From the snowy pacific coast to the iced-in Great Lakes, brutal winter weather is wreaking havoc across the country.
"We’re in the midst of an historic ice storm, one that we have not seen in Michigan for over 50 years," said Trevor Lauer, the president of DTE Energy.
Nearly a million homes and businesses plunged into darkness.
In Michigan alone, 820,000 customers at one time without power.
"I know this is different. The last ice storm we had, it didn't go out — which we were very lucky. And this time, 9:30, it was gone," said Sue Corney, a resident.
The ice is three quarters of an inch thick in some places. In Massachusetts freezing rain led to a pileup of with more than a dozen cars and trucks. Fortunately, there were no serious injuries reported. In Los Angeles, intense rains fell at nearly an inch an hour at times — while snow blanketed mountains near the city. Even low-lying hills got a dusting. The Hollywood sign, at just 1,500 feet above sea level, saw snow.
Western storm is bringing conditions the area hasn't seen in years
Los Angeles County has its first blizzard warning since 1989, and Portland is experiencing its second snowiest day in history.
California is expecting more intense rain and snow well into Saturday, while to the north residents try to dig out from nearly a foot of snow.
Robert Insley is a truck driver who wound up stranded on Portland’s freeways.
"I've been up all night long. I'm tired, you know — exhausted," Insley said. "12, 13, 14 hours. The road opened up. And I got up to here and there was a big truck over here. He couldn't get up the hill. Another truck was there and couldn't get up the hill."
Kim Upham shot a video as the city froze under its second-snowiest day on record.
"And it got pretty harrowing because the road was icy and there were a lot of trucks and semis and not all of them were very well equipped to handle those hills there," Upham said.
The National Weather Service says the worst of the winter weather is tapering off for most of the country. Still – a slew of weather alerts, warnings and advisories were active across most of the nation Friday.
