Ice Storm Proves Deadly

Dec. 16, 2005

(CBS/AP) More than 700,000 homes and businesses began the day Friday without power after a frigid night allowed ice to build from a deadly storm in the South.

The ice also left commuters with more tough driving conditions from Georgia to Maryland, and forecasters warned that dense morning fog could create an extra coat of ice in below-freezing weather.

"There's a lot of ice still on the roads," said CBS News reporter Pete Combs Friday morning. "I'm sitting right now at an intersection in northeastern Charlotte and I'm watching wheels spin, people driving very gingerly, simply because the road is nothing more than a sheet of ice."

Hundreds of accidents were reported Thursday, and utility companies said it would take days to fully restore power. Still in the dark Friday were about 328,000 customers in North Carolina, 358,000 customers in South Carolina and 30,000 in Georgia — numbers that climbed from the night before as temperatures fell and ice built up.

The outages were caused when ice-laden tree limbs fell onto power lines, or the lines themselves snapped under the weight of the ice.

"A lot of neighborhoods that would be lit up with festive Christmas lights are dark," reports Combs.

At least four deaths were reported, including a 58-year-old man in suburban Charlotte who was lying on a couch in his living room when a 100-foot tree buckled from heavy ice and crushed him. Two men were killed in separate accidents in Maryland when each lost control of his vehicle and collided with another vehicle. A FedEx truck driver was killed when his vehicle hit an SUV that lost control on the Capital Beltway in Virginia.

North Carolina's heaviest icing — one-half to three-quarters of an inch — came in the southwestern area of Saluda and Flat Rock, said Doug Outlaw of the National Weather Service's bureau at the Greenville-Spartanburg Airport in South Carolina.

A mix of snow, sleet, freezing rain and rain created treacherous conditions on Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey roads, also. A series of accidents involving 14 cars in Hamilton Township, N.J, were blamed on the winter storm, reports CBS station KYW-TV.

"Slow down. Please slow down and go home if you don't have to be out, that's all. Wait until tomorrow to do your driving," New Jersey State Trooper William Carbounis said.