More than 607,000 without power in state's largest outage ever
By Steve Lannen and Ryan Alessi - slannen@herald-leader.com The ice storm that pounded Kentucky this week has now caused the state's largest power outage, surpassing the 600,000 customers who lost power after Hurricane Ike.

Kentucky Public Service Commission announced Thursday afternoon that more than 607,000 Kentucky electric customers were without power.

A state emergency official said Thursday that three deaths in Kentucky were associated with the winter storm.

Power outages by county


Utility officials estimated that more than 1.3 million homes and businesses across a wide swath of states were powerless early Thursday, and they warned that it could be mid-February before some customers had power. The storm has been blamed for at least 23 deaths.

Beshear told the Herald-Leader Thursday morning that Obama called him about 9 p.m. Wednesday and that they spoke for about 10 minutes.

"I talked with him about the various trouble spots we had, the lack of drinking water in some places, having to get heat to many of our shelters and nursing homes, and the widespread power outages," Beshear said. "He expressed his concern for the folks of Kentucky and wanted to let everyone know his thoughts and prayers were with us all."

Obama completed the paperwork in less than an hour.

Beshear planned to travel to Paducah, Henderson and Bowling Green by Blackhawk helicopter on Thursday. His mission was two-fold: to get updates from local officials and to explain what the state is doing to help.

From the helicopter looking out, "you can't really see the real devastation on the ground: the downed power lines, people in shelters, people having to be moved from nursing home to warm places," the governor said.

The state, along with 68 counties and 36 cities, were operating under states of emergency as ice continued to drag down power lines and branches clogged roadways.

In Lexington, about 37,000 customers remained without power on Thursday morning. In Madison County, about 19,300 were without power, which is about two-thirds of Kentucky Utilities' customers there, company spokesman Cliff Feltham wrote via e-mail. The approximate numbers of KU outages for some other counties are as follows:

■ Boyle County: 9,800

■ Scott County: 3,450

■ Clark County: 4,800

■ Woodford county: 6,600

■ Jessamine County: 900

"We should make some good headway today, but the X factor remains the ice in the trees," Feltham wrote. "As long as it's still there, we still have the risk of losing more customers as we gain others. We need a good warm spell to get the ice out of the equation."

It is supposed to reach 33 degrees Thursday in Lexington, but it will be below freezing Thursday night. This weekend appears to be the first real possibility of warmer days, with a high of 37 on Saturday and possibly 51 on Sunday.

It was relatively quiet in Lexington overnight. Tree limbs continued to fall and some transformers blew. Reports of power outages continued to come in but at a slower rate, the Lexington Fire Department said.

A mother and her three children in the 500 block of Patterson Street were taken to the University of Kentucky hospital, suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning. They had been using a charcoal grill in their kitchen to keep warm, Assistant Fire Chief Marshall Griggs said.

Only three wrecks were reported by police. Seven streets or intersections remain blocked or have traffic signals not functioning due to falling limbs or power lines, Lexington police Lt. Thomas Curtsinger said.

Those areas include intersections along Tates Creek Road, Versailles Road, Georgetown Road at Ironworks Road, and Hanover Road, he said.

According to the letter Beshear sent to Obama, costs associated with the storm will exceed $5 million in damages, the minimum amount a state must spend to trigger federal assistance. The letter also states that at least seven wastewater-treatment plants were on bypass mode — meaning not all sewage was going through every stage of treatment — because of flooding or power outages. More than 20 outstanding requests for generators had not been honored, the letter said.

Buddy Rogers, spokesman for the Kentucky Division of Emergency Management, said the three deaths in Kentucky blamed on the storm included a Montgomery County man who was on oxygen; he died after power went out in his home.

In Ohio County, Rogers said, downed trees across a road delayed and ambulance crew from reaching a home where a woman was found dead. Also in Ohio County, a woman was found dead at the bottom of her basement steps as she retrieved a kerosene heater.

