A few thousand Lincoln County residents were still without powerFriday morning and several motorists experienced the displeasure ofslippery roads Thursday, but the area’s second snowstorm of 2008produced relatively light damage, officials said.

“Considering the situation, I think we did fairly well,” saidLincoln County Civil Defense Director Clifford Galey. “It was apretty serious situation for Lincoln County because we don’t hardlyever get that kind of weather, but everybody from the state officesthat assisted us all the way down the citizens here were verypatient and understanding and did an excellent job.”

Officials estimated 6 inches of snow fell on the area Thursday.The day’s snow resulted in a little more damage than in January,when the white stuff fell on the area for the first time in manyyears.

Galey said there were numerous trees down across roads and powerlines in the city and county, with at least two reports of trees onhouses and vehicles in the city and one in the county. There weredozens of one-vehicle accidents where motorists slid off theslippery roads, he said, but only two of the wrecks resulted ininjuries.

Mississippi Highway Patrol Troop M officials reported 40snow-related accidents throughout the entire district, with 13reported in Lincoln County – none of which resulted in injury.

MHP Public Relations Officer Sgt. Rusty Boyd indicated theslippery conditions that caused the accidents were the sameconditions that kept motorists from being hurt.

“It was the low speed people were driving which caused lessdamage,” he said. “We had a massive amount of vehicles just runningoff the road and getting stuck that we didn’t fill out reports on.Of the 40 accidents we reported, you can probably more than doublethat.”

None of the sliding vehicles Thursday belonged to WasteManagement, Inc., who suspended garbage collection in Lincoln andPike counties because of dangerous road conditions.

Collection in the cities of Brookhaven and McComb, however -where conditions are better – will continue Friday, according to aWaste Management press release. Company officials held a meetingFriday morning to discuss the resumption of operations in the twocounties, but no decision was announced as of press time.

Officials said snow-laden trees that toppled under the weight ofthe wintry accumulation caused most of Lincoln County’s damage, andmost of that damage was to power lines.

Entergy Account Service Manager Kenny Goza said 1,500 of hiscompany’s customers were without power as of 7 a.m. Friday, themajority of whom reside in Lawrence County and Wesson. Less than500 of the company’s Lincoln County customers were withoutelectricity, he said.

The outages will not last long, said Goza, who added there wereas many as 6,200 customers without power at one point Thursday.

“We have a lot of resources available and we hope to finish upsoon today – before the end of the day, for sure,” he said. “We hadextra crews coming in as early as 9 a.m. Thursday. We still haveall of our resources, so we’re covering it pretty well thismorning.”

Magnolia Electric Power Member Services Director Lucy Shell saidher company reported approximately 6,500 outages across itssix-county area Friday morning, 1,600 of which were in LincolnCounty. She said the company would first tackle larger outages torestore electricity to homes in bulk and then return to individualhomes as necessary.

Shell said Magnolia EPA hopes to have all power restored by theend of the day Friday. She reported Thursday that most of theLincoln County outages were in the Enterprise area.

“Our crews worked until 10 p.m. Thursday night before they werecalled in for safety reasons,” Shell said. “All of our circuits areenergized now, but there are still some problems occurring on thethree phase lines.”

Shell said additional contract crews from all over SouthwestMississippi have been pulled off special projects and were workingto restore power Friday morning.

“We want to let people know we’re working as fast and as safelyas we can,” she said.

Customers of Southwest Mississippi Electric Power Association,meanwhile, are all online.

Personnel and Public Relations Coordinator Azalea Knight saidall of her company’s 800 outages in Copiah, Franklin and Lincolncounties – 650 of which were in Lincoln County – were restoredThursday night.

“Looks like the last meter was turned on about midnight[Thursday],” she said.

Top-heavy trees didn’t only knock out electricity Thursday -they fell onto personal property as well.

Railroad Street’s Lawrence Smith said snow accumulation causedhis aluminum parking garage to buckle and fall in on his LincolnTowncar at 10:45 a.m. Thursday. Luckily, he had already placed atarp over the car and metal-on-metal contact was prevented.

“I don’t think it’s too bad,” Smith said as he surveyed thedamage.

Some of the county’s fallen tree victims were able to shrug thedamage off in good spirits.

First Baptist Church of Brookhaven Associate Pastor Jeff Doremushad the top of a tall pine tree crash through a stonewall on McNairAvenue and penetrate the roof of his home. But this wasn’t hisfirst rodeo.

“We’ve had about one tree a year so far,” Doremus said,laughing. “With a couple more storms, I think we’ll be done withall our trees.”

Thursday’s attacking pine tree was the second tree to fall onDoremus’ home, he said, which was pounded by falling trees severalmore times during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He said he identifiedthe tree to his wife, Terry, as the one most likely to fall earlyThursday morning before leaving for work.

“Don’t be surprised if you hear a thump on the roof,” he said.”She called me about 10 a.m. and said, ‘Well, it happened.’ Whenyou live in the South with pine trees everywhere, you have toexpect something is gonna break.”