ROANOKE TIMES Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times DATE: Friday, January 12, 1996 TAG: 9601120033 SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
SOME RURAL homeowners got free of the snow on Wednesday to stock up on essentials. Others remained stuck. But all say they'll weather the next storm.
Patricia McDaniel has a muscle disease, heart problems and high blood pressure. She's also snowbound.
McDaniel, 50, lives in Franklin County near Ferrum. "We live a mile from Philpott Lake. Nobody lives up here," she said. "It's a very rural area. There's just mountains all around us."
Neither McDaniel nor her husband, who also is disabled, can shovel snow, she said. They've only been able to cope because of help from others.
Local rescue squad volunteers delivered prescription medicine to them, and a neighbor who lives some distance away brought them such staples as milk and coffee.
McDaniel was able to get out to the grocery store briefly Wednesday, but snowdrifts and icy roads left her stranded again Thursday, unable to buy emergency items such as a kerosene heater.
Faced with the prospect of more deep snow, McDaniel has only one fear: "The only thing I'm praying for is that the electricity stays. If the electricity goes out, we'll be stuck worse."
Across the region, many rural homeowners with similar fears were just getting free from last weekend's snow. Given a brief break, they stocked up on essentials and made sure stranded friends and neighbors like the McDaniels were ready for the next storm.
"I think for the most part, if there's a neighbor around, somebody pitches in and helps," said Jo Ann Bruce, postmistress in Eagle Rock in Botetourt County. "We're small enough that we can do that out here. That's the big advantage to living out in the country."
One of her mail carriers helped by taking prescription medicine to a snowbound elderly couple, Bruce said.
Florence Perdue, a clerk at the Countryside general store on Bent Mountain, took a blind neighbor out to get groceries Thursday. "This is the first day I've been able to get out to work," she said. "Everybody's helping each other. I just sold a man some milk to take to a neighbor who couldn't get out."
Bedford County Sheriff Mike Brown knows what it means to be snowbound: He was stuck at his house in the mountains of Montvale for four days. By portable phone, he helped direct emergency services to other snowbound rural residents.
"Our deputies transported nurses and medical personnel and delivered prescription medicine and baby formula and diapers," he said. Many areas of Bedford County still are digging out from last weekend's snow. The Peaks of Otter Lodge, where some guests and employees were stranded for days, reopened only Wednesday.
Of the snow forecast for Thursday night, Brown said, "If we're lucky, maybe it'll miss us. If this heavy snow does come, it's so wet, we could have power failures."
At least a few rural families weren't too worried about that possibility. Even though many rely on electricity to power wells or heat their homes, they also take pride in being self-sufficient.
"If we lose the electricity, we can survive," said Elsie Peace of Eagle Rock. "I'm sure I would miss the microwave, but we can always go back to wood heat."
Peace and her husband, Jim, both retirees, have been snowed in since Friday. The snow in their back yard is 32 inches deep. They won't be getting to a grocery store any time soon, but that's OK, she said, because they have freezers stocked for emergencies.
"We're just sitting on our hill and waiting for a warm day," she said.
Sharon Harris, a Floyd County veterinarian, dodged 10-foot drifts Wednesday and Thursday in Copper Hill to take a neighbor's child to the doctor, deliver a calf and feed hay to horses. She said most of her neighbors were prepared for the snow.
"We believed the weatherman this time," said Harris, who said she bought enough groceries last Friday to get her comfortably through the five days she spent indoors.
Others, like Sue Karr of Bent Mountain, got very creative with the groceries they had. "I did a lot of new things with cabbage," the learning-disability teacher said.
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