Apparently ...they say it'll be 2+ weeks before they restore power to the whole area. Apparently it's not important enough? Heh. The linemen my friends have talked to said that the amount of damage to the power infastructure was much more substantial than hurricane katrina caused. At least for the respective areas they've seen. There's close to 50k customers without power in my home county ...and the county doesn't have 50,000 people (entire population + businesses without power.)

My rents don't want me to come so I'll respect their wishes, but our home of the past 16 years has been damaged worse than ever. We've had F4 tornadoes through the city, ice storms almost every year, and very bad wind events. But this ice storm has damaged the area worse than anything. The hospital almost ran out of diesel to power its generators (it was down to 30 gallons, which doesn't amount to much for a very large industrial generator.)

So yea, I'm surprised they aren't getting as much help as they can get. I guess it boils down to it being costly, so they'll sacrifice a few more lives.