Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Ice storm cuts power to more than 100,000


Tue Jan 27, 2009 2:42pm EST

Winter storm hits U.S.Play Video


HOUSTON (Reuters) - Freezing rain snapped trees and power lines on Tuesday, knocking out electricity to more than 100,000 customers in six states, utilities said.

Parts of Arkansas and Kentucky were the hardest hit by midday on Tuesday as a winter storm moved slowly southward into north Texas.

Icy conditions stretched from northern Texas, across Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky and West Virginia.

Entergy Corp's Arkansas utility reported 37,000 outages while American Electric Power's SWEPCO unit reported nearly 16,000 outages, mostly in Arkansas.

In Kentucky, E.ON's utility reported 37,000 customers without power; AEP's Kentucky unit reported another 4,500 outages by midday.

Oklahoma Gas & Electric said 10,500 customers lacked power in Oklahoma while AEP's Tulsa-based Oklahoma utility saw only 1,500 outages in its service territory.

Dallas-based Oncor reported some outages along the Texas-Oklahoma border as utility crews braced for icy rain and freezing temperatures to move into the Dallas-Fort Worth area later in the day, possibly leaving thousands of customers without electricity overnight.

(Reporting by Eileen O'Grady; Editing by Christian Wiessner)