Hundreds of thousands of people endured another frigid night without electricity as temperatures dropped as far as 10 below zero early Monday in areas hit by a deadly ice storm.
New York's National Guard resumed its search by air and ground for people still isolated by last week's storm, which brought down trees and power lines in four states. More Guardsmen were being activated to help out with the search."We are checking on anything that's living," National Guard Sgt. Nicholas Contompasis said Sunday as his Humvee slid on an ice-covered road in Chazy, near the Canadian border.
Contompasis was among Guardsmen who went door-to-door in New York to deliver food, water and kerosene and make sure everyone was healthy. Helicopter crews rescued at least 16 people Sunday. People in need of help were told to make a big "H" in the snow that could be seen from the air.
Temperatures dropped to 10 below zero Monday at Pittsburg, N.H., and 6 below at Saranac Lake, N.Y.
"The people without power know it's colder," said Art Lester of the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine. "We won't get above freezing today, but there will be plenty of sun, so it might melt some."
About 3,000 Maine residents without heat in their homes spent the night in more than 130 shelters around the state. And even the outdoorsy L.L. Bean store had a limited staff to take telephone orders during the weekend because of the ice.
The director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, James Lee Witt, went on a helicopter tour of the affected New York area Monday with Gov. George Pataki.
Pataki said the ice storm was "not a crisis of a day or a week. This is a crisis of weeks or longer."
"This has been an absolutely unbelievable catastrophe. It looks like a war zone up here with trees and wires down," Maine Gov. Angus King said Monday morning on NBC's "Today." His own house is blacked out so he and his family - and his state trooper aide - have been staying with a neighbor.
Conditions were even worse in Canada, where more than 2 million remained without power and the Canadian military deployed 11,400 soldiers to help aid people and repair power lines.
Quebec's premier is asking his countrymen to open their homes to some of the more than 2 million Quebeckers still without electricity. Lucien Bouchard made the appeal as temperatures plunged below freezing and increased the dangers of exposure to people remaining in unheated homes, some for a sixth straight day.
Bouchard said emergency shelters, already stretched to the limit with some 100,000 people, cannot be the only refuge for those without electricity and heat.
The Canadian military has deployed 11,400 soldiers to help clear away branches, repair power lines and aid people in need.
Quebec's power company, Hydro-Quebec, said it hopes to restore power to 80 percent of Montreal by Tuesday.