Window of Frozen Precipitation Narrows, But Slick Roads, Power Outages a Concern

Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer

The forecast for Anderson County’s long-awaited ice storm, like most winter forecasts in the South, is turning out to be a study in qualified expectations.

Yes, the freezing rain is still in the script, though the latest models potentially suggest less of it, and for a shorter time, than the original, more operatic predictions. The frozen stuff, which was supposed to bring an extended visitation, now looks more like an unwelcome houseguest: a wintry mix slipping in well after midnight, lingering through much of Sunday, and then leaving behind a mess that may prove more troublesome than the event itself.

What remains unknowable, and therefore endlessly discussed, is how much ice will choose to cling to the county’s trees and power lines. The concern has somewhat shifted almost imperceptibly from the falling precipitation to what happens after everything freezes and the wind picks up Monday and Tuesday, when lows in the teens will test every pine, every pole, every span of wire dragged down by a thin, stubborn glaze.

Anderson County Emergency Management is proceeding on the assumption that widespread power outages are not only possible but likely enough to plan around. Their advisories filter out over the web and Facebook, where they mingle with pleas for available generators or propane.

Inside the grocery stores, the atmosphere is less apocalyptic than ritualistic. On Saturday, the aisles were full of carts guided unhurriedly toward milk, meat, and bread, all of which, somewhat anticlimactically, remained in abundant supply. The bakery cases, often the first casualties of Southern storm psychology, were still bright with loaves and rolls. What had gone scarce instead were the trappings of self-reliance—generators and propane, those tangible expressions of the desire to outlast both nature and the power company.

Residents are reminded that if they encounter anyone charging extortionate prices for these goods, the state’s anti-gouging laws are in effect, and complaints are not only encouraged but invited.

The schools, for their part, have already conceded the point to the forecast. All Anderson County schools will move to E-Learning on Monday and Tuesday, an accommodation that now passes for normal in a world where the weather and the Wi-Fi can close classrooms with equal efficiency. Students who lose electricity—who find themselves on the wrong side of a transformer or an unlucky branch—will be given ample time to catch up, a small acknowledgment that in the hierarchy of emergencies, algebra can wait.

For those inclined to prepare in more deliberate fashion, The Anderson Observer yesterday published lists of shelters and basic precautions for storm readiness: charge your phones, gather your medicines, check on the elderly neighbor whose porch light is usually the last one on the street to go dark. What Anderson County awaits now is not just the ice, but the revelation of how much of this careful anticipation will turn out to have been necessary—and how much, as always, will become part of the county’s quiet, accumulating