Winter storms wreak havoc across U.S.; thousands without power

WASHINGTON, Dec. 25 (UPI) -- Christmas Day dawned with hundreds of thousands of Americans in several northern states still without electricity after weekend storms, utilities said.

NBC News reported 180,000 homes were in the dark in Michigan alone. More than 70,000 customers lacked power in Maine with another 1,800 in the same boat in Vermont and 500 in New York state, the network said.

Temperatures were well below freezing across the region, with single digits reported in parts of Michigan where wind chills were below zero.

WEYI-TV, Flint, Mich., said people had flocked to hotels and motels in the Flint area, leaving them filled to capacity.

"We knew they were going to be filled up, because we heard there was a lot of outages," Flint resident Tricia Huyck told the station.

Emergency officials said it was the most widespread outage since the Great Ice Storm of January 1998 when parts of New England were without power for months, NBC said.

"Power outages are far and away the biggest problem," Mike Hinerman, director of emergency services in Washington County, Maine, told WCSH-TV, Portland.

"It's as bad as we've had probably in the last 10 or 15 years," Waldo County, Maine, Emergency Management Director Dale Rowley told WLBZ-TV, Bangor.

WKYC-TV, Cleveland, reported a snow squall led to a 28-vehicle pileup in the Cleveland area that snarled Interstate 90 for about 6 hours Christmas Eve and left many motorists scrambling for a place to spend the night. One motorist, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Matt, described the conditions as "a complete whiteout."

"It was very scary," he said. "You couldn't do anything but just go straight -- no place to turn off."

The TV station said crashes sent at least eight people to hospitals with minor injuries.