Heavy snowfall in Butler County
Published 8:37 am Friday, February 12, 2010
As snow swept across the Southeast on Friday, many Greenville residents enjoyed a day off from work.
Speculation from the National Weather Service placed snow estimates at 3 to 5 inches, which lead to cancellations across the city.
Butler County Schools and Fort Dale Academy opted to not meet at all on Friday. All athletic events have been rescheduled for later dates.
Fort Dale moved their basketball games to Tuesday, Feb. 16. Both the girls and boys will play at Huntingdon, with the girls starting at 12:00 p.m. and the boys at 4:30 p.m.
The Greenville High School boys game will be held at Rehobeth Saturday at 6 p.m.
The beauty pageant scheduled for today at GHS was expected to continue as planned.
Joseph Dean, superintendent for Butler County Schools, said after consulting with numerous sources, he thinks his school made the right decision.
“Its always best to err on the side of caution,” Dean said.
Dean had originally called for a late start to Friday school before confidence in the forecast increased.
Mayor Dexter McClendon recommended on Thursday that people stay off the roads.
“It was looking a lot worse than originally thought,” McClendon said. “We put our emergency plans in place so we can take care of people.”
All city buildings and operations were shut down for the day, including trash collection.
The weather system first grabbed the attention of the local Emergency Management Agency on Wednesday. Cold air from the north was expected to converged
Bob Luman, of the Butler County EMA, warned of the possibility of power outages after a live conference call with the NWS. Weather experts called for heavy, wet snow with the potential to crack branches and power lines.
“A lot of the leaves around town have already dropped,” Luman said. “Hopefully this means the storm won’t bring down a lot of trees.”