Some Holmes County residents have lived for days without power and water. Some have slept in cars for warmth. Some have missed hot meals.
It was the fourth day after the ice storm that Loleeta Cobbins had purchased a $2 package of hot dogs to feed to her kids. It was the fourth morning she woke up in her car beside her mother after tucking her five children into blankets in a closet — the warmest part of their cold apartment. It was when she started to dilute her newborn’s baby formula.
It was also when Entergy told her it would be another two days, at least, to restore power.
“I wish I could get a warm meal in their bellies,” Cobbins said.
On Thursday, she watched the power company trucks traverse roads strewn with fallen branches and other debris, and she began to cry. They were on the way to other cities and homes. She said she felt like a bad mother. Her children spoke of nothing but the chicken nuggets, hamburgers and beans they couldn’t yet eat. They had reread their books from the public library and begun drawing over previous drawings on scratch paper.
She couldn’t give them what they wanted most: warm food, anything but cold bologna or hot dogs. They wanted to go to school to see friends, but classes had been cancelled all week. The family of seven has no nearby relatives to stay with and no warming shelter provided by the county or city to visit.
“We see ‘em passing their trucks, passing by all day by the window,” said Cobbins of the linemen. “Every time the kids see the trucks passing through, they’re cheering, thinking that finally we’re going to get the lights on.”
Like much of Holmes County on Thursday morning, the Cobbins family had no power. Water flowed once again from the faucets in their apartment, but it was brown as dirt and full of what resembled pebbles. They still couldn’t handwash their clothes or wash themselves without bottled water.
Holmes County — historically one of the poorest counties in the U.S. — has long struggled with faulty infrastructure. The ice storm laid bare the vulnerability of its utility poles, power grid and water supplies. It took many in city and county leadership by surprise. For them, it has been unprecedented.
Loleeta Cobbins sits in her car to keep warm at Hartwood Apartments after last weekend’s winter storm Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, in Durant. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
“Well, really you can’t do nothing about Mother Nature when she comes. Ain’t nothing you can do but sit back and just wait,” said Durant City Superintendent Walter Gaines, who worked with the mayor on a recovery effort. “We’re going to try to give some generators next time when the lights go out.”
Mississippi Today spoke with nearly two dozen Holmes County residents, a majority of whom were still without power and had just regained water on Thursday. They expressed despair and frustration with available options for warmth and water. They questioned local leaders’ storm preparation and response. Some blamed themselves for what family members were forced to endure.
“It’s easier said than done,” Cobbins said of the criticism that residents didn’t prepare enough. “You don’t know how hard it’s going to be until you in that moment where you think you have enough tissue and you don’t, or you think you have enough cases of water, and then you run out. And you run low because now you’re not just drinking the water, you got to try to bathe with the water, you got to bathe the kids with the water. You’ve got to try to wash the dishes with the water, too.”
A retirement community’s pain
Bessie Smith, 75, has an apartment in a senior citizen living community in Durant, but lately her driving seat has become her bed. The retiree has family she can visit, but she’d rather watch her home and belongings at night.
Her cherry Chevrolet Impala was stolen from the parking lot less than two months ago. She recently retrieved it with help from concerned neighbors.
“A lot of people don’t have a car,” Smith said of her neighbors. “A lot of them can’t drive, either.”
“It’s been expensive to keep the heat in my car.”
She said the stiff seats haven’t let her recline far enough and have exacerbated back pains she’s recently struggled to treat. A volunteer with a medical clinic downtown hands out bagged lunches most days, but otherwise she relies on staples like crackers and peanut butter.
Latonya Smith-Gladney delivers food to Bessie Smith at Southwind Estates after last weekend’s winter storm Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, in Durant. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Her neighbors who don’t have cars cover themselves in blankets or hunting clothes. Smith said she is lucky to have a car and a daughter in Kosciusko, who delivered food on Monday and checked up on her.
Bagged lunches handed out by volunteers are the highlight of Renee Good’s day. It’s a different kind of warmth than heat, she said.
“I don’t have to worry about being hungry,” Good said. “There’s no place like home, but I do miss the grandkids coming around here.”
Durant has a large population of retirees with three senior apartment complexes and two nursing homes. Many retired educators have called the small community home after decades in the classroom.
LaTonya Smith and her husband, Ronnie Gladney, handed out food and water at the senior living apartments — an extension of their job as owners of a medical clinic in downtown Durant. Smith and Gladney opened S&M Medical Clinic in 2017 and often get calls from patients who struggle with access to affordable care.
They saw the pain of the community’s aging population before anyone else. As soon as the power went out, patients with blood glucose monitors and oxygen tanks began calling. A lack of power was more than an inconvenience to them; it was life and death.
The couple and clinic owners knew they had to act.
“So we just try to give back as much as we can,” Smith said. “This is a rural area.They can’t always get proper attention, so we give them that.”
On a 40 degree day in Durant, a trio of elders gathered outside their apartments off Highway 12 waited for Smith’s friendly face and Gladney’s helping hand.
“I’ve brought my fire pit so they could stay warm while they were eating,” Gladney said. “It means a lot to them. People need help. We try to get it to them.”
The storm caught leaders off guard
Durant Mayor John Haynes didn’t think snow in another county could impact the electricity in his small city, but it did.
A substation that feeds energy to the power grid that supplies Durant with electricity failed some 50 miles north in Greenwood, where ice and snow were rampant. Haynes and neighbors watched as, after power went out, and utility poles fell from the weight of ice accumulation. Without a generator plugged into the water supply, city residents lost water, too.
“We were caught off hand by the power being off,” Haynes said. “We felt like we would be right back on, but we also dealt with the substation.”
