The Winter Campaign
The only candidate making any campaign appearances the past few days in Iowa has been what the Russians call General Winter. The Washington Post reports that the howling winter storms that have wracked the midsection of the country have caused cancellation of campaign events, closed schools, cut off electricity to hundreds of thousands and caused at least 23 deaths so far. Oklahoma and Missouri are in declared states of emergency.
Most of the Iowa campaign events scheduled for Tuesday were canceled, including appearances by Michelle Obama, Ann Romney and Bill Clinton. Events for presidential hopefuls Mike Huckabee, John Edwards and Fred D. Thompson also were called off.
"I'm a Southern boy. When we see weather like this, we shut everything down," Huckabee joked to reporters covering his campaign.
Along with Iowa, parts of Nebraska, Wisconsin and other states were hit hard by the storm, which started over the weekend with freezing rain and proceeded across the region with alternating waves of snow and rain, and temperatures hovering around freezing.
The storm followed snowy weather that hit much of the Midwest on Thursday. The earlier snowstorm was blamed in an auto accident that killed a television cameraman on his way to cover the mall shooting in Omaha last Wednesday. Most of the storm-related deaths recorded since the weekend have been in traffic accidents.
"This is the most devastating electrical outage the state has ever experienced," said Andrea Chancellor, spokeswoman for the Public Service Company of Oklahoma, which reported 251,000 customers without power.
More than 2,000 utility workers and tree trimmers are coming in from other states to help repair hundreds of downed lines, Chancellor said. The workers will use temporary housing at the state fairgrounds.
"Trees are bending over and touching the ground. The least bit of wind knocks them over because of the weight from the ice," Chancellor said. "With ice, you can't tell if there's a power line wrapped up in your tree or not. It is so dangerous."
One official quoted in the article points out that they have had to cancel school in wide areas at the earliest date in at least a decade. It isn't over yet, either. Accuweather points out that the northeast can look forward to a howling nor'easter as the system heads that way. A very bad nor'easter that could bury the region in heavy snow. Brace yourselves, folks.
By feeblemind, Wednesday, 12 December , 2007 @ 12:37 pm
We got another 4″ snow overnight and a storm is forescast for the weekend. Sigh…. Oh well, as the arctic is melting, I guess it has to snow somewhere.
By martian, Wednesday, 12 December , 2007 @ 1:34 pm
Darn that pasky global warming making it so unseasonably hot everywhere!
What, it’s not warm in the midwest? They’re having the worst snowstorm and cold weather in years? Oh, never mind.