Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 16, 1993 TAG: 9303160201
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANIEL HOWES STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
POWER OUTAGES HAD MANY CARRYING WOOD AND HAULING WATER
Nothing, it seems, focuses the collective domestic mind like a power outage.No lights.
No heat.
No bath.
No television or videos.
No freshly-brewed coffee, or really hot food.
The blizzard of '93 left thousands across Western Virginia without power, forcing families and friends to huddle around fireplaces and woodstoves for heat and sustenance. By sundown Monday, electricity - and heat - had been restored to many.
One Bedford County family, powerless since Saturday afternoon, gave new meaning to the term "living room." Camped in front of a roaring fireplace, they downed chicken soup and baked ham prepared as the storm moved over Georgia and the Carolinas on its way to Virginia.
"We've not been afraid - we've got a fireplace and all," Barbara Dezelich said Monday. "But we're getting on edge. It was OK the first day."
By Sunday, Dezelich made her way to a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet, only to return to a still-dark family home in the Elk Gardens subdivision north of Bedford. With the power restored at 2:55 p.m. Monday, Dezelich's parents and younger sister tidied the house and cleaned out the refrigerator before luxuriating in hot showers.
"You really don't know the luxuries you have until something like this happens," said Dezelich, 39, a case manager for Central Virginia Community Services in Rustburg.
There were others.
Susan and Read Viemeister, horse farmers near Huddleston, lost power several times Saturday and Sunday - particularly maddening because they were trying to get some work done around the house.
"It just got too cold to do anything," Susan Viemeister said. "When you wake up and its 37 [degrees] inside the house - ahhhh . . ."
Worse, the Viemeisters couldn't get any water from their well - not when the generator they keep on hand for such emergencies didn't work as planned. "If the well was working, it wouldn't have been too bad," Susan Viemeister said.
At the Peaks of Otter Lodge, guests expecting to enjoy panoramic views of a wonderfully horrible storm ended up doing so from the lodge sunroom, home to a large fireplace. Rather than complain when the power died around 4 p.m. Saturday, Clement Sydnor and his friends made the best of it.
They ate food prepared on gas stoves.
They played cards, told jokes and sang songs.
Some took walks.
"It really hasn't been a hardship," said Sydnor, a minister from Virginia Beach. "The service here has just been excellent."
For the past 14 years, Sydnor and his wife have been part of a group that's met at the Peaks on the second weekend in March. The way he figures it, this trip will be one they're likely to remember - but hopefully not repeat.
By 10 p.m. Monday, Appalachian Power Co. said 2,500 customers in its Roanoke division - from New Castle and Fincastle south to the North Carolina border - still remained without power, down from a peak of 17,000 on midday Saturday. Only 20 customers in the Roanoke Valley - most in the Goodview area of Bedford County - still were without power. In Henry County, 1,920 homes still were dark, as were 560 in Patrick County and 10 in Franklin County.
In Apco's eight-county Pulaski District, 900 customers had no electricity. Hardest hit were Montgomery and Floyd counties, where 350 customers awaited resumption of their power.
A Virginia Power Co. spokeswoman in Charlottesville said 580 customers aroundBuchanan still were without power Monday. Another 100 customers in Rockbridge County, most in isolated areas, had power restored by 8 p.m. Sunday.