Power Outages Plague Several States Amid Winter Weather Conditions
(NEWSnet/AP) — Over 130,000 customers in several states were without power at one point Wednesday morning, as much of the U.S. continues to see winter weather conditions that has pulled down power lines and strained power grids.
Residents of the Pacific Northwest are among those facing miserable conditions because of a fresh ice storm that struck the area. That's where the highest power outage numbers were reported, with over 80,000 in Washington, according to poweroutage.us.
Parts of southwest Washington and western Oregon — including the cities of Portland, Salem and Eugene — expected a new layer of quarter-inch to an inch of ice Wednesday, while freezing rain was forecast in the Seattle area.
In the meantime, the following weather-related fatalities have been reported:
- Five people were struck and killed by a tractor-trailer on Interstate 81 in northeastern Pennsylvania after they left their vehicles following a separate crash on slick pavement.
- Frigid air and strong winds were blamed for at least seven deaths in the Pacific Northwest, including a man whose Lake Oswego house was struck by a tree and a woman who died when a tree crushed a recreational vehicle in Portland, trapping her and causing a fire.
- Five people in Oregon were believed to have died of hypothermia.
In Oregon, transportation officials closed 47 miles of Interstate 84, a major east-west highway that runs from Portland through the Columbia River Gorge, due the threat of ice.
Another round of heavy lake-effect snow was forecast in Buffalo, New York, travel bans were issued for several suburbs.
The Tennessee Valley Authority, which provides electricity to seven states, asked customers to cut back, citing high demand because of the cold.
A similar plea came earlier this week from the grid operator in Texas.
It was 12 degrees early Wednesday in Atlanta, where thousands of students were just returning to school after several of Georgia’s school systems closed Tuesday when icy weather threatened their region.
And freezing temperatures spread as far south as North Florida on Wednesday morning, said Bob Oravec, a forecaster at the National Weather Service.
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