carolina. The Guardsmen will stay on duty until conditions warrant their release.
The National Guard has mobilized for state active duty numerous times for everything from winter storms, hurricanes, floods and stranded hikers and brings a great deal of knowledge and expertise to these types of operations. State duty missions are coordinated through N.C. Emergency Management.
Young said he was not aware of any major injuries caused by the massive winter storm. But McDowell, like so many other counties, has seen a lot of downed trees. They are mostly in the Old Fort area, the Pleasant Gardens community, the Woodlawn community and N.C. 226A and the Hankins Road and Yancey Road communities. Crews from the county's volunteer fire departments and the state DOT have been busy working to clear downed trees from roads. The N.C. Department of Corrections' BRIDGE crews were working in P.G. and Woodlawn on Sunday.
State DOT crews have made significant progress on major highways as they work to clear roads hit by heavy snow and ice during Friday's winter storm. Across most of the affected areas, particularly in the mountains, interstates and primary highways are mostly clear, enabling crews to turn their efforts to secondary roads.
Nearly 60 workers from the DOT's more eastern areas are providing assistance in the mountain counties, as are 10 workers from the N.C. Forestry Service and six contract crews. More DOT staff members from other divisions are on standby if needed. In addition to the manpower, DOT crews are bringing equipment such as motor graders, dump trucks, backhoes and tree-cutting gear. They will assist workers in Buncombe, Burke, Yancey and McDowell counties.
Clearing out downed trees and opening up secondary roads is a prime goal, as utility crews need to get into the affected neighborhoods to restore power. Chainsaw crews getting the trees off the roads need to be cautious in their work as downed wires could still be live in some cases. Because of that, residents of the affected areas are asked to stay away from the downed trees and power poles until the area is cleared by NCDOT and power crews. Once the wires are out of the way, then plowing crews can get in and work on the roads.
While many of the roads are now clear, motorists need to remain cautious because of the possibility of black ice forming.