Brrrrrr! It’s COLD Outside!

Staff Reports

Asheville Police, including bike patrols, are checking inside vacant buildings, under bridges, and through parks and remote areas to urge the homeless to seek inside shelter. While the long-lived Arctic blast has dipped low across the country plunging our temperatures to single digits, people in Western North Carolina are trying to remember when they’ve experienced such a long and gripping cold.

APD Bike Patrol officer searching for homeless
in record-breaking cold weather. Photo: Urban News

It’s been almost a month since the blizzard of ’09 dropped more than a
foot of snow on the area, followed a week later by a major ice storm,
and ever since we’ve been hoping for a thaw. With the remains of the
snow packed down to an icy crust, or melting and refreezing into black
ice, some commuters in Asheville have braved the weather and bundled up
to catch local buses, while a lot of hopeful drivers got only a
post-mortem click from their vehicle’s ignition.

AAA Carolinas, with 1.8 million members, responded to 1,226 calls about
batteries on January 4, 2010, with the preponderance of calls occurring
in such urban areas as Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro, Columbia, and
Greenville. “We received 45 percent more calls related to battery
trouble,” said David E. Parsons, president and CEO. “It is expected
that heavy demand for jump-starts will continue due to predictions of
sub-freezing temperatures during the morning rush hours. The drop in
temperatures and winter conditions makes this a very busy time for road
service.” 

Customers of Progress Energy Carolinas set a record for peak
electricity demand this winter as they endured the extended period of
frigid weather. The Raleigh-based utility said that between 7 a.m. and
8 a.m. on Monday, January 11, customers used 12,504 megawatt-hours of
electricity. That topped the previous winter peak-demand record of
12,142 megawatt-hours, set on Feb. 6, 2007. President and CEO Lloyd
Yates said the utility doesn’t anticipate problems in meeting customer
demands, but encourages people to learn more about how to use energy
more wisely and efficiently.

Photo: Chris Joyell

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has also set records for energy
demand. Weekly demand reached new highs for the seven-day period that
ended Sunday, January 10. The highest weekend daily record was set on
Saturday, January 9, at 673 gigawatt-hours, which was also the
third-highest daily usage on record. Sunday usage also hit a new peak
of 644 gigawatt-hours, on January 10. TVA, the nation’s largest public
utility, serves about 8.7 million residents in Tennessee, Alabama,
Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia.

In Oak Island on the other end of the state, the beach towns of
Caswell, Yaupon, and Long Beach dropped to a temperature of 19 degrees
for several days; people strolling on the beach in bone-chilling
weather have been wearing parkas and overcoats instead of light weather
gear. “I haven’t seen this type of cold in a long time in this area,”
said Gloria Hankins, a native of Brunswick County. “Even the schools
are on delayed scheduling.”

None of this — the gripping cold, accumulated snow, frozen snow, black
ice — is what people are used to in the “sunny south.” Those
conditions have led to a rash of weather-related accidents, not just in
Asheville but all over the country; the unending warnings to bundle up
and take extra care of pipes (Insulate!), plants (Cover and mulch!),
and pets (Bring them inside!), have people across the nation hoping for
some warm weather relief.

Photo: B. Shockey