Remote Surveillance Trailer in McMinnville, OR

Warren County’s public utilities and emergency services may be a little stressed but they never retreat when severe winter weather grips the community.

While hundreds of thousands Tennessee homes were dark for days or weeks in Winter Storm Fern, McMinnville and its neighbors emerged with little or no disruption.

Street and road crews worked to salt streets and highways while electric utilities were toiling long hours to minimize or avoid power outages. Emergency medical services sought out alternative routes but managed to meet the need.

“We’ve been very lucky in the City of McMinnville. In my 33 years we never had a storm when we didn’t get everyone back on in three days” or less, Neal Smith, operations manager at McMinnville Electric System told McMinnville Public Radio 91.3-WCPI.

That record contrasts sharply the experience of Nashville Electric Service customers, hundreds of whom remained without power a couple of weeks after the Arctic blast swept through the South bringing snow, ice and a brutal cold.

Fortunately for residents further east and south of Nashville, the storm moved out before it could cause extensive damage. In the Nashville area, hundreds of power poles were snapped like match sticks under the weight of accumulated ice.

“We try to keep trees trimmed back [and] out poles changed out,” Smith explained, underscoring the preemptive maintenance programs that mitigate the worst effects of winter weather. By deliberately reducing the vulnerabilities, MES avoids disruptions that would otherwise be predictable.

Smith joins Warren County Emergency Medical Services director Preston Denney, Emergency Communications District (911) director Chuck Haston Jr, and Jimmy Haley of First United Methodist Church in the half-hour INSIGHTS discussion.

The program airs Wednesday, Feb. 11, at 9 a.m. on WCPI 91.3 FM.

Haley is one of the lead volunteers staffing the emergency warming shelter maintained by First United Methodist (FUMC).

“We give them a bed and roof over their head” along with hot meals, showers and laundry service, Haley said of the shelter which operates in the church’s outreach building between Main and Morford streets.

Haley, a former McMinnville major and Warren County executive, offered compliments to city and county law enforcement agencies for rescuing unhoused residents and bringing them to the shelter.

He described a recent episode when he was driving to church services and spotted what appeared at first to be a shapeless mass of black cloth along the street. With a closer look, he found a young itinerant man walking with no money and little protective clothing.

By bringing him to the FUMC shelter, he may have saved a life as temperatures plunged into single digits.

The EMS ambulances and crews are continually poised to roll, but sometimes they have to take a detour to avoid ice-covered hills and other road hazards, Denney noted. Paramedics will get where they are needed, but it might take a few minutes longer.

“Sometimes we have to carry [patients] from their house to the road to get them into an ambulance,” he said, referring to driveways that may be impassable to emergency vehicles.

Haston credited the good sense of many Warren countians in avoiding unnecessary travel.

“Overall the call volume was low for that kind of [weather] event. Most people heeded the advice and stayed home,” he remarked, noting that many 911 calls in severe winter weather are from stranded motorists.

Both Denney and Smith sounded stern warnings about life safety hazards in severe winter weather.

One of those perils comes from a silent, invisible and odorless gas: carbon monoxide.

Frequent sources of this danger include gasoline powered generators brought into occupied spaces, including attached garages, Denney cautioned. Other carbon monoxide producers are wood, charcoal and propane heating appliances that are not properly tented to the outside.

Automobiles left running in an attached garage are often culprits in the poisoning of the air breathed by humans and pets, they stressed.

Nashville authorities reported the deaths of two men—a 39-year-old and a 92-year-old—in separate incidents attributed to gasoline generators.

Monroe Carrell Jr Children’s Hospital has treated 49 children for carbon monoxide exposure, WPLN reported this week.

“Children are more sensitive to it because of their small body size and the fact they also breathe faster than adults do,” Dr Rebecca Bruccoleri told WPLN. She is director the Tennessee Poison Center, which is housed at Vanderbilt. The Center logged 107 cases of CO poisoning last week, she said.

The first signs of poisoning often include flu-like symptoms, including headache, nausea, vomiting and fatigue, medical experts say.

Another frequent symptom, Denney told WCPI, is a distinct reddening of the skin. If you suspect you might be in danger, move quickly outside for fresh air and then remove the CO source.

Another hazard is physical exertion in cold air—snow shoveling and cutting of firewood are common examples--Denney noted. It’s often tempting to keep on working despite early symptoms of cardiac stress, he stated.

When electric wires are on the ground after heavy icing or thunderstorms, never assume they are harmless telephone or data cables, Smith urged.

“Don’t assume it’s TV cable or phone drop. Assume it’s electric, assume it’s live” and can deliver a deadly shock. “Don’t touch it!”

Emergency generators permanently installed at homes and businesses are usually equipped with an automatic or manual transfer switch that isolates the generator output from the public electrical grid. Not so with portable generators.

In a reckless practice called back-feeding the 120 volt output from the portable unit can flow into the utility grid and be stepped up to 7,200 volts or higher, the MES official said.

A utility lineman working to repair storm-damaged equipment could suffer a lethal jolt from the power coming from a home generator, Smith warned, noting that the conductors and transformers bringing power to your house can just as easily send it in the opposite direction.