February 6, 2026 • 19 mins
For Shop Talk, we dive into the worst ice storm to ever hit the American South. And the Oxford, MS citizens who became a relentless Army of bloody do-gooders!
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey, everybody's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks.
Welcome to the shop for shop Talk number eighty nine.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Do you know any eighty nines?
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Bill, I gotta know some eighty nuns. Was Lynn Stalworth
eighty nine? Eighty nine? I mean some receivers were eighty
nuns for sure.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Who'd win in a wrestling match? Dick or God?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Who trick?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Question? Dicka is God? Mike Dicka?
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Mike Ditko is eighty nine? Kid?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Have you heard that joke before?
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Yes, Ditka was eighty nine. That makes sense. For being
from Chicago, you would actually care about that one.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I was actually born in nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Oh, got your puppy. I know, I graduated high school
three years before you're born. That is just disgusting. All right?
What else? Anybody else? No?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Well, I mean you might know these people.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
I don't. Let's see who are they?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Marchetti come on, great defensive end? Steve Smith? Yeah, that
he was awesome. Yeah. I think I think the big
one is Gino Marcedes, Gino Mercedes. Not my birthday, ad Man,
Oh and your birthday? So all right, everybody, for shop
Talk eighty nine, we're going to talk about winter Storm Fern,
(01:22):
which is something that just read tavoc on my business,
read tavoc on Memphis, reatavoc on a lot of places,
but worse, absolutely smoked North Mississippi. And we're going to
talk about the recovery efforts. Winnerstorm Fern is one for
the ages. Right after these brief messages from our general sponsors.
(02:00):
All right, everybody, welcome back to shop talking number eighty nine. Alex,
Welcome into the shop.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
It's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Bill, It's amazing you made it up here.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Well, we had to cancel an interview because the storm
that we're talking about, I know it's it's uh So
I'll just tell you the Memphis perspective of winter storm
firm real quickly.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Everybody needs to know. This is just the worst ice
storm in the history of the Southeast in the United States.
I spent three days up here shoveling well scooping with
motor graders, snow, and there's outside when you leave.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I got one hundred and thirty employees for that.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Bill. They couldn't get here.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I know, I'm just messing.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I was here by myself and two other guys.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
I saw a video of like Max going down the
highway with another guy on equipment.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yeah, it's it's insane, and we have I mean, I've
got I've still got thirteen fourteen fifteen foot tall massive piles,
pyramids of snow. Can we go sledding after this? You
don't want to slid on that. That's a basically a
rock at this point, you don't want to touch it.
But what's crazy is January will be our worst sales
(03:07):
month we've had in eleven years.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Congratulations.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Thanks. You want know why we produced? I couldn't get
a truck here to pick any product up, so I
lost the entire week of shipments. The depots were closed,
so we couldn't get containers here, and all of the
interstate south of here had trucks stuck on them for
four days, and so trucks couldn't even get here, so
(03:30):
I couldn't even load any product.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Thankfully, all those sales are all into February.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
So yeah, oh, I didn't lose the sales. Yeah, So
what we're going to have is probably the biggest February
we've ever had because all those sales are still good
and our trucks are run. Wow.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Well, let's what you call lives Damn Liz and statistics.
You just did that to us.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
No, But the point is, I've never been a situation
where we could not get a truck to our plant
and for a week, never in all the years of
the business. Never ever, And for a week we couldn't
even get a truck here. And when I say it
was there were people on I fifty five and I
sixty nine running out of gas who were there for
(04:05):
three or four days.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Oh really, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Oh it was horrible. They could not move.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I know it was like shut down, but I didn't
think there was stuck like that.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
There were people there who ran out of fuel and
were stuck in their car and freezing temperatures for days.
It was insane.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Sadly, and I'm jumping ahead, but one person actually died
in Oxford from hypothermia.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah, this is not an ice small matter.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
So in addition, my beloved Oxford, Mississippi home and University
of Mississippi, which is only an hour or so south
of Memphis, and probably as a crow flies, fifty or
sixty miles south of Memphis. The separation of the line
of snow and freezing rain and ice was right in
(04:49):
between Memphis and Oxford. So Memphis got eight nine inches
of snow and then about a half of inch of
ice on top of it. South of Memphis, Oxford included,
and up to the north Mississippi Vane And while these
trucks could move on the interstate, they got over an
inch of just ice. And really I think some places
(05:11):
got two inches of ice. And it was insane. And
Alex was in Oxford and he's going to tell you
about it.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
And the reason we're talking about this too is not
just because of Oxford and you and I caring about it,
but there's actually have to think some interesting lessons for
the army here.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Yeah, the real reason they were recovering it, I think
actually what the university's trying to do for students as well.
