(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-12-11 17:18

Portions of Interstate 35 and Interstate 44 were shut down early Monday afternoon in Oklahoma City after ice-laden power lines collapsed and fell into the roadways.

Oklahoma utility officials said it could be a week or more before power was fully restored.

"This is a big one. We've got a massive situation here and it's probably going to be a week to 10 days before we get power on to everybody," said Ed Bettinger, a spokesman for Public Service Company. "It looks like a war zone."

The Oklahoma City suburb of Jones, a town of 2,500 people, had low water pressure because there was no electricity to run well pumps, and firefighters said an early morning fire destroyed most of the community's high school.

Since the storm began, Tulsa firefighters have responded to dozens of structural fires, most attributable to the storm, said Sheryl Lovelady, a city spokeswoman. One person was killed by smoke inhalation in a storm-related fire, she said; she did not provide details.

The icy weather stretched into the Northeast, where many schools across upstate New York were closed or started late because of icy roads.

On ice-covered Interstate 40 west of Okemah, Okla., four people died in "one huge cluster of an accident" that involved 11 vehicles, said Highway Patrol Trooper Betsey Randolph.

Ten other people died on icy Oklahoma roads. In Missouri, one person died on a slippery highway, while two others died in separate incidents when tree limbs fell on them, authorities said. In addition, a homeless person died of hypothermia in Oklahoma City, the state medical examiner's office said.

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