Jim Bradshaw: When the cold caused a variety of mishaps

Frigid weather is not as uncommon in south Louisiana as we might think, and nowadays we at least get a bit more warning that they are coming than in the days when digital media and computer-generated forecasts were the stuff of science fiction.
For example, we shivered in the dark as the calendar changed from January to February in 1951.
Newspapers called it the worst cold spell in decades. Ice-coated wires fell, leaving towns without power or communication. Firemen battled sleet as well as the blaze when the hospital in Ville Platte burned, just one of the fires attributed to the weather.
The trouble began when a really cold front from the north collided with moist Gulf air moving from the south, providing plenty of moisture to be turned into ice. Adding to it all, a front moving from the west brought a line of thunderstorms that turned into sleet and snow
The headline in the Ville Platte Gazette was in the biggest type available: “Freeze Grips City.” It was typical of those across south Louisiana. The first paragraph of the Gazette story told the tale: “The great North wind blew over the city … this week, bringing with it rain, sleet, snow, the death of one man, a disastrous fire, and a multitude of mishaps and general discomforts.”
As the icy winds blew across town, “a general paralysis settled on Ville Platte … with disruption in telephone communications, fallen electric wires, frozen water pipes, and treacherous freezing of natural gas regulators.”
The volunteer fire department turned out when fire broke out at the Vidrine hospital, but were handicapped by “freezing cold … a treacherous high wind … [and] unbelievably impossible conditions.” They saved the medical records and much of the hospital equipment, but not the building.
The Jennings News used its biggest type to call the frigid weather the “Worst Ice Blast Since 1908.” The Lafayette Advertiser feared that the dip would be the worst since 1889, when the temperature hit 6 degrees there.
It didn’t get that low, but it did reach the low teens in many places.
In Abbeville, “thunder claps punctuated the beginning of the freeze” that brought down Vermilion parish lines and, besides taking a human toll, hit the cattle industry particularly hard. Several fires also were reported in Vermilion Parish. A sound truck had to go through Abbeville telling people to turn off their taps because, in trying to keep pipes from freezing, they were using more water than the town well could supply.
Church Point did not have that problem. The newspaper there reported that “no electricity was available to operate the water pumps at the local power plant.” Residents turned to “candles, lanterns, lamps, and other types of illumination long since discarded for modern electricity.”
The headline in Crowley read: “Acadia Towns Almost Isolated” because telephone and telegraph lines were down and the roads were frozen. The forecast from the Lake Charles weather bureau was delivered to the Acadia sheriff’s office by short wave radio. It promised a days-long freeze. With no telegraph or phone lines,  “neither the Crowley Daily Signal nor KSIG had any news service.”
There were several house fires in Kaplan, at least one of them caused, the Kaplan Times reported, when “the gas meter valve froze, allowing too much pressure and causing the flame of the pilot of the gas stove to shoot high … [and] set the kitchen on fire.”
Temperatures began to ease on Feb. 2 in south Louisiana, but the icy weather had not finished it work. It continued moving east as far as West Virginia, prompting one national report to call 1951’s icy blast  “the costliest ice storm on record” (until then).
Twenty-five people died and 500 more were injured as the storm moved eastward from Louisiana to the Virginias. The Weather Bureau estimated the storm’s damage at  $100 million, which would be over $1 billion today.
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.