So let people know about it.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
I don't know if you knew this, but I was
in Salt Lake City last weekend for the chapter training
of Sleeping Heavenly Peace. Really, so I actually got to
see our former guest, Luke Micholson. He was there.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
He was there, Yes, he did. These are great. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
So they have three hundred eighty chapters and they've built
three hundred and sixty thousand beds for kids without them.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Unbelievable so far, and.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
In this one they probably had twenty new chapters from
across the country.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
See.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
The most powerful part is they had like a dinner
where we each got up and talked about why we're
doing this, hearing everybody's stories and a lot of the cases,
you know, people who went.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Out on the delivery. You met a family without.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
A bed and I actually got to do that walls
out there too, so we actually did that delivery. I
mean it was powerful. I mean these two kids were
really quiet. So I mean I think some cases, like
you know, the kids are overjoyed and they're jumping your arms.
I think some kids like yeah, just from all their circumstances, Like.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
It's those kids have likely suffered some trauma, so you
never know what you're going to get.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
No, Yeah, but like walking into a room where yeah,
there's no bed in there, there's nothing in there, like room, Yeah,
it's just a room.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
So anyway, I was supposed to fly back on Sunday.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah, it all happening.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Yeah, so I made the last minute decision to fly
to Florida to my parents and work there all week.
So I wasn't thankfully able to get back on Friday,
but I did get probably a couple thousand dollars worth
of damage to my porch.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
A tree fell on my porch.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Yikes. I will tell you this will. My son was
in Memphis for the weekend and he tried to get
out for two days and he finally made it back
on Tuesday. But he sent me a picture in the
Memphis International Airport and he said there were thousands of
kids sleeping in the airport on air mattresses, all from Ole,
(07:15):
miss who were trying because they didn't have any power.
They were trying to get home and they couldn't even
get out. So I mean, it was it was a
real thing. At least they got in the airport with power,
that's true. That's where they were. They had heat.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
I'm about to hit this.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
The storm started on Friday, February twenty third, and by
three am on Sunday, the twenty fifth most of Oxford
in Malfaya County was dark. So Northeastssissippi Power out of
thirty thousand members, they had almost twenty five thousand without power.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
And it was the weight of the ice snapping branches
and then breaking tearing down power leans right, correct.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Ye know, I was actually at my Bible study with
a friend this morning and he said that his house
got to thirty degrees. He's actually still with all inside, yes,
inside grief, and he's still without electricity. So thankfully, most
of Oxford's back up, but the county in like Lafaya County,
I mean a lot of those places are still down.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
It maybe like two weeks to get power back.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
So the city actually put a shelter in place order
where people couldn't you know, move for a couple of
days there. So I mentioned two people have died from
storm related deaths, but I really want to focus on
the recovery stuff. This is kind of the fun army
of normal folks in action live in Oxford. So the
employees of Baptist Hospital decided to stay there, sleep overnight,
and work there so that people.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Needed the head generators. Yeah, got it.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
On this dining hall workers left their homes and stayed
on campus to feed the students during it. You're kidding,
And I saw actually I pulled it out of the prep.
But it was something like just one particular day there.
I think they did like two to three thousand meals there. Yeah,
I mean just normal workers, their commitment to staying over linemen.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Especially.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Everybody's praising the lineman right now. So I guess Northeast
Ssissippi Power has a crew about fifty, but we ended
up getting a three hundred and fifty additional people from
throughout the region. Actually, I was helped with some of
the recovery efforts on Saturday, and I saw a crew
from Opalaika, Alabama, you know out there too. It's literally
just these linemen from across the region. They have come
to Oxford and they're just working all day and night
(09:10):
to get everybody back up.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
And the town has really rallied around them with free
food and all that. People need to realize. And I
know not such time stamped this, but this is February second.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Yeah, it's still going on, and it's still going on,
and this happened January twenty third, and there are people
down there still without power, and people need to understand that.
