Storm Outages Still Affect Thousands

Lights and heat switched back on for many customers who had been shivering since an ice storm snapped power lines across the South. Thousands more, however, still had no electricity since the pre-Christmas ice storm pulled down power lines and snarled highway and airline travel. And even with about 2,000 utility workers laboring to reconnect broken power lines, an estimated 144,000 residential and business customers of Virginia Power may be in the dark until the middle of the week. Utilities said about 25,000 customers were still blacked out in Mississippi, 32,000 in Tennessee, 18,500 in Alabama, 17,000 in Louisiana, 1,200 in North Carolina and about 350 in Arkansas. In Spring Hill, Tenn., an 8-year-old girl died of injuries she suffered Christmas Eve when she slipped on ice in her yard and hit a trailer, which fell on her.