THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 7, 1996 TAG: 9602070411
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY CATHERINE KOZAK, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
It's still going to be wet and slushy today, and many schools are still closed in northeast North Carolina, but the winter storm has lost its punishing chill.
Folks were walking with surer steps and drivers dropped their tortoise pace Tuesday afternoon, with the sun turning sheets of ice into welcome puddles.
Thermometers are expected to rise to the mid-40s today, with lows in the upper 20s or low 30s tonight, the National Weather Service said. By Thursday, milder weather will arrive, with temperatures expected to be in the mid-50s.
However, side roads are still slippery, so classes are closed for the third straight day in Currituck County and Elizabeth City-Pasquotank schools. Dare schools will open two hours late, north of Oregon Inlet, and on time in Hatteras. Dare teachers will report at their regular time.
The arctic weather that blew in Friday - freezing rain, snow and bitter cold - closed local schools for at least two days, froze pipes and caused scores of accidents.
Temperatures dipped as low as 9 degrees in Duck Monday.
``It's certainly been the coldest outbreak we've had in several years,'' national weather spokesman Wally DeMaurice said Tuesday from the Buxton station. ``It's been very cold compared with the last three winters we've had.''
The record low, he added, was 6 degrees in Buxton in 1985.
The sheets of ice on the roads may be gone, but the effects of the cold on water pipes will likely be painfully evident today as the pipes begin to thaw.
``You swell the pipe up when it freezes, then when it contracts back, that's when the cracks show up,'' said Donna Sawyer, a dispatcher for R. Blivens Plumbing Inc. in Nags Head.
By Tuesday, Sawyer said she had received three to four times the amount of calls the business normally gets.
``There's not a whole lot we can do (with frozen pipes) until they thaw,'' she said. Replacing pipes can be labor intensive, Sawyer said, and at the going rate for plumbers between $35 and $52.50 an hour, homeowners could be looking at a sizable bill.
The thermometers may not dip quite as low again, but keep those those gloves and shovels handy - winter's not over yet.
``Most of the time, it's after February that we get our most significant snows,'' DeMaurice said. by CNB