Even though the Stowe and I stopped the next night,
it got down to six degrees, so people literally just
freezing their butts off.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
I was gonna mention this later, but now they're on
this topic. I actually have a stranger sleeping in my
house right now. We really doesn't have power.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
And honestly that's not to brag about me, it's I'm
honestly more convicted by all of our guests who've done this.
It's like even just the Charlot Dance one the other day.
You remember her parents have had fifty people in their
home throughout the years, and strangers feel like this person
that's sleeping in your house. There's a whole recovery effort.
So Betsy Chapman is the head of the Farmer's Market
(10:05):
in Oxford, and she and my friend William Tire and
some other people have organized what they call Oxford Second Responders.
It's obviously you got first responders far so we are
the second responders here. Let me see the number, all right.
So they have one hundred and eighty three people in
this group me. So it's basically like this massive you know,
text message thread with one hundred and eighty three normal
(10:26):
citizens and they're basically organizing, you know, all the needs
and responses and so people can submit a form about
what they need and then they have these hundred and
eighty three people ready to respond. So they've actually like
set up seven collection sites around the city to collect
goods and stuff for people. Because think about this too,
Like with it being down for so long, a lot
of people couldn't get to work with a shelter and order.
(10:48):
So like if you're already barely making it on the margins,
and you probably heard this number before that something like
forty percent of Americans couldn't meet a five hundred dollars
emergency bill, right, so you have a like a week
or like this happened, Like a lot of people are truly,
you know, struggling. So they stood have seven collection sites
at schools and churches, including what's funny at our church.
So Sierra Cannon, who you've met before, they actually she
(11:09):
actually volunteered the use of our church without even running
it by our priest first.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
She said, hey, we're going to do this.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
I'm sure he said it was fine.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Yeah, And to give him credit to he's been awesome.
So he's actually been driving generators to people, and he
was talking about it when I was actually helping them
a little bit on Saturday, and he's like, just the
blessing of people strangers welcome me in their home. And
it reminded me two of Isaiah one seventeen house. Yeah,
when she said, I think I've repeated this line of
(11:39):
the podcast that day too, like people don't want to
like come to your church social like with ice cream,
and like these white people dressed up all nights and
they got all their lives act together. Like if you
want to grow the church, you need to go to
people in their need. That's where you need to show up.
So like, yeah, a priest showing up bringing generators to
people's houses and setting them up, Like that's what the
(11:59):
country needs, that's what we meet. Anyway, through this Oxford
second responder, as they said, somebody's without you know, electricity, Yeah,
and so I offered it.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
And so there's also a fund that the university set
up that you can donate to to help students who
don't have the money then to get out of town.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Right, correct. Yeah, So there's all kinds of funds up there.
So my friend Wayne Andrews is running a fund through
his nonprofit. So it's called the Long Term Recovery Committee.
And for example, they were able to get seventy seven
heaters for people without power. So if you'd be interested
in contributing to that, you can go to give butter
dot com slash lafayat cares Lafayette is la faye tte
(12:42):
cares All right, who else we want to celebrate here? Actually,
our friend Marshall Ramsey had a great thing too. Have
you ever heard his line that one of our superpowers
in Mississippi is that when a natural disaster strikes, and
before you can crawl out of the rubble, there will
be a churchman in your front yard full of people
with chainsaws and cast roles.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Which is really what has happened.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
He nicely cited us, he said, but there was a
lot of people stepping up to meet that need. My
friend Bill Courtney talks about an army and normal folks,
and I were basically seeing that out there. Crewe is
another cool example of this. So the campus crusade for
Christ we have all the students. They posted this hilarious
Instagram video of them like clearing a bunch of debris,
like dozens of you know, these old mythstudents and they
(13:30):
put on there. When you're known as one of the
biggest party schools in the country, but you are.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
So much more than that.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
All these up doing it.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Yeah, Walmart's actually doing a ton with another charity offering
free showers there.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
This Operation Barbecue Relief is set up there.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
I don't know if you heard of these guys, but
they started during the Joplin tornadoes and they've show up
at the disaster sites like this, and they've served more
than fourteen million years across forty three states, wow, over
their years. And they're in Oxford for like two weeks.
Eight Days of Hope a former Army member and past guests.
