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*****TELEPHONEWILSONAil* AMERICA an243-5151MrCIRCULATION243-5972IMESWEATHERClearand cold tonight with lowaround 20. Sunnv Saturday withhigh in 30s.More Than A Newspaper - - A Community InstitutionVol. 81, No. 294ASSOCIATED PRESS NEWS, Wl RE PHOTOS NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN FEATURESWILSON, N.C., FRIDAY AFTERNOON, JANUARY 27, 197814 PAGES. 1 SECTIONit it15 CENTS SINGLE COPY 60CENTSPER WEEKThousands In N. C.Ha ve No PowerAfter WindstormBy The Associated PressThousands of North Carolinians still had no electricity today as haggard utility repair crews struggled to make repairs after nature’s third straight week of destructive attacks on power lines and poles.For the past two weeks it was ice storms. This week it was a raging wind storm, which blasted the entire stale Thursday with 40 mile-an-hour winds and generated freakish gusts as high as 120 miles an hour in the mountains.Wind and ice produced the same results. Heavy limbs and entire trees snapped and knocked down power lines. In other instances, the light polesthemselves were felled bv the¥wind.Red-eyed crews who have been working overtime for the past two weeks restoring service cut off by the ice storms were thrown into the breach again, but utility company officials said the strain was beginning to tell.“The crews are just exhausted, said Bill Burton, vice president for communications at Duke Power Co. “This is the third week they have put in some ungodly hours. There's a limit to what they can stand. We’re having to pull some offI to rest. They’re dropping in their tracks.About 25,000 Carolina Power and Light Co. customers werewithout power in the Raleigh area early Thursday. The Red Cross opened a shelter in a local school for people without power. The town of Angier in Harnett County was without power until noon Thursday when CPL crews set up a portable power substation.At the height of the storm, Duke Power Co. had about 50,-000 customers without electricity Thursday in the North and South Carolina Piedmont, 20,000 of them in Charlotte,For many, power was not expected to be restored till today, Burton said, adding that emergency crews from other companies assisted in repairs after last week’s storms but those crews were unavailable this week.Almost all of the state’s rural electric cooperatives experienced scattered outages. The hardest hit areas were in the Piedmont, where damages were heavy after the ice storm last week.In Raleigh, pebbles from the roof of a state office building were picked up and blown away with such force that they shattered the windshields of four cars parked nearby.•Aft;Strong Winds4■SnouyFloodingPlague NationRESCUED FROM FLOOD WATERS: Ronald Harris, Pequea,Pa., is pulled into a National Guard helicopter from the roof of his house Wednesday morning after flood waters from the Pequea C reek trapped him and his family. The entire family was rescued. (AP Wirephoto)STORM TROOPFRS: Two Cleveland, Ohio pedestrians braveThursday's blizzard beneath leftover Halloween attire. Like much of the Midwest, C leveland encountered heavy snow andwhurricane-force winds, shutting down most of its activity. (AP Laser photo)Council Rejects Idea Of Posting SignsOn Property Involved In Rezoning RidWyoming Rejxwrts RussianFlu; Enid iemic PossibleInVS. With No VaccineWASHINGTON (AP) - Confirmation of an outbreak of Russian flu in Wyoming raises the specter of a major new epidemic sweeping the country this spring with no vaccine available to protect the public.“We didn’t doubt it (Russian flu) would get here,” said a spokesman for the government’s Center for Disease Control in Atlanta. “The only real question was whether it would be this flu season or next.The spokesman, Don A. Ber-reth, said Thursday that there is no way to know at this point whether the new strain will develop into epidemic proportions in the next few weeks, but he ’ noted that the Russian virus “has already demonstrated it can move fast.People under 24 years old and over 50 are expected to be most susceptible to the Russian strain, which is believed to cause somewhat less severe an illness — and thus fewer deaths — than the Asian and A-Hong Kong strains Those two together killed an estimated 90,000 people in this country in the 1957 and 1968 epidemics.CDC investigators this week identified the Russian flu virusagreed that the strain could strike here this spring but that there was no way to get ready for it that soon.Growing the virus, turning itinto vaccine, testing and mass-producing it takes the pharmaceutical industry months, and work has just begun The 75 experts were hesitant to make firm predictions about a possible epidemic in the wake of last winter’s abortive swine flu vaccination campaign, but they recommended that a vaccine against the Russian strain be developed for inclusion in any immunization program next seasonBy MARY EMORY ROGERSWilson City Council Thursday night again turned down the planning board’s idea of requiring that sigas be posted on property involved in a rezoning request, but unanimously agreed that the planning staff should study the issue and come up with alternative measures of making citizens more aware.Several area developers and other interested persoas in opposition to the proposed ordinance attended the public hearing, and their objectioas were numerous.Woody Harrison called it “just another bureaucratic thing in the city that we don’t need. To which Councilman C. C Burris, a former member of the planning board answered, “You’re right. It is just one more thing to make the public aware. ’’Jim Rogerson, representing Wilson County Homebuilders Association, said they felt the ordinance was unnecessary and* t“not worth the additional cost and red tape Council had turned down a similar ordinance earlier, and the proposal last night