The National Weather Service has issued ice storm warnings from the Oklahoma-Texas Panhandle border clear into central Illinois. That means that power outages are almost inevitable.
According to various newspapers and wire services:
- The St. Louis region has about 120,000 customers without power Saturday morning, mostly north and west of the city.
- Springfield, Mo., reports about 65,000 customers without power late Friday, and the number is rising.
- Several thousand people were without power in Vinita, Okla. The Tulsa area is mostly unscathed so far, with outages totaling just a couple hundred.
- Thousands more are without power in the Oklahoma City region.
Highway officials are strongly discouraging travel unless it’s absolutely necessary.