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Morning News

Ice Storm Causing Accidents, Power Outages in Arkansas

Aired December 26, 2000 - 11:04 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We have some pictures to show folks from the conditions that have been taking place in the southern plains. A lot of roads there have been icy and treacherous, in parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas. At least three people have been killed in weather-related accidents in Oklahoma and power is knocked out in some areas.

Here are those pictures for you. Motorists are stranded on Interstate 40. That's north of Little Rock. The Arkansas National Guard is helping out in that situation. Forecasters warn the worst may be yet to come in that region and that's why we have been staying in touch with Flip.

And now, to see just how bad it is, we're going to go out in the cold and we're going to check in with Matt DeCample. He's from our affiliate KATV.

Matt, no -- oh, you have your gloves on, but you don't have your hat on.

MATT DECAMPLE, KATV REPORTER: No, I don't.

KAGAN: Points off to you.

DECAMPLE: And actually, we've -- yes, we've gotten a bit of a reprieve from the freezing rain. It's more of a freezing drizzle right now. It's been going all night long and into the morning.

Behind me is Interstate 40, which is the main west-east artery through Arkansas. It's an ice rink out there right now. Traffic has actually died down a bit because people are adhering to the state police's warnings to stay off the roads because they are very bad. There's been hundreds of wrecks. Parts of the interstate have been shut down as we've gone through the day. We had one snag earlier about 40 miles west of here, 50 cars in Faulkner County, Arkansas. And it's just been crazy.

The bridges over the Arkansas River between Little Rock to North Little Rock, it's the only way to get over the river. And they've also been very icy. Some of them have been shut down, not by the police, but just by the number of accidents.

Little Rock National Airport is at a standstill right now. All the runways are iced over. It's really just a matter of everyone staying home because the police are telling them to. Meteorologists here are telling us this ice storm will continue through tonight and into tomorrow, so we're just getting into this.

And we had an ice storm just two weeks ago; 250,000 people lost power during that storm -- 250,000 customers. We have about 45,000 so far today. Most of those are in the southern part of the state where we expect more as this ice continues to fall and build up onto power lines, Daryn.

KAGAN: And the people who had lost their power before, had that all been restored before this latest storm came in?

DECAMPLE: Yes, it took up to seven days for some of them because the crews were scrambling. They brought in a lot from out of state and dealt with those. But with that ice storm, even though there was a lot of ice on the trees and the power lines, the roads were relatively clear. We just had some slush, and that cleared up nicely. Not the case this time. The roads are much wore off. So if you have another big outage, it can mean big problems for those crews trying to get around and restore those lines.

KAGAN: OK, Matt DeCample. Now, if it gets icy out there, you put your hat on, OK?

DECAMPLE: I will.

KAGAN: All right. And you and your crew be safe. Thank you very much for that live report.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com

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