In addition, the storm was blamed for a fatal wreck in Wayne County.

Late Wednesday morning, Jennifer A. Powell, of Monticello, lost control on Ky. 1546 about eight miles west of Monticello, Deputy Sheriff David Worley said. Her vehicle slid off the road, went into a creek and overturned.

She was taken to the Wayne County hospital and was transferred to the University of Kentucky Hospital, where she died Wednesday afternoon, Worley said.

The cause of death was hypothermia, the Fayette County Coroner said.

gypsy has told me many times that she is scared of natural gas heat , water etc, so i know they are total electic, but jerry is smart, and i think some of her children live close, like walking distance, but in 2 post , the city close to her has been mentioned, take care,,,

This is one subject in which I have had actual training and experience (TRANE). Gas heat has historically been the cheapest, but only because gas was always cheapest. Maybe not anymore,depending on where you live.Gas heat also dries the sinuses and can cause problems there. Also, gas heat is inherently risky (never use gas space heaters) as opposed to any electric furnace. It just is. Electric space heaters are ALWAYS risky and at 3.4 BTU/watt, very costly. If you must depend on electric space heat,use the oil bath type or the new silicate element/low temp type. The best for whole house,straight electric heat systems are the baseboard type with low temp elements and room thermostats. But the best system overall for efficiency and comfort are heat pumps, window, thru-the-wall, or central. Modern syttems can deliver 9+ BTU/watt and are safe as you can get. If yer prone to blackouts,get a vented wood burning stove and burn rolled up junk mail for fuel in emergencies.You can get a junk mail roller cheap. Oil heat is something I simply wouldn't consider. Just some thoughts.

i agree, but i am on forced air natural gas heat, and gas hot water, electric stove, i have a wood heater not used in a long time, , but i cant have things changed out , work is to iffy right now, but i would not consider doing away with the heater unless it went out then i may choose a heat pump, i just put in a new hot water heater, i bought one that was the same dimensions as mine, so i did not have to change any new gas lines. i had to souder in and change up just a tad on the copper pipes, this is my second one to replace, it started leaking a bit, all this is in the basement, the aircond, A coil is mounted in the duct work above the heater, of course the air cond is outside, take care,

I have one of those electric low temp space heater types for one bedroom (mine) and it does a good job, but I don't want anything to do with gas ANYTHING, I don't trust it from what I've heard, and have no experience using them. We have always used electric for everything and I will continue to do so.

oh yep moon my sister has a large house, and it very well insulated, so much its the next day when the weather changes that inside the house changes, hard explain but my bro in law built it, and he insulated in many ways, at the house outside is steel frame , they have an upstairs air, and heat, second unit, but he somehow got a great buy from someone, on those little oil radiator type heaters, they like them , but they keep there house cool in the winter, i figure that is what u ment by oil filled electic heaters, they are total electric,,

I am all electric but would kill for a natural gas stove. Sure would be handy in hurricane season plus a small heat source in winter black-outs, plus when you turn off the burner it STOPS cooking

SSC wrote:I am all electric but would kill for a natural gas stove. Sure would be handy in hurricane season plus a small heat source in winter black-outs, plus when you turn off the burner it STOPS cooking

These new inductive heating elements on stove tops eliminate all previous electric burner problems. The element uses microwaves to heat only the metal in the pan and immediately stop adding heat when they are cut off because when the mw's stop, the molecules stop dancing around. My bro got one and he loves it.

