Tangier Island Thaws Out After Help From National Guard

TANGIER ISLAND, Va.- The tiny island of Tangier didn't escape the wrath of Jack Frost. Things got so bad on the island after last week's snowstorm that the Virginia National Guard was called in to deliver supplies like food, mail, and medication.

"It's terminal cabin fever because you can't get out so much," one resident, Linda Clary, said.

The ice bound island located in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay continues to wait for a thawout. And after receiving help over the weekend, people are finally starting to dig out from under the snow.

"The problem is these are older houses and the plumbing isn't really happy so things start breaking," Clary said.

Another problem James "Ooker" Eskridge, the mayor of Tangier, tells WBOC, is the fact that they simply weren't ready.

"We weren't prepared for something like that this early in the season anyway. Usually the snow we get is nothing like this," Eskridge said.

That's where the one and only grocery store on the island comes into play. Employees at the store worked with town officials to coordinate the National Guard's Blackhawk food pick up on the mainland in Crisfield, Maryland at first, then the supplies were brought over to Tangier Isalnd.

"It looked like a convoy. We had three trucks going. So the first load came in at 2 o'clock... So by 5 o'clock everything was here," a grocery store employee, Katie Mariano, said.

Kids didn't have to attend school today, so many of them were out on the ice, on sleds, and even riding their bikes. But it's not all play, in fact the watermen are itching to get back to work.

"It looks like they're going to go all of this week before they can get out, so it causes quite a hardship on the guys," Eskridge said.

And if needed, the mayor says the Blackhawks are ready to make a second supply run.

 

 

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