They're deploying eighty people right now in the town over
(14:06):
two weeks. They're staying at the North Oxford Baptist Church
and have their base out of there.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
I'm planning on helping them on Saturday.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
How much the city has power now.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
I think the city's pretty much universe.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
I mean there's maybe like one hundred I think I
saw like one hundred residents without power in the city.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
But the county county is the problem still.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
It's like, yeah, my friend of my Bible studies in
the county still doesn't have power.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Yeah, Samaritan's purse is down there too. Actually, I was
gonna say about eight Days of Hope too. If you
if you're interested in getting involved, they're going to be
there through February fourteenth, So if you google eight Days
of Hope, Mississippi, you'll see that. And with all their
efforts over the years, they've helped with twenty disasters, sixty
thousand volunteers, and they rebuilt seven thousand homes. Samaritan's Purse
is down there. The YMCA is offering free showers. In
(14:52):
one personal story with a friend too, they so we
were helping at our church with the collection site on Saturday,
and these people then are still without power. They're in
the county and yet they're at the church and they're
cooking gumbo for all the volunteers helping get the church.
I mean, they made a meal for probably like fifty
of us, even though they don't have power themselves, even
though they have a tree on their house. So Madame
(15:13):
Michelle's range just to give them a shout out. But anyway,
these are just a couple of highlights of how the
community has really come together here in Oxford. It is
a great example of an army in normal folks showing out.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Is there tree stuffed down just everywhere everywhere? Is it
going to change the look of the city.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
I'm sure, Well, I'm not enough of an expert, But.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
That's a shame.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Oxford trees grow back, don't they Bill, They do grow back,
matter of fact, and I think we've done a think
of that.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
But it's it's a shame because I bet on you know,
campus keeps their trees trimmed up well and so there's
not as much deadfall and wait, but most people don't
do that. And we had an ice storm and we
called it ice Storm Elvis in Memphis, I don't know,
fifteen years ago. It was similar and man, you could
(16:02):
hear it sounded like gunfire. You could hear tree branches
cracking and breaking constantly.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
It was just snap, snap, snap all night long. Wasn't
like that, That's what everybody. I was gone during it,
but that's exactly what everybody said. It was the eeriest thing,
just hearing that all night long.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Yeah, all night long. Just in the middle of the night,
it'd be quiet, and then you'd just hear crack, crack, crack,
and you just knew there's another branch fall into somebody's house. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
So, so an army of normal folks showing out the thing.
I also wanted to say, I want to be careful
how I say this but obviously things like this or
nine to eleven is a good example too. They can
really bring people together. But it is also so easy
to go back in our slumber after this, like why
weren't we this convicted before this? With all the social
(16:49):
ills in our country? You know, I think thirty to
forty percent of kids in Oxford are not a grade level,
So it's like, why don't we have the same sense
of urgency about that, or the fact that the reason
we're starting to sleep in Heavenly Peace chapter in Oxford too,
there's you know, been eighty kids in our community who've
asked for a bed even though there's not a Sleeping
Heavenly Peace chapter yet. I mean, these parents are literally
so desperate they're googling for something like this and found it.
(17:11):
Or in the surrounding area there's like five hundred people
you know without a bed. So it's you know, we
need to have this same level of conviction once this
particular you know event goes away. So hopefully that's something
worth all of us reflecting on. And it's true for
our listeners across the country too, Right, that's not just
about Oxford, that's every community where these things like this
can bring us together, and what if we just kept
(17:32):
that up year round.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Well, hopefully the Army and Normal Folks Club and what
do we call it a service club Service Club in Oxford,
Mississippi will continue to have the same urgency of this
effort after the ice storm was gone.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
So we are having our kickoff meeting on February twenty second,
five to six pm at Circle and.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Square Brewery in Oxford.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Perfect place.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Yeah, I don't know if you've been there, but it's
pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
I've heard it's very cool.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Yeah, But March first, run our Memphis one, March eighth,
or Heaven or Atlanta one. Sorry, guys, I'm blinking on
the rest of them, which it's always February twenty sixth,
But if you're listening to any of those communities, go
to our website.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
You can get plugged in with all of them.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
That's it, all right, everybody shop Talk eighty nine making
the best of Winter Storm Fern in Oxford, Mississippi, and
really good examples of how an Army and Normal Folks
really does make a difference. And Alex's point, I think
it's true. We shouldn't have a disaster to have a
sense of urgency of joining the ranks of the army
(18:34):
and normal folks making differences in our community. It's a
reminder of the power that we have, but it's also
a call to use that power every day, not just
in the cases of emergencies. Shop Talk eighty nine, screw
winter Storm Firm. That's it. We'll see you guys next week.
