More than 75,000 Pennsylvanians were still without power Sunday morning — days after an ice storm initially left hundreds of thousands more in the dark.
WPVI reports the number of people without power near Philadelphia has dropped to nearly 80,000 — down significantly from its peak of more than 700,000 outages.
On Saturday, WCAU talked to some of the people who spent days without power and had to use a generator just to stay warm. They said dealing with the outage was not easy.
DAUGHTER: "Then after the second day, it was like very irritable. Like why is it not back on yet?"
MOTHER: "Bad, it's very difficult. I didn't think it would be this difficult, but it is — day after day. It is pretty bad right now."
WCAU reported that mother and daughter got their power back at about 11:00 Saturday night, but tens of thousands still remain in the dark.
Local crews have been so overwhelmed with the response, KYW-TV notes power crews all the way from Quebec, Canada drove in to the Philadelphia area to help out with restoring power Saturday.
And according to WTXF, there were even crews from Chicago coming in to help out with power restoration. And President Obama declared a state of emergency in Pennsylvania in the aftermath of the storm.
The Weather Channel reports between a quarter to a half-inch of freezing rain fell in parts of Pennsylvania. It might not sound like much, but a half-inch of ice can reportedly put 500 pounds of pressure on power lines and make tree branches feel 30 times heavier than normal.
For those still without power as of Sunday, WCAU reports they might be left in the dark until Tuesday.
