A winter storm blamed for 33 deaths and that left the United States’s midsection coated in ice marched eastward on Thursday, while many of the places it already hit continued to shiver as crews worked to restore electricity.
In Oklahoma, at least 350 900 homes and businesses were still without power on Thursday. The storm pummelled the region for three days this week, bringing down power lines with heavy ice. Most of the 33 fatalities stemmed from traffic accidents.
Some places in the Northeast could receive up to 30cm of snow on Thursday, said Brian Korty, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Camp Springs, Maryland.
”Our main concern now in the next day or so is [that] as this storm that’s affecting the Midwest comes eastward, it’s going to start producing a lot of significant winter weather across the north-eastern portions of the nation,” Korty said.
In New York City, salt trucks were ready for deployment and officials anticipated between 5cm and 10cm of snow in Manhattan.
On Wednesday, Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry toured an upscale, historic neighbourhood in northwest Oklahoma City where debris from trees felled by the ice littered lawns and roadways. He called the storm one of ”absolute historic proportions”.
More than two dozen shelters were set up at churches and community centres across the Oklahoma for people needing a warm place to stay.
Exhibit halls at the Cox Convention Centre in Oklahoma City were turned into a shelter on Wednesday capable of housing more than 700 people.
Sunshine and milder temperatures on Thursday should help clean-up efforts in much of the Plains, but another winter storm approaching from the west could dump heavy snow on parts of Oklahoma on Friday.
Iowa Governor Chet Culver has declared disaster areas in five counties.
Hillary Rodham Clinton, campaigning in Iowa, was stranded in the Midwest and could not make a New Jersey fund-raiser. She had her husband substitute. — Sapa-AP