Thousands of people across the South were left without water or found their taps producing a trickle too weak for a decent shower because the Christmas weekend freeze cracked pipes.
Texas plumbers called for out-of-state reinforcements, hotels with water offered special rates to folks desperate to bathe, and the National Guard trucked water in to Pollock, La."It's unbelievable, unbelievable," said Bennie Payne, who was busy dispatching plumbers from his Central Plumb It Yourself Supply in Baton Rouge, La. "Our guys are working till they drop. I don't know how much longer they can keep up this pace."
From Dallas to Raleigh, N.C., a strange sort of spring thaw followed the rare weekend freeze: Pipes, unprotected from the cold, cracked open as freezing water expanded, then began dripping and gushing as temperatures rose Monday and Tuesday.
The worst of the South's cold wave appeared to be over, with the National Weather Service predicting lows Wednesday at or above freezing in much of the region and rising to the 50s and 60s later in the week.
Elsewhere, freezing rain was forecast today across the Plains and light snow from the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley east into West Virginia, western Pennsylvania and New York state and into New England.
The wintry weather has been blamed for the deaths of 97 people since Dec. 15.
Louisiana fishermen were astounded to see ice in the shallows where they earn their living.
"We have banks that are solid white with fish and frozen fish floating everywhere," said Joe Buras, president of the Delta Commercial Fishermen's Association of Plaquemines Parish. "We have islands with ice sticking 2 or 3 feet high and bays that are frozen solid.
"It looks like Alaska, it's so bad right now."
Particularly hard hit with water problems were Jackson, Miss., with an estimated 60,000 homes and businesses left dry, and Houston, where one official guessed the number affected may have topped 100,000.
Jackson officials asked laundries, car washes and other businesses that use large amounts of water to stay closed a second day today, and non-essential government workers were ordered to stay home.