New storms headed for Midwest, Northeast

OKLAHOMA CITY - Lisa Wofford had just moved out of her apartment and was planning to move her family into a house when a winter storm knocked a power pole onto the new digs, preventing her from closing on it.

By Friday, the newly homeless Wofford was on her fifth day at an American Red Cross shelter, and an approaching snowstorm cast even more uncertainty on her future.

“I’m praying for no snow. I don’t want to be here any longer,” Wofford said before starting in on her lunch of pasta and green beans. “I’ve slept, like, seven hours since Monday. I’m running on faith.”

The second wintry blast could complicate efforts to restore power to the more than 280,000 homes and businesses in Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri still blacked out after the first storm put a million customers in the dark at its height this week.

That storm, which coated much of the Plains in ice before moving dumping snow on the Northeast, has killed at least 38 people, mostly in traffic accidents. It has been blamed for 23 deaths in Oklahoma alone.

Utilities in the Plains said nearly 400,000 customers remained without power on Friday due to ice storms this week. Electric companies reported that more than 800,000 of the 1.2 million customers who lost power have had it restored.

The next storm was predicted to bring 2 to 6 inches of snow to parts of Kansas and Oklahoma, said Ken Harding, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

Recovery efforts hampered in Midwest
The service issued winter weather watches for the northwest two-thirds of Oklahoma from Friday afternoon through Saturday morning. By late Friday afternoon, snow was already falling on the outskirts of Oklahoma City.

An Xcel Energy serviceman working to restore power in an Oklahoma City neighborhood peppered by toppled trees said Friday that he expected the new storm to hamper recovery efforts, but not create massive new power failures.

“All this kind of work is safety-based, so any time you get another weather aspect, then there goes another safety factor,” said Scott Falkner, of Clovis, N.M.

Weather Service meteorologist Pete Snyder agreed with that assessment.

“For crews that are out there trying to restore power, it’d be more of a headache,” Snyder said.

Slide show   Ice storm See pictures of ice coating trees and more in the Midwest. more photos

The storm also threatened to steal manpower from efforts to clear fallen trees. Dan Crossland, a public works official in Tulsa, said almost every city crew removing downed tree limbs will be spun off to clear the streets when the second storm comes.

“I intend to stay on 12-hour shifts until every street is clear,” Crossland said. “These guys are dragging.”

The Kansas National Guard continued to deliver generators and supplies to communities, knowing more would be needed.

Northeast also braces for blanketing
The first storm changed from ice to snow as it blew into the Northeast, dumping 2 inches to a foot across the region and catching many municipalities by surprise, even after it wreaked havoc to the west.

The National Weather Service said the region could expect another blast over the weekend, when a second storm is expected to drop 6 inches of snow and sleet starting on Saturday evening.

“As the system gets to the Northeast, it’s really going to intensify and deepen and this is going to cause a lot of trouble,” said Brian Korty, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

"It is a powerful Northeaster," added colleague Charlie Foley. "The difference in this storm is that it is going to occur during the overnight hours and on the weekend, so we wouldn't expect it to have the impact that this thing yesterday did."

Thursday's snowfall in Boston set a new one-day record for Dec. 13 and was more than the 7.8 inches that typically falls during the entire month of December.

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