However, some in the community questioned the speed of the response. The city still lacks a warming shelter for vulnerable residents while the county set one up in Lexington on Thursday.
“If there’s anything that I would do over, it would be to give that immediate help,” Haynes said “As far as I was concerned, we were hoping that the lights wouldn’t go off, and that’s what we were all prepared for.”
“But then things outside of your control happen.”
Durant Fire Dispatcher Arnesha Barron, from left, Fire Chief Marcus Landfair, Police Chief Demarcus Friend and Mayor John Haynes, Sr., talk about the emergency response and restoration efforts after last weekend’s winter storm Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, in Durant. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
James Young, a Holmes County supervisor who represents the portion of the county from West to Durant, said the area relies on volunteers, an approach that had been the norm for other natural disasters. The county and city do not employ a full-time emergency response team to check on vulnerable residents and ensure they are adequately housed.
“You’ll never get a hundred percent,” he said of the county’s patchwork response effort. “We have a lot of good people that are willing and able to help out.”
Young had pushed to convert the nearby National Guard armory into a safe room that doubled as a shelter for county residents last year but was unable to secure the necessary funds from the state because House Speaker Jason White and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, both Republicans, could not agree on how to spend the state surplus.
The storm response was likely slow in the county because city leadership was responding in real time without power themselves, Young said. The Durant city complex and other nearby county buildings lost power.
Young is a longtime friend of Rep. White. The families knew each other in West.
Young has also requested immediate financial relief for county residents. He said White has never turned down requested money that might help Holmes County’s most vulnerable.
Young said he has also spoken with the Mississippi Emergency Management Association officials this week, and is documenting damage to roads and homes.
The response might have been more robust with the help of the National Guard and a space big enough to house an emergency shelter, he said. City officials are trying to find space for additional generators the state promised to provide.
With more resources for similar disasters, “I can get the help we need on the phone,” Young said. “I usually push for the county to be conservative in its spending.”
Surviving ‘that 18-degree weather’
In Tchula, some people were angry about the lack of storm response from the city, county and state. Some said it follows a pattern of neglect from leaders.
On Thursday, a group of local men gathered to play dice beside the train tracks that run perpendicular to downtown. The sun had already set, and most of the men shivered beneath thin hoodies.
Orenthal Johnson ambled from the crowd with the help of a cane, pounding its base into the mud road to emphasize his main belief: The people have been ignored. His meals, wild game, have mostly been hunted by a friend.
Orenthal Johnson, left and Charles Greer, talk about their experiences after last weekend’s winter storm Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, in Tchula. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
“A lot of people have anxiety,” Johnson said. “You’ve got a lot of people excited to see sunlight because they’ve been spending the whole night in their cars. They’ve been spending the whole night trying to stay calm and warm.”
Tchula’s poverty rate, 44.6%, is much higher than the state’s rate, 17.8%. Most of the community has been without power and water for at least five days.
“They are doing nothing for us,” Johnson said of the local storm response. “Call that number. Hit the generator. Pump this water, make the water stronger and get energy. Get energy for the whole town or nobody. Not just for one side.”
Infrastructure projects in nearby Rankin County were approved while Holmes County proposals died in committee in the 2024 legislative session. Durant locals expressed frustration seeing the more prosperous Goodman get power restored quicker.
Mississippi Today spoke with three residents without vehicles, some of whom reported sleeping outside because it was warmer than inside their homes.
“Nobody wants to suffer,” Johnson said with glassy eyes. “I have friends right here, aunties and uncles, friends right here.”
Those family members have “aunties and uncles and daddies and mamas” with oxygen tanks, he said. “Once that tank goes out, they dead. And I’m going to tell you this is truly Mississippi for us. Help us all out.”
“They don’t care about us. Really. They don’t care about us. So we take care of our own business.”
Holmes County volunteer firefighter James Baker talks about Tchula’s efforts to restore power and feed residents after last weekend’s winter storm Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Firefighters who had returned from clearing debris and fallen trees from the road around dusk said they were hopeful power would be restored that evening. The firefighters said they’ve been on call 24/7 for six days.
Firefighter James Baker said he has been looking out for any thefts, too, which sometimes occur during natural disasters.
“People have really been really stepping up to show love for the town,” Baker said. “Going forward, we need to be more prepared. We need to be quicker next time.”
In the senior apartments across the bridge from downtown, the Robinson family has been cooking for their neighbors. Without heat or power, they’d resorted to grilling on patio furniture. George Robinson pointed to an outdoor table that had a top charred with the remains of a previous meal.
“It’s rough,” he said “You got to do what you got to do to survive. We made grills and we fed people. You see how we burnt our tables up.”
Attala Justice Coalition, a group from Kosciusko led in part by a Tchula native whose grandparent lives in the senior apartment complex, set up trays of macaroni and cheese, greens, fried chicken, creamed corn and other hot food for the community. Residents slipped out of their apartments to grab a plate and say thanks before the sun and its warmth evaporated behind barren fields surrounding them.
“I go in my house and get as much cover as I can, and do it until the next morning,” George Robinson said. “I get up, try to get hot coffee to heat me. And make sure I eat my 500 calories.”
Latacha Winters prepares a plate of food for a Tchula resident after last weekend’s winter storm Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Blood glucose levels can drop when calorie intake is too low. If it drops too low, requiring medical attention, there’s not a nearby option for care. .
“We also just need that hot water to provide for us to take a bath,” he added. “We ain’t used to that 18 degree weather.”
Robinson said his family is on a fixed income and can’t afford to immediately replace all spoiled food in their homes or stay at a nearby hotel.
“We need help,” he said. “We need help bad.”
-- Article credit to Leonardo Bevilacqua for Mississippi Today --
