Ice leaves hundreds of thousands in southern Plains without power
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Damage from the ice storm in Texarkana, Texas
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 | WEB EXCLUSIVE |
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From staff and wire reports
More than half a million homes and businesses were without power Wednesday as a slow-moving ice storm moves across the south central United States.
In the Texas Panhandle, heavy snow combined with icy roads and subfreezing weather, stranding thousands of travelers and forcing the closing of government offices and businesses.
For many, there was no telephone or water service either; the ice storm brought down telephone lines, and the power outages disabled municipal water pumps.
At one point Wednesday, an estimated 590,000 homes and businesses were without power. By late Wednesday, Arkansas authorities reported that power had been restored to 40,000 customers.
Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee ordered the state government closed Wednesday. Energy Arkansas said it had 4,000 workers on the job, but it might be January 5 before power is restored to everyone.
"We've had what is, I guess, the equivalent of a nuclear-type situation without radioactivity, because virtually everything is shut down," Huckabee told CNN via cell phone from the governor's mansion, where power and phone service were out. "We have 10 or 12 counties where every single person in that county has lost power, phone service, and water."
Huckabee said much of the damage was in rural areas, some of them inaccessible because downed trees were blocking many roads.
Power outages put much of Hot Springs, Arkansas, in the dark. Residents made their way to public taps downtown for free hot water.
"I just came down to get a jug to make formula for the baby," said Fanessa Davenport, also filling juice bottles with water for an 86-year-old neighbor.
Kevin Byrd said he had to use a chain saw to cut his way to the downtown taps. "It looked like a tornado had been through," he said. "The biggest thing about it is not having power. Then you don't have your water pump."
Oklahoma declared a disaster area
In Oklahoma, Gov. Frank Keating declared the entire state a disaster area, and people without heat headed to shelters.
In the town of Ada, about half the town's residents remained without drinking water or power where falling tree limbs continued to cause problems, Assistant Police Chief Rick Carson said Wednesday.
"Even though there's not much wind, the limbs are just giving up and going down through the power lines," he said.
"Tell everyone to stay out of Oklahoma. We have power outages throughout the state; we have crashes everywhere," state trooper Brett Wallace told Reuters.
In Texarkana, which straddles the Texas-Arkansas line, officials ordered a nighttime curfew and froze all prices to prevent some from capitalizing on the city's troubles.
"Everywhere you look, trees are snapped like match sticks. Power lines are down everywhere and most of the streets are impassable because we don't know which lines are live," said Texarkana resident Nita Fran Hutcheson, who has had no water or electricity at her home since Monday.
Second outage in two weeks
In a wide swath from New Mexico to Arkansas, 590,000 homes and businesses were left struggling without power, while holiday travelers were stranded far from home. Ten deaths were blamed on the weather, including a 13-year-old girl who was killed in Arnold, Missouri, after the pickup truck she was riding in went over the side of a bridge and plunged 50 feet into a river.
For many across the region, this is the second major power outage in two weeks. In Little Rock, Arkansas, Dave Kaffenberger closed off a few rooms of his house and gathered his family around the hearth after an ice storm knocked out the electricity.
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The ice storm damage in Texarkana, which straddles the Texas-Arkansas line, has prompted officials to order a nighttime curfew and freeze all prices
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"We lit a half-dozen candles and played Clue by candlelight," Kaffenberger said in his darkened home Wednesday. "It's an extended Christmas. That's the way I'm looking at it."
In New Mexico, Interstate 40 was reopened Wednesday after being closed because of ice. But many roads in the southern part of the state remained closed.
Storms on the move
"At one point it looked as if this southern storm and a midwestern storm would meet up along the Midatlantic coast and perhaps become a nor'easter for the weekend," CNN Weather Anchor Karen Maginnis said Wednesday night. "However, now it appears the southern storm will eject into the Atlantic more quickly, so the midwestern storm will be the center of attention."
That system will move across the upper Midwest and into the Great Lakes region on Thursday, bringing near blizzard conditions to the northern plains.
The weather also caused more air travel disruptions Wednesday.
A note on American Airlines' Web site said some of its flights from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport were delayed. Delta Air Lines had weather-related delays as well, according to its Web site.
The Little Rock airport, closed since Monday, reopened Wednesday afternoon. Hundreds of flights were canceled at Dallas-Fort Worth.
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A worker tends to a tree that fell across a Little Rock, Arkansas, street when it became weighted down with ice Wednesday
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Changing weather pattern
"I came South to get away from this," said Renee Puskas, a gas station manager in Hot Springs. "I told my kids I lived in Ohio all my life and I've never seen anything like this."
While the ice and snow may seem unusual for this part of the country, state EMA spokeswoman Teri Pfeiffer said it's really the return of a once-normal weather pattern.
"Arkansas is in a transition zone, so what's happened in the past seven or eight years, because of El Nino and La Nina, our winters have been mild and we haven't had a lot of ice and snow," Pfeiffer said. "In the past, we had ice and snow storms, and the weather pattern is changing again.
"People just weren't prepared this year, thinking that the winters were getting milder."
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
RELATED STORIES:
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December 26, 2000
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December 25, 2000
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December 23, 2000
Much of nation locked in winter's chill
December 22, 2000
RELATED SITES:
National Weather Service
• Interactive Weather Information Network
Arkansas Department of Energy Management
Texas Department of Transportation - Road Reports by Condition
Arkansas Highway Conditions
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