Plains states still struggling to recoup from ice storm

Published: 2007-12-14

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- As wintry weather bombarded a swath of the United States from the Great Plains to New England over a five-day period, residents of hard-hit Oklahoma were still struggling to rebound from a massive ice storm that paralyzed much of the state Dec. 9. At the peak of the storm an estimated 348,000 Oklahoma households were without power after the accumulated ice from freezing rains that drenched the state snapped power lines and utility poles. By Dec. 14 more than 100,000 still had no power in the state. More than two dozen deaths throughout the Great Plains were attributed to the ice storm, which initially left 1.2 million households in the region without power. As Oklahomans were coming out of the grip of the icy weather in their state, they girded for an expected two to six inches of snow expected to fall over the Dec. 15-16 weekend. "We can handle the snow. It's the ice that's the problem," said Ray Dyer, editor of The Sooner Catholic, Oklahoma City's archdiocesan newspaper.

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