Nearly 500,000 in East in dark

Pennsylvania hit hard; crews rush to help restore power

HARRISBURG, Pa. - Hundreds of thousands of people spent a second day without electricity Thursday as utility crews from as far away as Canada and Arkansas scrambled to restore power lost when a coating of ice took down trees and limbs in the mid-Atlantic.


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Forecasters said a bone-chilling cold would remain in place for days.

Nearly a half-million customers were without power in Pennsylvania and Maryland. In Pennsylvania, which took the brunt of the power failures, officials likened the scope of the damage to a hurricane. Some who might not get power back for several days sought warmth - or at least somewhere to recharge their batteries - in shopping malls, public libraries and hastily established shelters.

One cafe in downtown Pottstown gave about 15 free meals to people without power, encouraged them to plug in electronic devices and even let a few get a warm shower.

“It’s just kind of giving back to the community - there’s no other purpose of this,” said iCreate Cafe owner Ashraf Khalil.

About 200 people took advantage of seven shelters in three suburban Philadelphia counties, according to the American Red Cross of Southeastern Pennsylvania. Shelters also were open in central Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett said after an aerial survey of the storm’s aftermath that crews put a priority on restoring electricity to hospitals, nursing homes, communications facilities and sewer plants.

“This storm is in some respects as bad or maybe even worse than Hurricane Sandy,” he said during a stop in the Philadelphia suburbs. He said a shipment of electrical generators from the federal government was on its way to Pennsylvania.

He said he was urging electric utilities “to move as fast as they can, but they have to do it within the parameters of safety.”

PECO, the dominant electricity provider in the Philadelphia area, had the most power failures, with 394,000 Thursday night. PECO spokesman Debra Yemenijian said most would have their lights back on by tonight, but she said some could be without power until Sunday.

The Northeast’s second winter storm of the week dumped more than a foot of snow in some places Wednesday, forcing schools, businesses and government offices to close, snarling air travel, and sending cars and trucks sliding on slippery roads and highways. It also left a thick coating of ice on trees and power lines.

“Many of them already had a coating of snow on them,” said Mark Durbin, a spokesman for the utility First Energy. “It’s that weight that crushes our equipment. Multiply that by hundreds of locations.”

In hard-hit York County, south of Harrisburg, the downed trees and lines kept emergency officials busy. Calls to 911 on Wednesday were quadruple the normal volume, said Carl Lindquist, a spokesman for the county government.

Roughly 440,000 Pennsylvania customers remained without power by Thursday night, down by several hundred thousand from Wednesday and falling over the course of the day. In addition to PECO, First Energy had about 33,000 power failures in central Pennsylvania, PPL had 8,500 in eastern Pennsylvania, and there were about 4,000 others in the state. Some 53,000 Maryland power customers were in the dark.

Corbett said utility companies would have about 5,000 people working to reconnect customers.

Forecasters said it will remain cold through the weekend in the mid-Atlantic, with daytime highs around freezing and overnight lows in the teens. Light snow was expected over the weekend.

Two storms will move in off the Pacific in the next two days and make their way across the country, carrying snow to Chicago on Saturday and possibly to New York and Boston on Sunday, said Bob Smerbeck, a senior meteorologist at AccuWeather Inc. in State College, Pa.

On Thursday, the lower 48 states recorded their lowest average temperature of the season so far, just 11 degrees.

In the South, ice was falling in southeast Louisiana for the third time in as many weeks, and snow flurries forced early school closures and snarled traffic across northern Texas.

In central Alabama, where a storm that hit Birmingham last week left more than 11,000 students stranded in schools overnight, some schools were closing early at the mention of snow or sleet in the forecast.

And in Atlanta, where last week’s snow trapped commuters in cars and children in school buses, state officials said Thursday that they overreacted to information from federal forecasters and posted incorrect information on giant message boards over freeways, warning drivers of a new storm watch.

The signs flashed late Wednesday and into early Thursday, but the National Weather Service had issued no such watch.

“In our desire to proactively inform the traveling public of potential hazardous road conditions, we overreacted to a weather statement from the National Weather Service and incorrectly posted watch and warning messages on our overhead message signs,” the Georgia Department of Transportation said in a statement. “We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.”

National Weather Service forecasters had called state officials early Thursday to alert them to the error.

Information for this article was contributed by Mark Scolforo, Cheval Johnson, Jeff Martin and staff members of The Associated Press; and by Brian K. Sullivan of Bloomberg News.

Front Section, Pages 4 on 02/07/2014

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