Cold Christmas Eve: For many the weather outside is indeed frightful

A massive ice storm blacked out homes from the Plains to the far Northeast of the U.S., dealing a big "bah humbug" to thousands of families whose Christmas Eve was shaping up to be very cold and very dark.

More than 500,000 homes and businesses were still without power Tuesday afternoon in parts of central and northeastern U.S. after a weekend ice and snow storm rolled across the region.

More than 7,000 flights were behind schedule Monday night, many of those in New York, Washington and Chicago as people struggled to travel before Christmas.

In Maine, the number of customers without power spiked to more than 100,000. Central Maine Power Co. said it had more than 1,000 people working on restoring power throughout the state.

Utilities in Vermont reported that about 6,800 homes still were without power. The Red Cross opened shelters in four communities, while the town of Barton opened its own shelter.

The nationwide death toll from the storm reached at least 12 on Tuesday, when a 50-year-old man was overcome by carbon monoxide fumes from a generator. It was the second reported death attributed to fumes from a generator during the storm.

Some U.S. states kept emergency shelters open for people who would be without power.

In Canada, police said two people in Ontario are dead from carbon monoxide poisoning after using a gas generator to heat their blacked-out home northeast of Toronto.