Ice Storm Knocks Out Power in Georgia
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ATLANTA – More than 168,000 customers had no electricity yesterday in Georgia while crews worked to repair power lines snapped by an ice storm, and the city’s airport reopened all its runways as temperatures rose above freezing.
Two traffic deaths in Georgia and one in South Carolina were blamed on the storm that spread sleet and freezing rain across parts of the Southeast on Saturday.
By yesterday, all four runways at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport were operational again. Only two – and at one point only one – of its four runways were available Saturday as crews labored to scrape off ice.
“There still isn’t enough demand to have all four operating, but it’s much easier today to maintain four runways,” airport spokeswoman Lanii Thomas said, adding that about 300 stranded airline passengers spent the night at the airport because their flights were canceled.
Thick blankets of ice began melting yesterday as temperatures climbed above the freezing.
High temperatures reached the 40s for northern Georgia and the 60s in the southern part of the state.
Even with the improved weather conditions, fewer than 100 departures were scheduled out of the Atlanta airport yesterday morning, Ms. Thomas said. AirTran canceled 33 of its estimated 500 flights scheduled yesterday.
