Will Mississippi better prepare for the next winter storm? Officials are dubious.
By Alex Rozier | Originally published by Mississippi Today
As autumn begins to take hold in north Mississippi, leaves are falling onto roads still littered with tree limbs and other debris from last winter’s torment, state officials said.
Over eight months since Winter Storm Fern, the Mississippi Department of Transportation said its “massive” debris cleanup effort will likely last until Halloween. Officials in three counties – Lafayette, Union and Tishomingo – estimated they amassed roughly 2.5 million cubic yards – one cubic yard is about the size of a dishwasher – of debris in those places alone.
CLICK HERE: Mississippi Today’s disaster guide
Federal dollars are slowly arriving to assist Mississippi’s local and state recovery efforts. As of late September, the Federal Emergency Management Agency awarded nearly $200 million in public assistance grants to Mississippi, roughly half of the $416 million the state reported in damages, data from the agency shows.
In a state much more accustomed to flooding, tornadoes and hurricanes, the January storm was one of Mississippi’s deadliest natural disasters of the 21st century. The last comparable event, most in the state say, was the Great Ice Storm of 1994. Thirty people died, largely from a mix of house fires and hypothermia. Many more suffered with limited access to food and water, stranded in dark homes along roads too dangerous to drive on.
In the following months, residents and public officials underscored the state’s lack of preparedness for winter disasters, Mississippi Today reported. They pointed to days-long waits for water, food and generators, as well as the many critical facilities – such as hospitals, drinking water systems and prisons – that lacked sufficient back-up power.
State officials have since pointed to tangible solutions, such as storing resources in north Mississippi, improving disaster aid and maintaining trees near power lines. But they also argued there isn’t much more Mississippi can do to mitigate a once-every-30-year event.
Now in October, discussion of Fern has largely melted away.
In June, the Mississippi Public Service Commission held a two-day summit in Tupelo focused on lessons learned from the storm. The idea, Northern District Public Service Commissioner Chris Brown said, was to leave better prepared for the next bout of brutal cold weather.
“Preparation is wisdom, we owe that to the people we serve,” Brown said after quoting Proverbs 27:12: “ A prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself, but the simple passeth on and are punished.”
While the summit elicited some specific suggestions – largely calls for more generators – it was unclear how those ideas would be executed. Brown’s office did not respond to multiple calls about possible next steps.
At the event, held in a Tupelo High School auditorium, meteorologist Matt Laubhan underscored that the next large winter storm could hit any year.
“There’s no guarantee it’s 30 years from now when we have the next one of these,” Laubhan told the couple dozen people in attendance. “It easily could be this next year. There’s no magic thing that keeps it being that spread out.
“Knowing your weaknesses today, it’s necessary to fixing tomorrow.”
‘You can’t prevent the weather’
Overall, interviews with north Mississippi lawmakers revealed a sense that little could be, or even needed to be, changed to better handle future winter storms.
“As far as legislation, I mean, you can’t prevent the weather,” Rep. Clay Deweese, a Republican from Oxford, said. “An ice storm, the event we had up north is just… Do you need to be prepared? Sure, you do. But that’s just not really very predictable.”
Rep. Sam Creekmore, a Republican from New Albany, echoed the sentiment.
“I’m not sure legislatively what we need to do to help better prepare Mississippi than what we’ve already done,” he said. “I mean, it’s not going to prevent the storm.”
Lawmakers reiterated the infrequency of such an event, arguing it’s hard to fund mitigation against a once-every-30-year event.
“ I think there’ll be lessons learned, and there will be takeaways, and there’ll be improvements,” said Sen. Daniel Sparks, a Republican from Belmont. “But it’s hard to turn around then and legislate based on the outlier.”
‘You can’t do nothing’
While Mississippi officials underlined the infrequency of winter storms of Fern’s magnitude, climate experts agreed there’s no telling when another event will hit the state.
“I wouldn’t say put your money on that you’re going to see more of these events next year or the year after, but you will eventually,” said B.J. Baule, a climatologist at the Southern Regional Climate Center at Texas A&M University. “So being prepared, having that capacity, knowing where the vulnerabilities are is important.”
David Holt, a geography professor at the University of Southern Mississippi who specializes in climate and resilience, called it “foolish” to rely on the once-every-30-year frequency in predicting future winter storms.
“To fall back on saying we’ve got another 30 years before we have another Fern come along, it’s naive at best,” Holt said.
Scientists are still studying whether any link between climate change and winter storm intensity or frequency exists, such as with flooding or extreme heat. But climate variability, researchers say, has increased. There’s less certainty today over how often an event like Fern might occur than there was in 1994, Holt and Baule agreed.
“ The reality is we can’t predict if we’re going to have a colder winter or a hotter winter,” Holt said. “We can estimate or give you statistical probabilities, but we can’t guarantee it. But what we can guarantee is that we expect there to be greater variability.”
It’s more likely a similar event happens sooner than 30 years from now because of increasing temperatures that lead to more moisture and more precipitation, including ice, Holt said.
“My professional gut opinion is that it feels like it’s more likely to happen again sooner than later because we just see this variability,” he said.
While temperatures have risen in Mississippi over the last century – although not as much as in other parts of the country – residents and officials have noticed a string of harsh winter events in recent years, such as in 2021 and in 2023.
”North Mississippi has been impacted by a winter weather event consistently over the last five years,” said Beau Moore, a public information officer for Lafayette County. “ As our weather patterns are changing, we need to also have (more) resources available in north Mississippi.”
Baule explained that, more recently, the Arctic is warming faster than the equator, leading to more north-to-south jet streams. That phenomenon brings cold fronts farther south, such as what Mississippi saw with Fern. Baule said data is insufficient to make a definite connection, but the trend “could be attributable to climate change.”
