Storm disrupts schools, government

Published 5:45 pm Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Area schools, some government offices and some businesses remain closed today or operate under amended schedules as the region recovers from a winter storm that dumped snow, sleet and freezing rain Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.

Beaufort County Schools are closed today. The Washington Montessori Public Charter School is closed today, too. Beaufort County Community College closed today to students, faculty and staff. Unity Christian Academy, tentatively, will open two hours later than usual today.

City of Washington offices will open late today.

“City crews have done a great job of clearing ice and snow on the roads and around municipal buildings (Wednesday),” City Manager Brian Alligood wrote in an email Wednesday afternoon. “However, air temperatures have kept the majority of surfaces from drying and with the temperatures dropping into the low teens tonight, these surfaces will refreeze and be hazardous in the morning. In order to allow the salt that is being spread at municipal buildings this afternoon time to work with the morning sun, the opening of City offices will be delayed by 2 hours in the morning.”

The Town of Aurora’s office will be open today. The Town of Belhaven’s offices will be partially staffed today.

Hyde County government offices are closed today. The Town of Williamston’s offices were slated to open today under a two hour-delay policy. There was no official word by late Wednesday afternoon on the status of other local governments either being open today or operating under revised schedules.

The Purpose of God Annex Center and its Project New Hope, Washington, is closed today.

The N.C. Ferry Division suspended service on each of its seven regular routes Wednesday. Ferry crews at each terminal are monitoring conditions. Regular ferry service will resume when conditions allow safe service, according to a Ferry Division news release issued Wednesday.

The inclement weather forced the cancellations of Red Cross blood drives across eastern North Carolina on Wednesday.

“These most recent blood drive cancellations come after 450 American Red Cross blood drive cancellations and nearly 14,000 uncollected blood and platelet donations were forced to cancel due to winter weather earlier this month. When it’s considered safe to travel, eligible donors of all blood types are urged to make an appointment to give,” reads an email from the Red Cross donor centers in Greenville.

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.