was developed by the planning board in the hope that the changes would do away with doubts council expressed that last time.Councilmen Burris and George Rice moved that the revised ordinance be adopted, making it the responsibility erfthe planning staff to post the signs before the planning board meeting at a cost of about $12 tothe developer.But only one other person spoke out in favor of the proposal. “I like what Mr. Burris says, Linwood Hill told the council. People should be told more.”Several council members voiced agreement with the spiritof the proposal, in that the public should be made more aware of rezoning action, but did not feel the signs would be the bestmethod of accomplishing this. The vote to turn down the ordinance was 4-2, with Burris and Rice in the minority. Immediately following therejection of the ordinance, Councilman J. Robert Boykinsaid he felt the intent of it was good and made a motion to recommend that the planning staff look for alternative ways so the people can understand.” The council agreed and theSee REZONING Page 2B\ JULIE DUNLAPAssociated Press WriterFlash floods today threatened states already reeling fromheavy snows, hurricane-forcewinds, a thaw that turned mountains of snow to slush and a vicious blizzard that stranded thousands of travelers.As the Midwest was clobbered Thursday by what Ohio Gov. James Rhodes called a killer blizzard looking for victims,” the Southeast was drenched by rain, sleet and snow Tornadoes touched down in Virginia and North Carolina, and temperatures dipped to the 20s.At least 43 people were killed in mishaps blamed on the erratic weather: nine in Wisconsin, six in Michigan, five in Indiana, four in both Ohio and Kentucky, two each in Illinois, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ala bama, Georgia and North Dakota, and one each in Maine, Virginia and Minnesota.President Carter declared a federal state of emergency in Ohio and today ordered units of the 5th Army into the state to help exhausted National Guardsmen rescue stranded motorists and assist utility re-pairmen in restoring electricalpower to thousands of homes.The Michigan National Guard was mobilized and Gov William Milliken declared a state of emergency so the state could apply for federal aid. The storm, which cut power to 160, 000 homes, piled up 12-footWhere View Mnx Be ObstructedTree Removal, Shrubbery TrimmingAt Intersections In City5 - M-m *2♦. *•drifts and almost sank an ore freighter Over nigh t to mperat u res ranged from 23 below zero in Devil’s Lake, N.D., to 61 in Key West, Fla.Winds gusting up to 85 inph, well beyond hurricane strength, caused damage all over theEast and Midwest.The storm that hit the Midwest sent barometer readings to record lows, indicating very low pressure generating a severe storm. In Pittsburgh, the barometer plunged to 28 49, the lowest since records were first kept there in 1870.Creeks and rivers are already over their banks or near flood stage today in North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia, Rhode Island, Vermont and Massachusetts.The flooding appeared most widespread in West Virginia,where water isolated three towns and forced at least 3,000 people to flee The Little Kanawa has caused major flooding at Cres-ton and Glenville, parts ofwhich were 10 feet under water.The Tug i rk overflowed inMingo County, where disastrous floods last April almost swept several tiny mining towns out ol the hollows On Thursday, the homes from which some families fled were government trailers supplied when their houses were destroyed last spring,Pennsylvania reported flood ing along the Monongahela River in the southwestern corner,and along the Susquehanna tothe east, which rose to the first-story level in flood prone Wilkes Bar re and further south forced evacuations from ruralhomes in Lancaster County.Rhodes noted that at least 150,000 Ohio homes had been without heat most of Thursday: “They are helpless victims ofgee WEATHER Page 2evv\\7OfficersElecteeBy CLAUDE STARLINGDespite warnings of a “public outcry,” Wilson’s City Council has authorized the city manager to enforce an ordinance concerning sight distances at city intersections.In other words, council hastersection may be obstructed by either trees or shrubbery at a height greater than two feet The authorization came as the result of arecommendationfrorn the council’s own safety committee, chaired by Wade Lee Barnes. His committeebetween the height of two feet and a height of 10 feet above the average center line grade of each street within the area formed by the right-of-way lines of the intersecting streets and a line joining points on such right-of-way lines at a distance of 25UNITED WAY OFFICERS were installed Thursday afternoon at the 1977 Annual Heport Meeting held at the Wilson Country Club, From left are Dr. Ernest B. Parry, president; Vincent Lowe, I97K campaign chairman; Gloyden Stewart, vice president; Mrs Marcia Parker, executive secretary; Harry Severance, publicity chairman; Woody Harrison, 1979 campaign chairman; and lorn Riley, treasurer. Lynn Hroadfoot, budgets and admissions chairman, was not in attendance, (Photo by Craig Deanhardt)a i a r\A IA tA \ftI?£ 0 m a£ *£ %.£INew officers were elected and awards were presented at the 17th Annual Heport Meeting held at the Wilson ( Ount ry (1 lub.Officers who will sm ve are Dr. Finest B Parry, president; B. Gloyden Stewart Jr., vice president; Thomas O Riley,treasurer; and Mrs. Marcia Parker, executive secretary.The 1978 budgets and admissions chairman is LynnHroadfoot while HarrySeverance will serve as publicity chairman. Vincent Lowe? takesA L.t JhfKk..I__
Newspaper Details
Wilson Daily Times
Wilson, North Carolina, US
Fri, Jan 27, 1978
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Wilson C.
NC, USA 19 Nov 2020
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