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Ice Storm Leaves Tens Of Thousands In The Dark

Heather Griffin, of Buffalo, N.Y., and her dog Sal walk beneath ice-covered trees on Sunday in Buffalo.
Mike Groll
/
AP
Heather Griffin, of Buffalo, N.Y., and her dog Sal walk beneath ice-covered trees on Sunday in Buffalo.

About 200,000 households are in the dark across the country, after a massive ice storm swept through Midwest and the Eastern Seaboard.

The Associated Press estimates that some 95,000 households are without power in New York, Vermont and Maine. MLive.com reports that 155,000 are without power in Michigan.

The bad news, reports MLive.com, is that some of those customers may be without power through Christmas. And there's more bad news, via CNN:

"Temperatures will begin to drop to 15 to 25 degrees below normal Monday and Tuesday in the Upper Midwest.

"Blowing snow and dangerous wind chill temperatures will be a hazard on Wednesday for the region," the National Weather Service said.

"Some Michigan residents are dealing with no electricity. Sara Hadley's family lost power after an ice storm struck her hometown of Lansing, Michigan. She sent photos of some of the countless icicles in her neighborhood.

"'Last time we had ice like this was 1998,' she told CNN's iReport."

Across the northern border in Toronto, the situation is worst. The Toronto Star reports a quarter million are without power and the local electric company called in U.S. reinforcements for help with the repairs.

One cool thing to come out of the ice storm, are the many pictures moving on Twitter. Like this one, retweeted by Good Morning America:

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Eyder Peralta is NPR's East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya.