Power Outages Persist After Ice Storm

Oklahoma Especially Hard Hit; Death Toll From Midwest Blast Rises To 27

(CBS/AP)  Lights came back on for some lucky people Wednesday as utility crews struggled to repair power lines snapped by the ice storm that had blacked out as much as a million homes and businesses across the nation's midsection.

Repair crews and homeowners still faced a mixture of snow, sleet and light rain that fell across parts of north Texas and central Oklahoma during the morning.

Temperatures have been rising and may get close to 40 on Thursday, which should help some of the ice, but by late Friday, however, another storm could bring 2 to 4 inches of snow to parts of the region.

Ice up to one and a half inches thick has glazed much of the central Plains and Midwest this week. At least 27 deaths, mostly due to traffic accidents, have been blamed on the storm system since it developed last weekend.

Outside that affected area, forecasters said more snow, sleet and freezing rain could develop Wednesday across the northern Ohio Valley and into New England.

All told, since the storm hit over the weekend, an estimated half a million customers are still without power across Oklahoma, reports CBS News correspondent Hari Sreenivasan.

Businesses are closed, traffic lights have turned to four way stops.

"We're relying on people to look after each other," Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett said. "At the end of the day, this comes down to the strength of your people. ... People who have electricity ought to be sharing it with people who don't."

"Crews of linemen are coming in from New Mexico, Louisiana, and Texas, returning the favor after crews here went down from Louisiana and Mississippi after Hurricane Rita and Katrina," reports Doug Warner of CBS affiliate KWTV in Oklahoma City.

Neighboring states from Missouri to Kansas to Iowa are thawing out and cleaning up as well, adds Sreenivasan

Around 228,000 customers were still blacked out in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois and Nebraska. Kansas' tally had risen -- to 130,000 on Wednesday, up 15,000 from Tuesday -- as rural electric cooperatives reported in and falling branches brought down more power lines.

"We have a lot of trees down ... lots of infrastructure that needs to be put up," said Al Butkus, a spokesman for the utility Aquila Inc. in Missouri. "This is not going to be quick."

Most people decided to stay home and bundle up rather than go to shelters.

"We've got kerosene lamps and a fireplace," said Charita Miller of Oklahoma City. "We're OK. We can't watch TV. Oh well, you can't have everything. It's just me and my husband. My husband said `There's food in the freezer."'

Sonya Kendrick, who spent Monday night at one of several American Red Cross shelters set up in Oklahoma City, said a tree ripped the electrical box off the side of her house, and she needed a warm place for her three children.

"When I got in here yesterday, I was totally distraught. I was like 'Why me? Why me of all people?' I look at it this way, too: I'm not the only one," Kendrick said Tuesday. "There's other people here that I got to know in less than two days, literally. All of them have been through the same thing, and everybody here just understands everybody."

Officials in Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma had declared states of emergency. President Bush declared a federal emergency in Oklahoma on Tuesday, ordering government aid to supplement state and local efforts.

The 27 deaths blamed on the weather include 16 in Oklahoma, four in Kansas, three each in Missouri and Michigan and one in Nebraska.

[DaveGress]

gslinger3 - grow the F up. Why do the neocon whackjobs always espouse shadenfrauda? One million people are without power and you choose to enjoy it! Is your picture beside looser in the dictionary?

[gslinger3]

Care to comment on my point or just rant.

MAN MADE GLOBAL WARMING IS A POLITICAL FARSE! The earth is going through normal cyclical changes.

[mythoughtsr]

Is your picture beside looser in the dictionary?

Posted by degress12

Why is it SO difficult to get people to spell lose and loose correctly? To and too; their and they''re. This is elementary school stuff people! Does anyone actually read what they are about to post?

Yeah, global warming abounds in the midwest.

[bogusbones]

Where''s the National Guard? Watch last night''s episode of Boston Legal where they wanted to sue the National Guard for not being able to help in a flood situation.

We should change the name of Global Warming to Global Climate Change. These changes are not going to be drastic and many of the storms that are referred to as a result of Global Warming are natural, non influenced events. It''s the things we can''t see (or don''t want to see President Bush) that are changing, such as the ice erosion at the polar ice caps. Yes it might be a cycle, but CO2 emissions are hastening the cycle and the ramifications within the next twenty years will prove disastrous for the earth and all the inhabitants, human and animal alike.

[pakaal]

Wow, bogusbones, here I thought I''d be coming in on Day Three of Human Induced Climate Change Denials, and I find someone posting who actually knows what they''re talking about! Good one!

What amazes me is that even though Bush''s own science advisor has stated we humans are *** things up, people go on mocking Gore, doing the tired "how can it be global warming if we''re talking ice storms" joke, etc.

The sad truth is things may go downhill even faster than predicted, not to mention we may already have gone beyond that "tipping point" and won''t be able to do enough to be able to solve the problem no matter what.

[mudrose-2009]

It''s Global Warming. As Al Bore said our next presdient will be a Tree.

[andor3]

"Just like I figured, there is no argument!"

No one bothering to argue does not mean anyone agrees with you. More likely nobody cares what you think.

Wise people do not try to teach pigs to sing.

[bb19631]

The National Guard is probably serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. People wake up. The president has our troops every wheres but at home during a crisis!! think about it. We have to fend for ourselves.

[Wookiee-1138]

I AM THE BLACK MAGE! I CASTS THE SPELLS THAT MAKES THE PEOPLES FALL DOWN!

[klingon69]

On Christmas day 2000, an ice storm crippled much of Arkansas and Northeast Texas. About 2 days later another storm blew in and dropped about 5-6 inches of snow. Many people (especially rural) peoples were without electricity for over a month. It is a scary feeling to sit in the dark hearing limbs, trees and power poles cracking and breaking off. Luckily my home was not all electric so we did have heat. Electric repair crews from all over America converged in our area to hasten repairs. I can only offer my prayers to those affected, and condolences to those whop have lost loved ones during this time of crisis. Remember, especially in this time of political, social and economical turmoil, to take a moment to think of those devastated by this tragedy.

[klingon69]

My 102 year old great-grandmother told me that the weather cycles we are experiencing now are the same or even not as severe as what occurred 75-80 years ago, when she was young and even has the newspaper articles to prove how bad those storms were!
Posted by Spaspy at 02:17 AM : Dec 13, 2007
Since climatic change can and does take hundreds if not thousands of years, and weather shifts occur all through these climatic changes, it would not be unreasonable to say that there have been worse storms and harder years decades back. The weather does shift, the sun also has cycles. So, saying that global warming is a hoax because storms were worse back then would be asinine. The fact is that Earth is not dead, she constantly changes and life must adapt, whether it is naturally occurring or man is causing it. This is the prime example of Darwinian evolution, life must adapt or die out. Survival of the fittest.