Hey, everybody's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks.
Welcome to the shop for shop Talk number eighty nine.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Do you know any eighty nines?
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Bill, I gotta know some eighty nuns. Was Lynn Stalworth
eighty nine? Eighty nine? I mean some receivers were eighty
nuns for sure.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Who'd win in a wrestling match? Dick or God?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Who trick?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Question? Dicka is God? Mike Dicka?
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Mike Ditko is eighty nine? Kid?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Have you heard that joke before?
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Yes, Ditka was eighty nine. That makes sense. For being
from Chicago, you would actually care about that one.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I was actually born in nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Oh, got your puppy. I know, I graduated high school
three years before you're born. That is just disgusting. All right?
What else? Anybody else? No?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Well, I mean you might know these people.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
I don't. Let's see who are they?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Marchetti come on, great defensive end? Steve Smith? Yeah, that
he was awesome. Yeah. I think I think the big
one is Gino Marcedes, Gino Mercedes. Not my birthday, ad Man,
Oh and your birthday? So all right, everybody, for shop
Talk eighty nine, we're going to talk about winter Storm Fern,
(01:22):
which is something that just read tavoc on my business,
read tavoc on Memphis, reatavoc on a lot of places,
but worse, absolutely smoked North Mississippi. And we're going to
talk about the recovery efforts. Winnerstorm Fern is one for
the ages. Right after these brief messages from our general sponsors.
(02:00):
All right, everybody, welcome back to shop talking number eighty nine. Alex,
Welcome into the shop.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
It's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Bill, It's amazing you made it up here.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Well, we had to cancel an interview because the storm
that we're talking about, I know it's it's uh So
I'll just tell you the Memphis perspective of winter storm
firm real quickly.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Everybody needs to know. This is just the worst ice
storm in the history of the Southeast in the United States.
I spent three days up here shoveling well scooping with
motor graders, snow, and there's outside when you leave.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I got one hundred and thirty employees for that.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Bill. They couldn't get here.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I know, I'm just messing.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I was here by myself and two other guys.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
I saw a video of like Max going down the
highway with another guy on equipment.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yeah, it's it's insane, and we have I mean, I've
got I've still got thirteen fourteen fifteen foot tall massive piles,
pyramids of snow. Can we go sledding after this? You
don't want to slid on that. That's a basically a
rock at this point, you don't want to touch it.
But what's crazy is January will be our worst sales
(03:07):
month we've had in eleven years.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Congratulations.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Thanks. You want know why we produced? I couldn't get
a truck here to pick any product up, so I
lost the entire week of shipments. The depots were closed,
so we couldn't get containers here, and all of the
interstate south of here had trucks stuck on them for
four days, and so trucks couldn't even get here, so
(03:30):
I couldn't even load any product.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Thankfully, all those sales are all into February.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
So yeah, oh, I didn't lose the sales. Yeah, So
what we're going to have is probably the biggest February
we've ever had because all those sales are still good
and our trucks are run. Wow.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Well, let's what you call lives Damn Liz and statistics.
You just did that to us.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
No, But the point is, I've never been a situation
where we could not get a truck to our plant
and for a week, never in all the years of
the business. Never ever, And for a week we couldn't
even get a truck here. And when I say it
was there were people on I fifty five and I
sixty nine running out of gas who were there for
(04:05):
three or four days.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Oh really, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Oh it was horrible. They could not move.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I know it was like shut down, but I didn't
think there was stuck like that.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
There were people there who ran out of fuel and
were stuck in their car and freezing temperatures for days.
It was insane.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Sadly, and I'm jumping ahead, but one person actually died
in Oxford from hypothermia.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah, this is not an ice small matter.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
So in addition, my beloved Oxford, Mississippi home and University
of Mississippi, which is only an hour or so south
of Memphis, and probably as a crow flies, fifty or
sixty miles south of Memphis. The separation of the line
of snow and freezing rain and ice was right in
(04:49):
between Memphis and Oxford. So Memphis got eight nine inches
of snow and then about a half of inch of
ice on top of it. South of Memphis, Oxford included,
and up to the north Mississippi Vane And while these
trucks could move on the interstate, they got over an
inch of just ice. And really I think some places
(05:11):
got two inches of ice. And it was insane. And
Alex was in Oxford and he's going to tell you
about it.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
And the reason we're talking about this too is not
just because of Oxford and you and I caring about it,
but there's actually have to think some interesting lessons for
the army here.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Yeah, the real reason they were recovering it, I think
actually what the university's trying to do for students as well.
