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The Iceman Cometh

OKLAHOMA CITY — (AP)- [1] A wintry storm caked America’s center with a thick layer of ice, blacking out more than 600,000 homes and businesses, and more icy weather was on the way. At least 17 deaths in Oklahoma and Missouri were blamed on the conditions, with 15 of them killed on slick highways.A state of emergency was declared for all of Oklahoma, where the sound of branches snapping under the weight of the ice echoed through Oklahoma City.

“You can hear them falling everywhere,” Lonnie Compton said Monday as he shoveled ice off his driveway.

Yeah, I’m hip. I don’t know if I”ve ever mentioned it in the blog, but we had a major ice storm here in Rochester back in ’92.  We were without power for a week and a half after that one. It’s amazing, how quickly your brain shifts gears into “survival” mode.  I expect there’s a lot of that going on out in Oklahoma and Missouri, this morning.

By the way, KMOX is the big 50,000 watt blowtorch on 1120 out there… they’re in St Louis. The signal is pouring in up here in Rochester, just now. A little unuusal for it to be so strong, here.  It’s interesting listening to the local coverage of the event.  Of course, when you’re 50kw, ‘local’ takes on a different meaning. They ahve coverage all over the region, there… and even though the storm hasn’t really hit them directly, they seem to be the only sizable station in the area.

 ST. LOUIS (KMOX News)  [2] The National Weather Service reports that significant ice accumulations are anticipated from southwest Missouri through southwest Illinois overnight Sunday into Monday morning. For the St. Louis region, including the Metro East, around a quarter-inch of additional ice accumulation is likely today.

Currently, ice storm warnings are in effect for portions of southwest through central, east central and southeast Missouri, as well as parts of southwest Illinois.

For those who can’t pick it up directly, as I can here, they also stream  [3]

I don’t know, not having tried it yet, but the big Chicago stations… WGN, WCFL, and WLS have reach down to the southern part of Illinois and so may be trying to program their coverage to that direction, too.

We’re breathing a sigh of relief up here in western NY. Looks like we’ll be too warm for any real ice threat, today.