Ohio shelters clearing; much power remains out
Published 12:00 am Wednesday, December 29, 2004
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - The number of people staying at emergency shelters dropped in central Ohio on Sunday as power companies continued to make progress restoring electricity, days after a paralyzing winter storm.
Wali Bell, a spokesman for the American Red Cross of Greater Columbus, said more than 100 people were staying at a high school in Reynoldsburg. The agency housed 230 overnight Saturday.
There were about 15 people remaining at a shelter in downtown Newark, down from 40, said David Walker of the Licking County Red Cross chapter.
About 113,000 homes and businesses were still without power Sunday, including 97,000 outages in central and southern Ohio. A spokeswoman for American Electric Power said it would take until midnight Monday to have 90 percent of the outages repaired in southeast Columbus, Newark, Mount Vernon, Coshocton and New Philadelphia, and midnight Tuesday in Wooster.
''There will be individual scattered outages into early this week,'' Suzanne Priore said. ''We're going to do whatever it takes to get the lights back on.''
Temperatures were expected to warm this week, and the Ohio Emergency Management Agency was monitoring the situation for flooding caused by rapidly melting snow. Rain was also forecast for Friday.
''Hopefully that will give us enough time so that the snow doesn't accumulate or pool,'' Ohio EMA spokesman Rob Glenn said.
The Ohio National Guard continued to remove snow in the Dayton area, which was hit by 27 inches on Wednesday and Thursday.
The storm has killed more than a dozen people. Montgomery County Coroner Jim Davis said seven people in the Dayton area died last week while shoveling snow and another died trying to push a car.
On Wednesday, the first day of the storm, three people died in separate car accidents, and a fourth person died of an apparent heart attack while shoveling snow. On Friday, two people died of carbon monoxide poisoning in Columbus and a woman died of injuries suffered in a Thursday car crash.