By Brian Skoloff,
Associated Press
DIERKS, Ark.
(AP) Nearly a week after a Christmas ice storm devastated the
southern Plains, tens of thousands of homes and businesses in
Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas remain without power.
''We've never
had a storm like this,'' Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Friday.
''We've never had a tornado that's done this kind of damage to
infrastructure. I'm using words like apocalyptic and cataclysmic.''
About 135,000
homes and businesses in the state remained in the dark Friday.
Some communities have also been without water and sewer service
for days.
In Dierks,
residents like Brandon Janes hoped to have a generator running
soon for the sewer and water systems. ''We'll cross our fingers
and pray real hard,'' he said.
President
Clinton declared parts of Arkansas a disaster Friday, allowing
financial aid to reach thousands of individual property owners,
instead of just local governments.
In Oklahoma,
about 104,000 people remained without power, and some areas weren't
expected to get service restored for five to 10 days. Gov. Frank
Keating has declared all 77 counties a disaster area.
Even with
the promise of federal aid, Oklahoma emergency officials urged
thousands of people left without power and facing another icy
blast to turn to each other for help.
''We do know
there are people who are still in the cold and still in the dark,''
said Michelann Ooten, spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department
of Civil Emergency Management. ''If you know someone who doesn't
have power don't assume they know where the shelter is.''
Beatrice Sam
and her 91-year-old husband, John, toughed it out in their cold
McAlester, Okla., home for four days before they finally got a
ride to a local Red Cross shelter.
John Sam got
out of the hospital a week ago after suffering a heart attack.
The Sams managed to stay warm by piling on four blankets, a thick
bedspread and quilt.
Mrs. Sam said
that when they got up to go to the bathroom, they'd crawl back
in bed and shiver until they got warm.
''I probably
could have toughed it out, but he can't,'' Mrs. Sam said. ''Some
people are still out there toughing it out.''
Federal officials
have shipped 13 generators to southeastern Oklahoma to provide
power to water plants, hospitals and other essential services.
In Texas,
Mary Jones was among about 45,000 customers still waiting for
electricity Friday. The lights went out just after her family
of five finished Christmas Day lunch.
''I got the
burners on the kitchen cook stove on. That's how we're surviving,''
Jones said.
The icy, chilly
weather wasn't bothering Ruby Sewell of Ridgeland, Miss., on Friday.
She opened her latest natural gas bill to find it had more than
doubled.
''Something's
not right,'' Sewell said.
Across the
nation, people who depend on natural gas and propane as a source
of heat are struggling with skyrocketing prices following a decline
in supply and a sharp rise in demand.
Mississippi
Valley Gas Co., which serves about 250,000 people, has been receiving
thousands of calls a week from people complaining about their
bills.
''People take
one look at their bills and they're shocked,'' said the company's
Phil Hardwick. ''They don't know it yet but it's going to get
worse in January. It's a real happy New Year's story.''
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