Winter Storm Fern and Southern Power Outages

Nearly two weeks after the winter ice storm, roughly 20,000 customers remain without power in northern Mississippi — down from about 180,000 immediately after the storm — with Lafayette County (~4,200), Tippah (~3,500) and Panola, Yalobusha and Tishomingo counties each reporting more than 2,000 outages. Residents say they’ve gone without electricity and sometimes water, relying on gas heaters, fireplaces and bucket-flushed toilets amid lingering hazards from ice chunks, low-hanging lines and precarious limbs, fueling anger across the Southeast even as nonprofits like Eight Days of Hope provide debris cleanup, roof repairs and thousands of meals.