While most of the Miss-Lou stayed warm in their houses during last week’s ice and snow event, others heard the call of duty and gave up the comforts of home for the greater good.

In other instances, safety dictated home was, for the moment, where they were.

For Joyce Hauer and Cassandra Lynch, the weather kept them, along with others, at work.

Nurses Hauer and Lynch had on-call nights at Natchez Regional Medical Center during the ice event.

“Tuesday was my on-call night, so when I got ready to go home at 3:30 that afternoon, I discovered I wasn’t doing so well, just slipping and sliding across the parking lot,” Lynch said. “If I was having that many problems at 3 p.m., I didn’t want to take that kind of chance at 3 a.m. I just parked it.”

The hospital gave Lynch a room to sleep in and fed her, and she was able to wait out the night.

Wednesday, it was Hauer’s turn. She was on call that night, and she knew the roads were dangerous, so that afternoon she decided to go in early and snag a couch in a staff lounge.

Working during hurricanes and other extreme events had taught her how to camp out at work, and Hauer said she took snacks and food to last the day.

In both of their instances, no one needed surgery and Lynch and Hauer’s on-call hours spent at the hospital were quiet.

“When we are on call, it doesn’t matter what the weather is doing, you have to come to work if you’re needed,” she said. “I saw my break in the weather and went in. I didn’t want to endanger myself, and as a nurse and a medical professional, you have just got to do what you have to do for the patients.”

While medical professionals were making sure patients in the hospital were taken care of, Adams County Sheriff’s Office deputies were making sure roads were safe and essential personnel were able to get where they needed to in order to respond to the event.

ACSO reserve deputy Stephen Guido wasn’t ferrying people, however.

He was on the highways using his personal three-quarter ton four-wheel drive truck, helping motorists get moving again after they lost control on the road.

“One person would slide off the road, and then people would stop on these hills to help them. When they would stop they couldn’t get started because the road was too slick,” Guido said. “On the tops of some of those hills, somebody would get stuck, which means everybody behind them is stuck.”

In one instance, Guido said he helped a Japanese couple that couldn’t speak English to get back onto a navigable path.

“I had to get into their car and drive it to the top of the hill for them and then walk back to my vehicle,” he said. “They were afraid of sliding off on these big ravines, and they were grabbing the steering wheel so hard they wouldn’t let go.”

But even though the dozen collective hours he spent in the cold Tuesday and Wednesday weren’t pleasant, Guido said he didn’t think of it as anything more than regular reserve deputy work.