DETROIT, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- About 200,000 families across the Northeast United States are still without power nearly a week after an ice storm hit the region, utility firms said.
Utility firms said many customers likely will have to wait until the weekend for power to be restored, NBC News reported.
In Michigan, 105,000 DTE Energy Co. customers were still without power early Thursday, the Detroit News reported.
"We've managed to restore power to 138,000 clients so far," DTE Energy Co. spokesman Alejandro Bodipo-Memba said. "But ice is still wreaking havoc on restoration because icy-laden branches keep falling on power lines. We have 1,500 or so employees out there working hard to get things back to normal."
Fewer than 45,000 Maine residents were still without power as of Wednesday night, down from 71,000 Wednesday morning.
Two- to 6 inches of snow is expected to fall Thursday in Maine, which will slow the efforts to restore power and could result in more outages, the Bangor Daily News reported.
Many of the region's residents were forced to stay in shelters for Christmas to stay warm.
"It's definitely kind of strange but we're hanging in there," Ashley Walter of Litchfield, Maine, said Wednesday. "We did our Christmas together last night. I packed little stockings and gave them to my husband, sisters and my daughter."
