Ice storm in US causes blackouts, 15 deaths
Updated: 2007-12-11 10:14
Tulsa International Airport had no power for about 10 hours and halted flight operations for the day, and most morning flights at Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City were canceled because of icy runways. Greyhound bus passengers were stranded overnight at a shelter in a church in Tulsa, and were joined by some local residents who had no heat.
Portions of Interstate 35 and Interstate 44 were shut down early Monday afternoon in Oklahoma City after ice-laden power lines collapsed and fell into the roadways.
Oklahoma utility officials said it could be a week or more before power was fully restored.
"This is a big one. We've got a massive situation here and it's probably going to be a week to 10 days before we get power on to everybody," said Ed Bettinger, a spokesman for Public Service Company. "It looks like a war zone."
The Oklahoma City suburb of Jones, a town of 2,500 people, had low water pressure because there was no electricity to run well pumps, and firefighters said an early morning fire destroyed most of the community's high school.
The icy weather stretched into the Northeast, where many schools across upstate New York were closed or started late because of icy roads.
On ice-covered Interstate 40 west of Okemah, Okla., four people died in "one huge cluster of an accident" that involved 11 vehicles, said Highway Patrol Trooper Betsey Randolph.
Eight other people also died on icy Oklahoma roads, and Missouri had one death on a slippery highway. In addition, a homeless person died of hypothermia in Oklahoma City, the state medical examiner's office said.
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