So let people know about it.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
I don't know if you knew this, but I was
in Salt Lake City last weekend for the chapter training
of Sleeping Heavenly Peace. Really, so I actually got to
see our former guest, Luke Micholson. He was there.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
He was there, Yes, he did. These are great. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
So they have three hundred eighty chapters and they've built
three hundred and sixty thousand beds for kids without them.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Unbelievable so far, and.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
In this one they probably had twenty new chapters from
across the country.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
See.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
The most powerful part is they had like a dinner
where we each got up and talked about why we're
doing this, hearing everybody's stories and a lot of the cases,
you know, people who went.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Out on the delivery. You met a family without.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
A bed and I actually got to do that walls
out there too, so we actually did that delivery. I
mean it was powerful. I mean these two kids were
really quiet. So I mean I think some cases, like
you know, the kids are overjoyed and they're jumping your arms.
I think some kids like yeah, just from all their circumstances, Like.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
It's those kids have likely suffered some trauma, so you
never know what you're going to get.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
No, Yeah, but like walking into a room where yeah,
there's no bed in there, there's nothing in there, like room, Yeah,
it's just a room.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
So anyway, I was supposed to fly back on Sunday.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah, it all happening.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
Yeah, so I made the last minute decision to fly
to Florida to my parents and work there all week.
So I wasn't thankfully able to get back on Friday,
but I did get probably a couple thousand dollars worth
of damage to my porch.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
A tree fell on my porch.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Yikes. I will tell you this will. My son was
in Memphis for the weekend and he tried to get
out for two days and he finally made it back
on Tuesday. But he sent me a picture in the
Memphis International Airport and he said there were thousands of
kids sleeping in the airport on air mattresses, all from Ole,
(07:15):
miss who were trying because they didn't have any power.
They were trying to get home and they couldn't even
get out. So I mean, it was it was a
real thing. At least they got in the airport with power,
that's true. That's where they were. They had heat.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
I'm about to hit this.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
The storm started on Friday, February twenty third, and by
three am on Sunday, the twenty fifth most of Oxford
in Malfaya County was dark. So Northeastssissippi Power out of
thirty thousand members, they had almost twenty five thousand without power.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
And it was the weight of the ice snapping branches
and then breaking tearing down power leans right, correct.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Ye know, I was actually at my Bible study with
a friend this morning and he said that his house
got to thirty degrees. He's actually still with all inside, yes,
inside grief, and he's still without electricity. So thankfully, most
of Oxford's back up, but the county in like Lafaya County,
I mean a lot of those places are still down.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
It maybe like two weeks to get power back.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
So the city actually put a shelter in place order
where people couldn't you know, move for a couple of
days there. So I mentioned two people have died from
storm related deaths, but I really want to focus on
the recovery stuff. This is kind of the fun army
of normal folks in action live in Oxford. So the
employees of Baptist Hospital decided to stay there, sleep overnight,
and work there so that people.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Needed the head generators. Yeah, got it.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
On this dining hall workers left their homes and stayed
on campus to feed the students during it. You're kidding,
And I saw actually I pulled it out of the prep.
But it was something like just one particular day there.
I think they did like two to three thousand meals there. Yeah,
I mean just normal workers, their commitment to staying over linemen.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Especially.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Everybody's praising the lineman right now. So I guess Northeast
Ssissippi Power has a crew about fifty, but we ended
up getting a three hundred and fifty additional people from
throughout the region. Actually, I was helped with some of
the recovery efforts on Saturday, and I saw a crew
from Opalaika, Alabama, you know out there too. It's literally
just these linemen from across the region. They have come
to Oxford and they're just working all day and night
(09:10):
to get everybody back up.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
And the town has really rallied around them with free
food and all that. People need to realize. And I
know not such time stamped this, but this is February second.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Yeah, it's still going on, and it's still going on,
and this happened January twenty third, and there are people
down there still without power, and people need to understand that.
Even though the Stowe and I stopped the next night,
it got down to six degrees, so people literally just
freezing their butts off.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
I was gonna mention this later, but now they're on
this topic. I actually have a stranger sleeping in my
house right now. We really doesn't have power.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
And honestly that's not to brag about me, it's I'm
honestly more convicted by all of our guests who've done this.
