Death toll grows as path of ice storm widens

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Death toll grows as path of ice storm widens 
Some in Northeast join hundreds of thousands without power in Midwest

he death toll from a powerful winter storm rose to 36 across six states Monday, as the Northeast started feeling the punch and utility crews labored to restore service to hundreds of thousands of people in Missouri and Oklahoma enduring cold weather without electricity for heat and lights.

Ice-covered roads cut into Martin Luther King Jr. holiday observances from New York to Texas, where officials canceled Gov. Rick Perry’s inauguration parade scheduled for Tuesday.

Lower Michigan and parts of New England could see more than a foot of snow Monday, as rain fell from the lower Mississippi Valley up through the Ohio Valley, The National Weather Service said.

As the storm blew across the lower Great Lakes and northern New England on Monday, a layer of ice up to a half-inch thick knocked out power to more than 50,000 customers in northern New York and was blamed for dozens of traffic accidents, authorities officials said. Day cares and schools also closed.

A King holiday appearance in Albany, N.Y., by Gov. Eliot Spitzer was canceled because the weather prevented him from flying or driving north from New York City.

The ice accumulation also blacked out at least 4,500 customers in New Hampshire, but in the northern part of the state ski areas were celebrating their first significant snowfall of the season.

On the back side of the storm, snow in Iowa closed some schools Monday.

In Missouri, about 330,000 homes and businesses had no electricity Sunday night. State officials did not have a new estimate Monday morning, but Ameren’s share of those outages had dropped from 130,000 to 98,000, spokeswoman Susan Gallager said. However, that figure included about 13,000 new outages in central Missouri.

Waves of freezing rain, sleet and snow since Friday caused at least 15 deaths in Oklahoma, eight in Missouri, five in Iowa, three in Texas and four in New York and one in Maine.

Crews hoped to take advantage of moderate weather expected for Monday — including a few lingering snow showers and flurries — to bring power back online before an expected drop in temperatures to below zero Monday night.

Most of the outages — a majority in southwest Missouri — were caused when freezing rain caused tree branches to break off and crash onto power lines, officials said.

National guardsmen went door-to-door checking on the health and safety of residents in the hardest hit parts of the state and helping to clear slick roads.

Amtrak canceled Sunday service between Kansas City and St. Louis due to fallen trees and other debris on railroad tracks.

Three rain pulses
In the St. Louis region, about 150,000 people remained without power Sunday afternoon, after a pattern of freezing and thaws.

“We’ve had three real pushes of rainfall,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Jim Kramper.

One was Friday, one Saturday and a third came Sunday afternoon and persisted into the evening.

About 122,000 customers lacked power in Oklahoma as of Sunday night, the state Department of Emergency Management said. A gymnasium roof collapsed in Del City, Okla., under the weight of ice and snow, but no one was inside or injured, authorities said.

Seven adults were killed early Sunday near Elk City, Okla., when the minivan they were in hit a slick spot on Interstate 40, crossed the median and hit a tractor-trailer, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol reported.

Late Sunday, President Bush declared a federal disaster for Oklahoma because of the storm.

Dallas flights canceled
In Texas, the weather and the need to de-ice aircraft prompted the cancellation of 100 scheduled departures Monday morning at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, DFW Airport spokesman Ken Capps said. More than 400 flights were canceled there Sunday.

In Nebraska, which has been pummeled by winter storms in the past month, the weekend storm dropped even more snow, making roads treacherous.

As the storm began to fade from the nation’s midsection, parts of the East began to suffer.

In Albany, N.Y., a 22-year-old died when he fell about 90 feet from a bridge to a road below after climbing a railing to avoid being hit by a sliding car. He had gotten out of his vehicle around 2 a.m. after a crash.

In Syracuse, N.Y., Interstate 81 was closed for about two hours after about 30 cars were involved in six accidents early Sunday. Several people were taken to hospitals.

Elsewhere, a weekend cold snap that had worried citrus growers and other farmers in California produced rare freezing temperatures Monday in southern Arizona. The 8 a.m. reading in Phoenix was 29, the weather service said.

During the weekend, the cold had frozen water pipes in the Phoenix area and flooded shelters with homeless people.

"This is something that we don't think about much here," said Ken Kroski, spokesman for the Phoenix Water Services Department, which was flooded with calls about burst pipes.