New warehouse in north Mississippi?
One potential fix officials are discussing, aimed at reducing delivery times for resource requests, is to build a new warehouse in north Mississippi to store items like food, water, tarps and cots.
“I would like to have MEMA have a warehouse in north Mississippi with some materials on hand for a rapid response,” Sen. Chad McMahan, a Republican from Guntown, said.
Moore told Mississippi Today that Lafayette County officials are looking to do just that. He said the county is talking with the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency about securing funds for the project – estimated to cost around $2 million.
“They’ve been good talks, good conversations, it’s just sometimes these items take time to get done,” he said.
MEMA confirmed it was in discussions with Lafayette County.
“We prepositioned personnel and supplies before Winter Storm Fern and would certainly not hesitate to move materials to the Lafayette County location if it is deemed necessary for a particular event,” Scott Simmons, the agency’s director of external affairs, told Mississippi Today.
A permanent disaster loan program?
Another solution to improve preparedness is to make a recently created emergency loan program permanent, some lawmakers said.
In April, the Legislature created a temporary revolving loan program to help cities and counties hurt by Winter Storm Fern while they awaited federal assistance funding. While technically a loan, the 3% interest rate only kicks in if an applicant doesn’t receive the same amount through FEMA’s Public Assistance grants.
As of Oct. 1, the state had awarded $79 million in loans to over 20 cities and counties.
Creekmore said he would support a permanent version of the program that can quickly kick in once a disaster strikes. The temporary program is set to expire in July 2027.
“It’d be nice to have that kick in and give these people peace of mind,” Creekmore said, calling the program a “saving grace” for areas hit by the winter storm. “We’re fortunate we were in session to do that (right after Fern).”
Deweese, who introduced the House’s version of the program, said a permanent loan program is “something we may need to look at.”
Fortifying the electric grid
Winter Storm Fern took out power for roughly 300,000 residents, or more than one in 10 Mississippians, state officials estimated in the disaster’s aftermath.
Keith Hayward, the general manager of the Northeast Mississippi Electric Power Association, said the utility’s biggest obstacle to restoring power was the amount of fallen trees and limbs that stood in the way.
“I equate it to a F2 or F3 tornado that basically went across our whole system,” Hayward said, adding it took three weeks before every customer’s lights were back on.
After the last comparable winter storm in 1994, the utility more aggressively trimmed the hanging limbs and vegetation in its rights-of-way, or the areas around power lines and poles. Legally, the utility can tackle vegetation up to 30 feet away from power lines, Hayward said.
Another utility manager, Sean McGrath of the Alcorn County Electric Power Association, said increasing power companies’ easements would help prevent outages. Most power outages are caused by fallen trees or vegetation originating on private property, McGrath said.
“ I think we need to look at possibly changing easement law and giving us the opportunity to cut a hazardous tree when the homeowner doesn’t necessarily want that tree cut,” he said. “ If you really want to look at hardening your infrastructure, it starts with your easement laws.”
Hayward agreed some private property owners are making outages worse.
“ When you have a community that loves their trees and has a tree board and their tree that they’ve been trimming on for 30 years, is four foot thick and falls across a three-phase line and breaks 10 poles, what are you going to do?” he asked.
Sparks, the senator from Belmont, said while he would entertain the idea it would be hard to pass legislation limiting private property owners’ rights.
“That’s going to be super tough,” Sparks said.
Another question officials raised after Fern is whether it makes sense to put power lines underground so they’re not susceptible to disasters like winter storms or tornadoes. While underground lines are more resilient to storms, they’re also significantly more costly to build.
In his area, Hayward said subdivisions built since the 1990s are required to build their lines underground. But in rural areas, where one line may stretch over 20 miles to reach just a few homes, the price tag usually isn’t worth it, he added, especially because the utility has to pass those costs on to its ratepayers.
In Oxford, Mayor Robyn Tannehill said new lines there have been built underground for the last 20 years. Tannehill said the city’s goal is to bury other, older lines, but after Fern she isn’t sure how soon Oxford can afford to do so.
Shifting responsibility to locals
During the last legislative session, north Mississippi lawmakers criticized state agencies for not doing enough to prepare for Winter Storm Fern. But one Coast senator argued that it’s local officials who need to be ready to take on more responsibilities, especially as the federal government tries to overhaul FEMA.
Earlier in the year, a council appointed by President Donald Trump – including former Gov. Phil Bryant – released a list of recommended changes to FEMA, which followed Trump’s statements that he wished to get rid of the agency altogether. While the recommendations didn’t go that far, they did call for shifting responsibilities away from FEMA to state and local governments.
Sen. Scott DeLano, a Republican from Biloxi involved in much of the state’s disaster legislation, said he expects the new version of FEMA to send grants to counties so local officials can handle more storm responses without outside assistance. When that transition happens is just a matter of time, the senator said.
“ What we do know is they’re going to push more responsibilities down to the locals,” DeLano told Mississippi Today. “ The time of the mayors calling MEMA and saying, ’Where’s my water truck, where are my generators, where are my tarps?’ That’s gone.”
But that process will require more resources and training at the local level, he added. Winter Storm Fern was a perfect example.
“ When you look at what happened in the winter storm event, the reality is there were a lot of communities that had not faced that type of widespread disruption, and a widespread demand for response in many, many, many years,” DeLano said.
He said there should be better protocols to ensure critical facilities like water systems, hospitals and prisons have backup power, calling that the “lowest hanging fruit.”
“There were things that may have fallen through the cracks over the years that we should certainly use as lessons learned,” DeLano said.
This article was originally published by Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Source: Original Article