It's like even just the Charlot Dance one the other day.
You remember her parents have had fifty people in their
home throughout the years, and strangers feel like this person
that's sleeping in your house. There's a whole recovery effort.
So Betsy Chapman is the head of the Farmer's Market
(10:05):
in Oxford, and she and my friend William Tire and
some other people have organized what they call Oxford Second Responders.
It's obviously you got first responders far so we are
the second responders here. Let me see the number, all right.
So they have one hundred and eighty three people in
this group me. So it's basically like this massive you know,
text message thread with one hundred and eighty three normal
(10:26):
citizens and they're basically organizing, you know, all the needs
and responses and so people can submit a form about
what they need and then they have these hundred and
eighty three people ready to respond. So they've actually like
set up seven collection sites around the city to collect
goods and stuff for people. Because think about this too,
Like with it being down for so long, a lot
of people couldn't get to work with a shelter and order.
(10:48):
So like if you're already barely making it on the margins,
and you probably heard this number before that something like
forty percent of Americans couldn't meet a five hundred dollars
emergency bill, right, so you have a like a week
or like this happened, Like a lot of people are truly,
you know, struggling. So they stood have seven collection sites
at schools and churches, including what's funny at our church.
So Sierra Cannon, who you've met before, they actually she
(11:09):
actually volunteered the use of our church without even running
it by our priest first.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
She said, hey, we're going to do this.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
I'm sure he said it was fine.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Yeah, And to give him credit to he's been awesome.
So he's actually been driving generators to people, and he
was talking about it when I was actually helping them
a little bit on Saturday, and he's like, just the
blessing of people strangers welcome me in their home. And
it reminded me two of Isaiah one seventeen house. Yeah,
when she said, I think I've repeated this line of
(11:39):
the podcast that day too, like people don't want to
like come to your church social like with ice cream,
and like these white people dressed up all nights and
they got all their lives act together. Like if you
want to grow the church, you need to go to
people in their need. That's where you need to show up.
So like, yeah, a priest showing up bringing generators to
people's houses and setting them up, Like that's what the
(11:59):
country needs, that's what we meet. Anyway, through this Oxford
second responder, as they said, somebody's without you know, electricity, Yeah,
and so I offered it.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
And so there's also a fund that the university set
up that you can donate to to help students who
don't have the money then to get out of town.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Right, correct. Yeah, So there's all kinds of funds up there.
So my friend Wayne Andrews is running a fund through
his nonprofit. So it's called the Long Term Recovery Committee.
And for example, they were able to get seventy seven
heaters for people without power. So if you'd be interested
in contributing to that, you can go to give butter
dot com slash lafayat cares Lafayette is la faye tte
(12:42):
cares All right, who else we want to celebrate here? Actually,
our friend Marshall Ramsey had a great thing too. Have
you ever heard his line that one of our superpowers
in Mississippi is that when a natural disaster strikes, and
before you can crawl out of the rubble, there will
be a churchman in your front yard full of people
with chainsaws and cast roles.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Which is really what has happened.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
He nicely cited us, he said, but there was a
lot of people stepping up to meet that need. My
friend Bill Courtney talks about an army and normal folks,
and I were basically seeing that out there. Crewe is
another cool example of this. So the campus crusade for
Christ we have all the students. They posted this hilarious
Instagram video of them like clearing a bunch of debris,
like dozens of you know, these old mythstudents and they
(13:30):
put on there. When you're known as one of the
biggest party schools in the country, but you are.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
So much more than that.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
All these up doing it.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Yeah, Walmart's actually doing a ton with another charity offering
free showers there.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
This Operation Barbecue Relief is set up there.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
I don't know if you heard of these guys, but
they started during the Joplin tornadoes and they've show up
at the disaster sites like this, and they've served more
than fourteen million years across forty three states, wow, over
their years. And they're in Oxford for like two weeks.
Eight Days of Hope a former Army member and past guests.
