New storms headed for Midwest, Northeast

‘Airlines will have to play catch up’
Logan Airport had returned to normal operations by Friday, with about 41 outbound flights canceled, said spokesman Phil Orlandella. On Thursday, more than 400 flights were canceled.

"The airlines will have to play catch up for a couple of days," Orlandella said. "It's not a madhouse here, things are moving pretty well."

He said airport management did not yet know how their operations would be affected by the weekend storm.

Some commuters in Boston spent eight hours driving home Thursday evening, and public school buses were still dropping off students at 11 p.m.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick defended the state’s storm response Friday after meeting with public safety, transportation and emergency officials.

“People were asked to leave early, and they didn’t,” Patrick said. “What would have helped, I think in this case, would have been a more uniform early release.”

As the snow fell, traffic on Rhode Island highways backed up past the Massachusetts state line, and about 300 vehicles got stuck or collided with others.

Providence Mayor David Cicilline ordered an investigation into why dozens of school buses got stranded on city streets.

But while the worst was over in the Northeast, at least for now, Plains residents continued to cope with maintaining the basics.

Thousands still in the dark
In Oklahoma, the hardest-hit state, OGE Energy Corp's Oklahoma Gas & Electric unit outages were falling toward 100,000 on Friday, but forecasts calling for another round of freezing weather may slow work by repair crews, said spokesman Gil Broyles.

Snow should be less damaging to trees and power lines than freezing rain so may not increase the outage total but will make restoration efforts tougher, he said.

"We hope the weather won't make us take a step backward, but it may make moving forward more difficult," Broyles said.

OG&E said the storm was the worst in the company's history, leaving more than 300,000 customers without power at its peak.

American Electric Power Co. Inc.'s Public Service Co. of Oklahoma said about 148,000 customers were still without power late Thursday, down from over 250,000 earlier in the week.

PSO estimated it could take up to 10 days to restore power to all customers.

Click for related content FirstPerson: Send us your images from the storm View reader images from the Northeast storm NBC Field Notes: Oklahoma on ice Check weather and forecasts around the world

‘It’s cold baths’
Bill Weaver, a Tulsa resident who moved here two years ago to escape hurricane-battered New Orleans, waited in his frigid home Friday for the electricity to be turned back on, deadpanning: “So, here we are.”

He had two gas-log fireplaces going, warming about a third of his home.

“It doesn’t keep the showers warm,” Weaver said. “It’s cold baths.”

Wofford hoped the new storm would blow over and allow her to get back to house-hunting after the weekend. She was trying to stay positive and said her spirits were lifted by volunteers who she knew didn’t have electricity at home, either.

“To me, this experience, you’re going back to what Christmas is really about,” Wofford said. “Everything is real commercialized and ’I want this iPod. I want this.’

“We want basic human needs. It’s getting back to love, and that’s what’s beautiful about the whole thing.”

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