Farmers in Dixie Fight Cold to Save Crops

Farmers across the South burned tires and brush Tuesday to protect blossoming peach trees and other crops as temperatures hit record lows, while up to 16 inches of snow covered the Ohio Valley.

Some rural highways were still closed by drifts up to 18 feet high in Nebraska and Kansas, where blizzards that struck one week ago and again over the weekend were believed to have killed thousands of cattle.

On the East Coast, heavy rain brought flood warnings in Maine and Connecticut. More than 100 people who live near the Kenmere Reservoir in Berlin, Conn., were evacuated Tuesday after engineers warned that a dam may not hold.

Cold Records Shattered

Low temperature records were shattered in more than two dozen cities, the National Weather Service said. Temperatures hit 30 as far south as Corpus Christi, Tex., the latest freeze on record there, and the 29 at Jackson, Miss., was the coldest March 31 since records were first kept in 1896.

A dusting of snow was reported in Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, Ala., and Tupelo, Miss.

Frost and freeze warnings were issued over the North Carolina Piedmont, interior South Carolina and all of Georgia and Kentucky.

Winter storm warnings were posted over western New York state; northwestern Pennsylvania, which got up to 12 inches of snow; and much of Ohio, where Cleveland had 16 inches of snow by afternoon, its heaviest 24-hour snowfall since 1913. North-central Kentucky received up to a foot of snow.

Tornado Injures Four

Elsewhere, a tornado raked two communities on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, destroying seven mobile homes and injuring at least four people, and in Florida high wind damaged some buildings at the Kennedy Space Center and tornadoes uprooted trees south of Miami.

Despite such precautions as tire and brush fires, wind machines and helicopters to stir the air, some growers suffered crop losses.

Lary Eckert of Eckert Orchard Inc. in Belleville, Ill., which produces about 25,000 bushels of peaches annually, said temperatures of 24 degrees ruined about one-fourth of his crop.

“Anytime you start losing peaches it gets substantial because it adds up in a hurry,” Eckert said Tuesday. He estimated that the freeze cost him $125,000, but he said that his orchard still could produce about 19,000 bushels if no more damage is done.

The $10-million fruit industry in Texas suffered sizable losses, especially in the peach crops, Texas A&M; University horticulturist Calvin Lyons said Tuesday. Grapes in western and northern Texas also were damaged, and there was heavy damage to blueberries in eastern Texas, he said.

Families Hold Vigil

In Terry, Miss., Dub Geiselbreth, Carroll Johns, their wives, children and grandchildren held an all-night vigil on the edge of a 15-acre peach orchard. The men had spent three days piling used tires and brush around the orchard.

“It’ll be the weekend before we know what we’ve lost,” said Geiselbreth, who has been growing peaches since 1937.

Alabama peach grower Charles Culp, who lost 99% of his crop to an April freeze last year, said that he was considering hiring two helicopters at $400 an hour to hover over his trees.

The snow that fell over the Ohio Valley closed some schools Tuesday in Ohio and Kentucky, and the Ohio Senate and House canceled their sessions.