They're deploying eighty people right now in the town over
(14:06):
two weeks. They're staying at the North Oxford Baptist Church
and have their base out of there.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
I'm planning on helping them on Saturday.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
How much the city has power now.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
I think the city's pretty much universe.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
I mean there's maybe like one hundred I think I
saw like one hundred residents without power in the city.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
But the county county is the problem still.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
It's like, yeah, my friend of my Bible studies in
the county still doesn't have power.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Yeah, Samaritan's purse is down there too. Actually, I was
gonna say about eight Days of Hope too. If you
if you're interested in getting involved, they're going to be
there through February fourteenth, So if you google eight Days
of Hope, Mississippi, you'll see that. And with all their
efforts over the years, they've helped with twenty disasters, sixty
thousand volunteers, and they rebuilt seven thousand homes. Samaritan's Purse
is down there. The YMCA is offering free showers. In
(14:52):
one personal story with a friend too, they so we
were helping at our church with the collection site on Saturday,
and these people then are still without power. They're in
the county and yet they're at the church and they're
cooking gumbo for all the volunteers helping get the church.
I mean, they made a meal for probably like fifty
of us, even though they don't have power themselves, even
though they have a tree on their house. So Madame
(15:13):
Michelle's range just to give them a shout out. But anyway,
these are just a couple of highlights of how the
community has really come together here in Oxford. It is
a great example of an army in normal folks showing out.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Is there tree stuffed down just everywhere everywhere? Is it
going to change the look of the city.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
I'm sure, Well, I'm not enough of an expert, But.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
That's a shame.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Oxford trees grow back, don't they Bill, They do grow back,
matter of fact, and I think we've done a think
of that.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
But it's it's a shame because I bet on you know,
campus keeps their trees trimmed up well and so there's
not as much deadfall and wait, but most people don't
do that. And we had an ice storm and we
called it ice Storm Elvis in Memphis, I don't know,
fifteen years ago. It was similar and man, you could
(16:02):
hear it sounded like gunfire. You could hear tree branches
cracking and breaking constantly.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
It was just snap, snap, snap all night long. Wasn't
like that, That's what everybody. I was gone during it,
but that's exactly what everybody said. It was the eeriest thing,
just hearing that all night long.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Yeah, all night long. Just in the middle of the night,
it'd be quiet, and then you'd just hear crack, crack, crack,
and you just knew there's another branch fall into somebody's house. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
So, so an army of normal folks showing out the thing.
I also wanted to say, I want to be careful
how I say this but obviously things like this or
nine to eleven is a good example too. They can
really bring people together. But it is also so easy
to go back in our slumber after this, like why
weren't we this convicted before this? With all the social
(16:49):
ills in our country? You know, I think thirty to
forty percent of kids in Oxford are not a grade level,
So it's like, why don't we have the same sense
of urgency about that, or the fact that the reason
we're starting to sleep in Heavenly Peace chapter in Oxford too,
there's you know, been eighty kids in our community who've
asked for a bed even though there's not a Sleeping
Heavenly Peace chapter yet. I mean, these parents are literally
so desperate they're googling for something like this and found it.
(17:11):
Or in the surrounding area there's like five hundred people
you know without a bed. So it's you know, we
need to have this same level of conviction once this
particular you know event goes away. So hopefully that's something
worth all of us reflecting on. And it's true for
our listeners across the country too, Right, that's not just
about Oxford, that's every community where these things like this
can bring us together, and what if we just kept
(17:32):
that up year round.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Well, hopefully the Army and Normal Folks Club and what
do we call it a service club Service Club in Oxford,
Mississippi will continue to have the same urgency of this
effort after the ice storm was gone.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
So we are having our kickoff meeting on February twenty second,
five to six pm at Circle and.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Square Brewery in Oxford.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Perfect place.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Yeah, I don't know if you've been there, but it's
pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
I've heard it's very cool.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Yeah, But March first, run our Memphis one, March eighth,
or Heaven or Atlanta one. Sorry, guys, I'm blinking on
the rest of them, which it's always February twenty sixth,
But if you're listening to any of those communities, go
to our website.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
You can get plugged in with all of them.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
That's it, all right, everybody shop Talk eighty nine making
the best of Winter Storm Fern in Oxford, Mississippi, and
really good examples of how an Army and Normal Folks
really does make a difference. And Alex's point, I think
it's true. We shouldn't have a disaster to have a
sense of urgency of joining the ranks of the army
(18:34):
and normal folks making differences in our community. It's a
reminder of the power that we have, but it's also
a call to use that power every day, not just
in the cases of emergencies. Shop Talk eighty nine, screw
winter Storm Firm. That's it. We'll see you guys next week.
Host
Bill Courtney
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