Lonnie Whiting Jr., a resident at the Unita Blackwell Stay Apartments in Mayersville, expressed joy in having electricity restored at the complex. "Everything is electric, so it was hard, but we making it," Whiting said on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Preparing to feed a revolving door of linemen Monday at her restaurant Chuck’s Dairy Bar, Tracy Harden recalled the winter storm of 1994, the last one that resembled what many Mississippians have lived through the past two weeks. It was then, 32 years ago, she stumbled upon a lineman she still knows well to this day.