OKLAHOMA CITY - Oklahoma residents were mostly spared a threatened second wintry blast on Saturday, as crews were still working to restore power to homes and businesses blacked out by last weekend's storm.
However, the latest storm's northward shift as it moved east meant the brunt of the bad weather was passing through Kansas and Missouri where, along with Oklahoma, hundreds of thousands of people were still in the dark.
The National Weather Service canceled heavy snow warnings for Oklahoma early Saturday. In the central part of the state, the system brought only cold, light rain during the night, turning to snow during the morning. Two to five centimetres of snow was forecast.
Kansas had up to 30 cm of snow Saturday morning. The Highway Patrol reported Interstate 70 in central Kansas was snowpacked but there were reports of major accidents.
More than 2,300 people were in Kansas shelters Saturday because of the outages and the fresh snow, said Sharon Watson, spokeswoman for the state Adjutant General's Department.
"We just opened the National Guard Armory in Russell because of the amount of people needing shelter," Watson said. "I think they're mostly travelers because of the highway conditions there."
The storm was expected to cross the Midwest and reach the Northeast early Sunday with a threat of ice and heavy snow. In Chicago, about 10 flights were canceled Saturday morning at O'Hare International Airport and flights were delayed by 15 to 30 minutes, said Department of Aviation spokesman Gregg Cunningham
Last weekend's storm coated much of the Plains with ice before dumping heavy snow on New England. It killed at least 38 people, mostly in traffic accidents, including 23 in Oklahoma alone.
At its height, a million customers in Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri were blacked out.
By Saturday morning, Oklahoma utilities said about 181,000 homes and businesses still had no electricity. Some 62,000 were still blacked out in Kansas.
"The first several days, crews were working on emergency restoration and getting the backbone of the structure up -- the main feeders and transmission lines," said Stan Whiteford, a spokesman for Public Service Co. of Oklahoma. Now they're really getting into the neighborhoods. The customers are coming on in bigger chunks."
Bill Weaver, who moved to Tulsa two years ago to escape hurricane-battered New Orleans, waited in his frigid home Friday for the electricity to be turned back on. "So, here we are," he deadpanned.
He had two gas-log fireplaces going, warming about a third of his home.
"It doesn't keep the showers warm," Weaver said. "It's cold baths."
The first storm changed from ice to snow as it blew into the Northeast, dumping 5 cm to 30 cm across the region and catching many municipalities by surprise, even after it wreaked havoc to the west.
Some commuters in Boston spent eight hours driving home Thursday evening, and public school buses were still dropping off students at 11 p.m.
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick defended the state's storm response Friday after meeting with public safety, transportation and emergency officials.
"People were asked to leave early, and they didn't," Patrick said. "What would have helped, I think in this case, would have been a more uniform early release."
As the snow fell, traffic on Rhode Island highways backed up past the Massachusetts state line, and about 300 vehicles got stuck or collided with others. Dozens of school buses got stuck on Providence streets.
