September 2017
Island emergency a reminder of the danger underground hen 10,000 tourists were forced to leave two popular North Carolina islands in July, they weren’t fleeing from a hurricane but a power outage, of all things. The outage occurred when a workers building a bridge drove a steel casing through an underground transmission line. Officials ordered the tourists to evacuate, and some 9,000 homes lost power. The governor declared a state of emergency in part to help speed the repairs. Coming during the islands’ peak tourist season, the outage’s impact on the local economy was described as “huge.” The incident is a sobering illustration of what can happen when people excavate, drill or bore without knowing where local underground utilities lie. Whether digging to erect fence posts, build a swimming pool or prepare a foundation, everyone should keep electrical safety foremost in mind. Mississippi 811 Inc. (MS811) is a non-profit organization designed to keep people safe and protect underground utilities when excavations take place. MS811 maintains an information center in Jackson that serves as a communications link between those who dig (excavator, builders, property owners, etc.) and the utilities that operate underground facilities, including your electric power association. When you call 811, utilities will be notified to send a representative to your dig site to mark the locations of their underground facilities. It’s a convenient, efficient system; 811 saves you from having to call multiple utilities. Mississippi law requires excavators, contractors, building and private citizens who are going to drill, blast, dig and/or bore to notify MS811 before they start the work. You can read the law at www.ms1call.org. We encourage you to get more information at www.ms1call.org or 811 while your excavation work is still in the planning stage. ••• Kids are back in school and the daylight hours are slowly diminishing. Soon school buses will be cruis-
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On the cover Aaron Rodgers, executive director of the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum, in Jackson, sees the museum’s vintage sawmill as a way to demonstrate to visitors just how difficult life could be for past generations of rural Mississippians. See story on page 4.
ing in the dark on weekday mornings, until Daylight Saving Time ends on Nov. 5. Please drive with extra caution to help keep our students safe. Impatience, distracting driving and simple carelessness can result in tragedy on the road. Also keep in mind that electric cooperative line crews may be out working on roadside lines at any time of day or night, in any kind of weather. Their extensive safety training and protective gear help keep them safe, but nothing can shield them from the inattentive, speeding driver. Please help keep our My Opinion employees safe by considerMichael Callahan ably reducing your speed Executive Vice President/CEO when approaching their Electric Cooperatives of Mississippi work site. ••• This has been an unbelievably wet summer for much (if not all) of Mississippi. We’re seeing a number of trees collapse, evidently due to saturated soils in many cases. Electric power associations work hard to prevent trees and limbs from falling into power lines by diligently clearing power line rights-of-way. But we can’t cut everything everywhere. If you see a tree (or anything else) in contact with a power line, please call your electric power association or 911 immediately to report it. Never, ever attempt to remove the debris yourself; a power line can appear to be “dead” but still carry enough current to cause serious injury or death. Your electric power association will respond quickly to dispatch personnel to repair the line. Until they arrive, keep others far away from the site. If you have any questions regarding electrical safety, your electric power association will be more than happy to help. They are, after all, your electrical safety experts.
Today in Mississippi OFFICERS Tim Smith - President Barry Rowland - First Vice President Randy Smith - Second Vice President Keith Hayward - Secretary/Treasurer
EDITORIAL STAFF Michael Callahan - CEO Ron Stewart - Sr. VP, Communications Mark Bridges - Manager, Support Services Debbie H. Stringer - Editor Elissa Fulton - Communications Specialist Rickey McMillan - Graphics Specialist
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The Official Publication of the Electric Cooperatives of Mississippi Today in Mississippi (ISSN 1052-2433) is published 11 times a year (Jan.-Nov.) by Electric Cooperatives of Mississippi Inc., P.O. Box 3300, Ridgeland, MS 39158-3300, or 665 Highland Colony Parkway, Ridgeland, MS 39157. Phone 601-605-8600. Periodical postage paid at Ridgeland, MS, and additional office. The publisher (and/or its agent) reserves the right to refuse or edit all advertising. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Today in Mississippi, P.O. Box 3300, Ridgeland, MS 39158-3300
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Today in Mississippi
Our Homeplace
One of Mississippi’s architectural gems is the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art, designed by architect Frank Gehry and dedicated to the ceramics of George H. Ohr (1857-1918). The museum includes metal pods whose shapes bring to mind the curving, twisting contours of Ohr’s pottery.
Mississippi is What’s Mississippi to me? It’s sitting on the front porch swing with family shelling buckets of peas. Shady seats in front of a row of peach trees. A water oak with great big roots and a board swing. A bench under the wisteria where Grandpa sits with all the bumblebees. A square flower bed with a catawba worm tree. A horse named Dolly, so lonely and old. It’s Grandma’s lilies and the plum trees lining the dirt road. Clothes stretched out to dry on a line. The corner wood pile stacked so high. Tin-wrapped leaf beds surrounding the fig trees. Water straight out of the hose, never mind the mud holes. The smokehouse in the back where grandkids are never to go. It’s Grandpa and Grandma’s house. It was home to me. –Brandy J. Gardner, Waynesboro Eighteen years ago, my husband and I chose to retire in Pontotoc. One of our children, who remained in Denver, called today. As we were talking, he asked if we had canaries now. I answered no. I had gone out on the front porch to talk. There I was watching two male cardinals chase each other while the female sat on a nearby limb, cheering them on. A blue jay and a robin perched side by side, fussing at one another while eating leftover food from our dog’s bowl, and a couple of squirrels chattered gleefully as they played tag around the base of an old oak tree in one corner of our yard. I explained to him, “It’s just springtime in Mississippi.” –Carolyn E. Oakes, Houlka
What’s Mississippi to you? What do you treasure most about life in our state? Send your thoughts to Today in Mississippi, P.O. Box 3300, Ridgeland, MS 39158, or to news@ecm.coop. Please keep your comments brief. Submissions are subject to editing for length and clarity.
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