St. Louis – The death toll from a powerful winter storm rose to 36 across six states today as utility crews labored to restore service to hundreds of thousands of Missouri households and businesses enduring cold weather without electricity for heat and lights.
The crews hoped to take advantage of moderate weather expected today – with only a few lingering snow showers and flurries – before temperatures plunged back to the single digits tonight.
However, some people won’t be back online until late Wednesday, said the utility Ameren.
Power outages spread to other states today as the remains of the storm system streamed across New England.
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 Even in Maine, more accustomed to winter weather, a layer of sleet and snow on roads today shut down numerous businesses, day care centers and schools.
Waves of freezing rain, sleet and snow since Friday had been blamed for at least 15 deaths in Oklahoma, eight in Missouri, five in Iowa, three in Texas and four in New York and one in Maine.
Seven of the Oklahoma deaths occurred in one accident, in which a minivan carrying 12 people slid off an icy highway Sunday and struck an oncoming truck, the Highway Patrol said. All of the van’s occupants were adult residents of Mexico, who were traveling from Arizona to North Carolina, Highway Patrol Capt. Chris West said.
About 330,000 homes and businesses had no electricity Sunday night in Missouri. State officials did not have a new estimate this 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.
Most of the Missouri power outages were caused by the weight of ice snapping tree branches and dropping them onto power lines, officials said. In New Hampshire, outages also were caused by vehicles sliding into utility poles.
Missouri 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. The St. Louis temperature hovered just above the freezing mark this morning, and the wind chill was 24 degrees, the weather service said.
As the storm blew across the lower Great Lakes and northern New England on today, 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.
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.
The weather and the need to de-ice aircraft prompted the cancellation of 100 scheduled departures today morning at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, DFW Airport spokesman Ken Capps said. More than 400 flights were canceled there Sunday.
About 122,000 customers were blacked out in Oklahoma as of Sunday night, the state Department of Emergency Management said.
Authorities said it could be up to a week before power is fully restored.
Late Sunday, President Bush declared a federal disaster for Oklahoma because of the storm.
Elsewhere, a weekend cold snap that had worried citrus growers and other farmers in California produced rare freezing temperatures today in southern Arizona. The 8 a.m. reading in Phoenix was 29, the weather service said.
