Bitter Blair batters county

Winter ice storm brings community together

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Perry County residents are in the process of cleaning up tree limbs in their yards brought down by a ferocious winter storm that barreled through the Midwest last week, leaving various combinations of heavy snow, frozen rain, and thick ice on streets and highways as it made its way to the east coast.
In the days before winter storm Blair pushed through the Show-Me state, meteorologists warned that areas of southeast Missouri were likely to see as much as half an inch to three-quarters of an inch of ice.

While some parts of the region received various amounts of ice and snow, Perry County became one of the state's hardest-hit areas. Ice collecting on electrical lines left many without power for hours, while others were cuddling under blankets for several days before the lights — and heat — came back on. As of Monday morning, Perry County had 58.83 percent of utility customers without power, and temperatures dropped like a rock due to an arctic blast of cold temperatures that were expected to stay around for the immediate future.

Meanwhile, schools throughout the region closed for several days as city and state employees worked overtime to get life back to normal as quickly as possible.

The Republic-Monitor made contact with various city, county and state personnel on Monday to talk about their experiences in dealing with one of the largest winter storms to hit the United States in decades. While it was undoubtedly a difficult experience, each saw the good that came out of people coming together to help make the situation a little easier for everyone.

“I would say it's something most of us haven't experienced before,” Perryville City Administrator Brent Buerck said. “It was every bit of the storm that they said it could be and more. Public works staff have worked, some of them 22 hours in a row, trying to help the citizens of this community. Police department and fire department staff have worked around the clock to help keep it safe as best we can. Park staff have helped open and facilitate warming shelters. It's been an all-hands-on-deck event, but it’s also been an opportunity for the community to come together and support each other in ways we haven't had to in the past.”

County Clerk Jared Kutz echoed much of what Buerck said about the community coming together in a difficult time.

“We don't have a lot of times when we have emergency declarations in our community, but what I'm impressed with is how quickly our community leaders came together to provide the best services to folks that we are able to,” Kutz said. “At this time, the county commission and the city are working closely with the City of Perryville and, obviously, the emergency management agencies to try to get the roads cleared and to do what they can to make sure that the power lines are cleared so we can return power to folks. We've provided warming shelters for our community at the senior center, another example of the city and county where we come together and then, of course, warming shelters during the day at the Park Center.

“We appreciate that relationship with the city of Perryville. The main thing that we want folks to know is don't try to be a hero. I know we're all wanting to get our yards cleaned up and all that, but there are still limbs falling. If folks need assistance, call the proper authorities or emergency assistance. It's been impressive to watch the county, the city and emergency management work together. And, of course, we greatly appreciate the governor and the Missouri National Guard coming to assist during this big time of need.”

Perryville Public Works Director Jeff Layton’s crew spent many hours away from their own families to ensure that city residents had their needs met first.

“It's been pretty crazy,” he said. “We started about 10 a.m. on Saturday prepping streets, getting equipment ready and putting some pre-salt down to get a base before the ice started coming. They stopped working sometime between one and two in the morning, and then they went home and came back out at about four or five and started grading, salting roads again and clearing up. We started getting a bunch of downed tree limbs and downed lines, and we had to do barricades, so we got a second crew to do an emergency response while the other crew was still salting the roads.

I think we pretty well had a crew going ever since. We haven't really stopped throughout the night.

“The first time I left, it was 2:30 or something. We were going to catch a little bit of sleep and then try to go back in tomorrow, but we got guys that are working until four today. And when the roads get slick again tonight, we'll get a crew out. Hopefully we can make it till tomorrow during the day, but there's supposed to be some wind coming in yet. Hopefully, it don't make any more tree limbs fall down. If it does, we'll be out tonight as well, with a three-man crew to start. And we'll expand that. I think we’ve got about 40 workers or so, and everybody's pitched in. We have a few out with illness right now, but other than that, we've had everybody pretty well going — 12 or more. So, we've been at it for a long time.”

Perryville Emergency Management Director Jeremy Mantz said he had spent most of the weekend making a lot of phone calls and fire calls.
“Streets are improving because public works have been working around the clock with them,” he said. “Public works has been able to move trees out of the streets that aren't entangled with power lines or cable lines. Right now, it's kind of a waiting game with Citizens Electric to move them lines so that we can start removing more brush and get some streets open.

“There are streets that are closed completely off because the low power lines are down. Yesterday was about a 14-hour day. Then I went home and laid down for about an hour and a half. At 7 a.m., I started again today. Yesterday morning, I started at 1:30, and then I went home in the afternoon for about an hour and a half. Then, about 3 this morning, we went home, and then we were back at it again at 7 this morning.”
Perry County Sheriff Jason Klaus spoke about how all of the first responders in the area worked together during the storm.

“Our sheriff's office has been doing the best job that we can to keep up with the calls for service,” he said. “Whether that is checking on individuals who have lost power, may have some medical needs, of checking on power lines that are down. Just really trying to focus on the safety of everyone as our first priority. All of the first responders have been doing a great job. The fire department has been very busy. EMS has been very busy. Our dispatchers are taking a lot of calls. So, really, it's a full-on team effort of all first responders and emergency workers during the storm.”

Cpl. Dallas Thompson, with the Missouri State Highway Patrol, compared this year’s storm with ones the state troopers have worked on in the past.
“We've been busy, but as far as winter storms go, we've been busier,” he said, “and storms earlier than this one. Troop C covers a large area of 11 counties, all the way from Pike County and Bowling Green to all the way down there to Perryville, and so we saw a mixture of about every type of snow that the forecast had — the winter weather mix. We have snow in the northern part of our troop. Then we had a wintery mix here in the center part and more of the freezing rain there in the southern part of our troop down to Perryville. So, we've seen a large array of weather throughout yesterday and today.

“Yesterday, we had about 280 semi-calls for service, and today, we're up over that. We've had very few crashes all in all. I think in the past two days, we only had four people who received any type of injuries, and they were minor injuries from crashes. Today, the biggest issues we have are slide-offs and stranded motorists. Just people getting stuck, especially in the center to the northern part of our troop. Jackson County and St. Louis County, St. Charles County. The snow is coming down at such a rate and is deep. MoDOT was plowing the snow off the roadways onto the shoulders, which is also covering up the entrance ramps and exit ramps of the bigger highways — people trying to get on and off. The interstates were becoming stuck, so we spent the biggest part of our day digging out cars and having cars towed out from snowbanks.”

Nicole Thieret, with MoDOT, explained what the department does when dealing with a winter storm.

“Prior to the storm, we always work with all of our partners, like FEMA and NSHP,” she said. “Those folks are local law enforcement talking about the weather — what is coming in and what we can anticipate. I think in the southern part of our district, we were expecting a little bit more ice. It seems like Perryville must have gotten more than what we did just based on photographs that I'm seeing from different relatives. Our crews always have a plan on how we're going to address the weather that comes in based on the timing that we’re given by the National Weather Service. We tried to pretreat roads, which worked in some areas a little bit better than others. When you get rain first, it kind of washes some of that away, and we did experience that in some parts of our district. In the Perryville area, you guys got a lot of sleep and a lot of ice.

"We're dealing with that right now, but we have had crews out since the onset or really before the storm was here. But also, since the onset of the storm, we've had crews out 24 hours a day working on routes. We work on our major routes first, and then we'll turn our attention to the minor routes. When you have ice involved, you have trees down, and right now, on B Road, we are seeing some trees down. We're going to have crews that will continue to work. They're going to close down, I think, around 6 and then get back at it again when the sun comes up so they can see what they’re doing a little bit better and won’t be working in such dangerous conditions.”