Southeast Shivers in Third Day of Record Cold; Death Toll at 165

Arctic air Wednesday brought a third day of record cold in the Southeast, where citrus and other crops have been severely damaged.

Snow squalls were reported along the Ohio and New York shores of Lake Erie, and Buffalo, N.Y., asked the National Guard for help in digging out from under three feet of snow as winds gusting to 40 m.p.h. piled the snow into deep drifts.

After five days of trying, snow removal crews did succeed Wednesday in reopening Buffalo’s airport, allowing stranded airline passengers to leave.

New Records

New low-temperature records were set in the Southeast even though the cold snap was easing.

The records included 13 at Columbia and Greenville, S.C., 16 at Augusta, Ga., 18 at Wilmington, N.C., and 19 at Charleston, S.C. In Florida, it was 21 at Tallahassee, 25 at Daytona Beach, 28 at Orlando, 30 at Hollywood, 31 at Tampa, 32 at West Palm Beach, 33 at Fort Myers, 36 at the Miami airport and 40 at Miami Beach.

More than 80 low-temperature records were shattered Monday, and more than two dozen Tuesday, as the arctic air mass that slid out of Canada late last week slowly moved out to sea.

At least 165 deaths have been attributed to the cold weather.

Only scattered frost was predicted overnight in Florida as picking crews and processing-plant employees worked around the clock to salvage what they could of the frozen citrus crop.

“We’re now going to crank up and run as fast as we can as long as we have fruit,” said Bud Cook, owner of Cook Processing in Haines City, Fla.

“I cannot put a dollar figure on what the impact will be at the supermarket,” Florida Gov. Robert Graham said in a television interview. “We know that there will be a substantial percentage reduction, well over 50%, in terms of the fresh fruit that would otherwise have been available.”

Widespread damage also was reported in Georgia to peach and other crops, and some communities were threatened with water shortages because of broken pipes and because people left their water running to keep pipes from freezing.

Schools were closed in Rockdale County because of low water reserves and Conyers Mayor Charles Walker said: “I just hope we don’t have a serious fire.”

Roads Impassable

In northern West Virginia, Preston County officials called for National Guard assistance Wednesday, saying as many as half of the county’s 30,000 residents have been trapped along secondary roads made impassable by snowdrifts up to 20 feet high since Friday.

“That’s the last time a lot of these people have been able to get out,” county Emergency Services Director Richard Wolfe said. “People need food and fuel, and quite a lot of medicine. If we could open up some of these roads, the people could get out and get some of their own food and fuel.”

Wolfe estimated that 90% of the county’s secondary roads are blocked by drifts. The county’s schools have been closed since Jan. 15.