ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 10, 1996 TAG: 9601100063
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: RADFORD
SOURCE: HALE SHEIKERZ STAFF WRITER
Eating, sleeping, watching the Weather Channel. Sledding and more sleeping. These are some of the more exciting things students in the New River Valley have been able to do during the snowstorm that's kept most area residents close to home.
Joe Britton, a junior at Radford University, has been so bored that he's counted the number of cracks on the ceiling of his dorm room: 32.
Britton is one of a handful resident assistants at Muse Hall who came back last week to prepare for the arrival of his younger classmates. And he is well prepared.
Britton, along with the dozen other RAs at Muse Hall, have kept busy stuffing more than 2,000 envelopes to send out for next year's housing contract, making program posters for the semester and printing name tags for residents.
Craig Herndon said only about 20 people were in Muse Hall over the weekend - mostly guys. Normally, more than 950 co-eds reside in the building.
"We've been hanging out and trying to maintain some sort of sanity," Herndon said.
Three residents came back to the dorm Saturday; no one came on Sunday. On Monday, students were slowly starting to filter into the building, carrying bundles of food, clothes and Christmas presents. Herndon said the RAs have been telling dorm residents to drive back today since areas such as Richmond and Northern Virginia are still getting snow.
Jack and Beth Rish of Vienna were glad to get their son Luke back to school Monday. Over lunch at the dinning hall, they said their only worry was how they were going to get back to Northern Virginia. The Rishes went to Harrisonburg Friday night to see their daughter. They ended up stuck there because of the heavy snow and highway closings.
To accommodate the students who are back on-campus, Radford University will operate Dalton Dinning Hall until the school reopens, said Barbara Griffith, assistant manager.
She said staff members of the two dinning halls and food court who were able to make it to work have joined forces to operate the Dalton hall. Griffith, who spent Saturday night in her office in order to be at work the next morning, said only four employees came to work Sunday, while close to 200 meals were served during the day. Paper products are being used because they are short of dishwashers and food is being prepared in batches in order to serve any number of people without any waste.
Griffith said the dinning hall also is feeding the university's maintenance and housekeeping crews and snow shovelers for free. They also are providing carry out meals to security staff and coffee to the shoveling crews during the day.
Snowbound, students are getting restless and bored.
"Seven-Eleven closed on us. When 7-Eleven closes you know something is wrong," Britton said.
Britton and Esther Derrick, also an RA, said they've spent the snow-filled days watching many hours MTV, VH1 and the Weather Channel.
They're not alone in the latter. The Weather Channel, based in Atlanta, hit an all-time high 2.9 rating Sunday between 9 a.m. and 9:11 a.m. Approximately 1,786,000 households watched the channel during that time, said spokeswoman Connie Malko. The station also recorded an all-time high rating between 6 a.m. and midnight Sunday.
The only other TV network that was ahead of the Weather Channel was NBC, which recorded approximately 1.4 million viewers between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. The Weather Channel had approximately 1 million during the same time.
"This makes the blizzard of '96 the highest rated period," Malko said. Another winter event previously had the highest rating - the blizzard of 1993.
In addition to the Weather Channel, area residents kept busy watching regular TV programs and movies.
Local video stores are seeing a lot of stir-crazy customers. Both Blockbuster Video and Moovies Inc. (formerly King Video) in Blacksburg said they've been able to maintain normal hours for the most part.
Steve Baker, assistant manager at Moovies Inc., said the store has seen about a 50 percent increase in the number of rentals. He said about 2,600 videos have been rented in the past few days. The store gave customers until Monday to return videos due Saturday and Sunday without charge.
Meanwhile, grocery stores waited for trucks to bring in more stock on Tuesday.
Many were low on or out of the basics - milk and bread, sugar and eggs.
One caller telephoned Cougar Express on Dublin Road in Pulaski to make sure the store had Milwaukee's Best in stock.
"We did have that," said Melissa Tanner, store manager.
"Everything seems to be going pretty well," Tommy Whitt, lieutenant in charge of patrol for the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office, said Tuesday afternoon.
The county has the assistance of a humvee in reaching isolated parts of the county where residents who can't make it out on their own have medical emergencies.
The piece of heavy equipment is courtesy of the Salem National Guard's 229th Chemical division.
"So far, we've had them deliver syringes to Friendship Hollow" to a diabetic, Whitt said.
The crew also was awaiting a near-term pregnant Hiwassee woman's decision on whether they needed to transport her to a hospital.
Staff writers Paul Dellinger and Kathy Loan contributed information to this story.
LENGTH: Long : 105 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Alan. Kim. 1. The food-service staff served lunch forby CNB200 on Monday and 400 on Tuesday (above) at Radford University. 2. A
normal lunch crowd would be 1,000. 2. Freshman Brian Wilkey (below,
right) used a tarp for a sled to haul belongings to his RU dorm.
color.