In Ice-Coated Arkansas and Oklahoma, Chaos Rules

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December 28, 2000 In Ice-Coated Arkansas and Oklahoma, Chaos Rules

BY STEVE BARNES ITTLE ROCK, Ark., Dec. 27 — Struggling for balance after the second sweeping ice storm in as many weeks, Arkansas and Oklahoma looked to the heavens and the Weather Channel for relief today. The former offered only gray skies, but the latter suggested that Thursday could bring at least temporary sunshine and temperatures well above freezing.

Both states will need plenty of both. A Christmas night barrage of sleet and freezing rain robbed more than 500,000 people of electricity and other basic services and brought much of the region's commercial life to an abrupt halt.

"We've got chaos on a grand scale," said Jennifer F. Gordon of the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management.

Gov. Mike Huckabee declared 29 Arkansas counties disaster areas. The situation was much the same in neighboring Oklahoma, which Gov. Frank Keating declared a disaster area today as 120,000 people waited for power to be restored.

Slick streets and highways made driving potentially lethal throughout the region. In Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas, the National Guard was called out to help people reach shelters and to search the highways for disabled vehicles.

In the Texas Panhandle, where Amarillo received more than a foot of snow on Tuesday, thousands of travelers were still stranded today as snow continued to fall.

The authorities estimated that 16 people had been killed in traffic accidents and other events related to the winter weather across the nation's southern midsection.

The storm shut down air travel throughout the region in one of the year's busiest travel seasons. The Little Rock airport, closed since Monday, reopened one of three runways this afternoon. American Airlines canceled 738 flights on Tuesday at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport and another 73 today.

In Texas and Louisiana, up to 156,000 people were without electricity today. The number of homes and businesses in Arkansas without power reached 400,000 at one point in the day, but by this evening the number had fallen to about 270,000.

Entergy Corporation, the largest provider of power in Arkansas, said that it had more than 6,000 repair personnel, many recruited from surrounding states, at work on repairs, but cautioned that service, especially in more rural areas, might not be restored for several days.

Power lines that had been repaired only days ago were brought down yet again by large tree limbs coated with ice, cutting the current and blocking traffic on streets and highways. Towering oaks and magnolias in the most affluent neighborhoods of Little Rock were among those falling victim to the storm. In some places, the night was pierced by the blue-white flash of exploding transformers as utility poles snapped under the burden.

Most government buildings in central and southwest Arkansas were closed today, but at least some of the grocery stores that were shuttered reopened today.

From the Ozark Mountains of northwest Arkansas to its southern timberlands and east to the Mississippi delta, residents of the state were coping as best they could, relying on hundreds of National Guardsmen and other emergency services personnel to help them reach sanctuary. More than 50 shelters were opened in Arkansas by the Red Cross and other nonprofit organizations, utilizing churches and National Guard armories.

Interstate highways through Arkansas began to clear at mid-day, although bridges and overpasses remained treacherous and authorities urged travel only if necessary.

The situation was at crisis levels in several southwest Arkansas counties that had no power for a second day today. The loss of electricity shut down water and sewage pumping stations in a number of small towns near Texarkana, and telephone service was often intermittent and in some cases nonexistent.

Hot Springs, Ark., fabled for its curative mineral water, was without it today, its pumps lifeless for want of power.

The storm was fueled in part by warm moist air rushing north into the region, where it met a layer of cold air trapped near the ground. In McAlester, Okla., this afternoon, the mixture created a rare thunderstorm of falling ice. Icy conditions were expected in the southern Appalachians today as the storm system moved east.

Governor Huckabee of Arkansas said the economic impact of the back-to-back storms would be huge.

"We're losing a lot of commerce right now and that's going to have a big impact in terms of tax revenue, although I don't think it can be measured yet," Mr. Huckabee said.

James Lee Witt, the Arkansan who is director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was at his Yell County home for the holidays "and still is, without electricity or water," Mr. Huckabee said.

"James has promised to expedite all our requests for federal assistance," said Mr. Huckabee from the governor's mansion in Little Rock, which lacked power and telephone service for 24 hours until Wednesday afternoon.

The two spoke by cell phone.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/28/national/28ICE.html?printpage=yes

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), December 28, 2000


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