FRANKLIN
According to the National Weather Service, accumulation of snow over the next few days could be as much as 4-7 inches in Western Tidewater.

This afternoon, daytime accumulation of less than one inch is possible, and tonight, less than half an inch could accumulate. When it really will start to pick up is on Wednesday night, where snow accumulation could be 2-4 inches. During the day on Thursday, another 1-2 inches of accumulation could happen.

Over the period, lows are projected to get into the high teens, but some highs above freezing were possible, particularly during the day on Wednesday.

Franklin City Manager Randy Martin hadn’t wanted to hear this news — in fact, he was ready for the spring. But, the city’s emergency services including public works are prepared, he said.

“We just restocked for the next one,” Martin said, adding with a laugh that he had hoped the next one would be next year. “We will be monitoring it as the week goes on.”

The city manager also praised staff for the job they did during this past week’s storm.

“I want to thank those public servants who responded, particularly those who work around the clock during things of this nature,” Martin said. “We were very fortunate what public works did in the proceeding effort of getting our main roads cleared in a timely manner, so that city life could continue, and then getting the schools cleared next, so that school could resume.”

Martin said they had minimal outages, but there had been one in Ward 4, which was not related to ice, as a resident had knocked a tree down over the road and onto power lines.

“Their response time was excellent,” said Mona Murphy, Ward 4’s representative. “They got the tree cut up fast, within a 40-minute time frame. And a few minutes after the electric department was able to get there, the lights were on.”

Ward 2 representative Benny Burgess said that particularly during events of this nature, he was thankful the city has its own utility people.

“A lot of time, I hear things about how we run the utility department, and some even suggest consider selling it and having Dominion take us over,” he said. “I dare say that Dominion couldn’t even get a truck to us in less than an hour, much less have it fixed.”

Martin said that during the extreme cold, outages were kept to a minimum and did not go for an extended period.

“With how cold it was getting, it’s not hard to figure out how dangerous that would be for people if it went for an extended period,” he said. “Sometimes, we forget that people have to respond. And our public servants rose to the occasion quite admirably.”