i have a propane gas stove at the lake, i only use the eyes, so i dont use much propane, i also have propane forced air heat at the lake, but dont use it, i do use the ceramic electric space heaters, not while sleep, i do use the stove when i get there if its cold to help warm it up, then the elecric heaters keep it warm but im not up there in real cold weather maybe 30s at nite, sometime, in the fall, i dont go after like thanksgiving because i winterize and drain and blow out the water lines, so i dont open back up till like april, but i am safe with the small ceramic electic heaters, i dont use them much so my power bill up there is hardly ever over the minumum charge. my former mother in law lived alone, she had a gas stove put in so she could use it , during power outages, gas stove get thing hot faster,
i keep an carbon monoxide i think it is pluged in , so if any fumes it will set it off, and trust me it works, i have gas logs, and if i close the dampner in the fireplace, its just a minute till the thing goes off, i can even let a car in the basement run for just a bit with the doors closed to the basement and the detector it will go off, and i use it to let me know if my gas heat is working , if the chamber is bad, the detector would go off, but dad always had gas heat, in later years has central put in but he had a gas pack which everything is outside the heat adn air cond, as his house had a crawl space, with duck work under the house, im not scared of natural gas, i agree, it use to be cheeper, than total electric but i dont think so now, take care

rosco 357 wrote:oh yep moon my sister has a large house, and it very well insulated, so much its the next day when the weather changes that inside the house changes, hard explain but my bro in law built it, and he insulated in many ways, at the house outside is steel frame , they have an upstairs air, and heat, second unit, but he somehow got a great buy from someone, on those little oil radiator type heaters, they like them , but they keep there house cool in the winter, i figure that is what u ment by oil filled electic heaters, they are total electric,,

That's called the "flywheel effect". Insulation doesn't stop heat penetration; it just drastically slows it down. Insulation works because it's mostly air and air has a low heat transfer factor. Solid materials like wood,asphalt shingles,etc., have a much higher factor and solid metals can approach 1.0 All that heat stored up can continue to radiate into the living space long after the sun goes down. Working for a company that made money by installing central systems didn't allow me to tell folks that the most efficient way to cool/heat their house was to have window A/C units and baseboard heating units (with buit in fans). Ugly and prone to lower property values, they still don't enjoy widespread use.You can get window heat pumps that heat and cool,but reversing the refrigerant flow requires very complicated piping and controls and reduces their dependability. Honda now makes a little split system unit that acts like a window unit and if you can hide the outdside units behind bushes,that's the way I would go in a new house.

i had thought at the lake when my main air cond in the den goes out , had it a long time, i might check out the air cond units that heat ,, like u said. i would have to run some electricity from my main electic box outside, i can do that, i put in the whole electric service, even the pole, lol, and fromthe weather head to the breaker box inside, my sisters place the next lot but we it belongs to all of us,,, hers is total elecric, if im up there and i want to get warm like im working up there, i go in hers and use the electic heat, we just are not up there enough in the cold weather to be concerned about the amount of electricity, but one thing , if there is a storm in the summer, and the power goes out, welll we are on a well and its not like home ,, no elecricity to run the well pump, no water, lol,

rosco 357 wrote:i had thought at the lake when my main air cond in the den goes out , had it a long time, i might check out the air cond units that heat ,, like u said. i would have to run some electricity from my main electic box outside, i can do that, i put in the whole electric service, even the pole, lol, and fromthe weather head to the breaker box inside, my sisters place the next lot but we it belongs to all of us,,, hers is total elecric, if im up there and i want to get warm like im working up there, i go in hers and use the electic heat, we just are not up there enough in the cold weather to be concerned about the amount of electricity, but one thing , if there is a storm in the summer, and the power goes out, welll we are on a well and its not like home ,, no elecricity to run the well pump, no water, lol,

These new window AC units are so efficient that you can get a 5000 BTU unit that runs on 115V and can be plugged into the wall just like a fan.

meemoon wrote:

rosco 357 wrote:i had thought at the lake when my main air cond in the den goes out , had it a long time, i might check out the air cond units that heat ,, like u said. i would have to run some electricity from my main electic box outside, i can do that, i put in the whole electric service, even the pole, lol, and fromthe weather head to the breaker box inside, my sisters place the next lot but we it belongs to all of us,,, hers is total elecric, if im up there and i want to get warm like im working up there, i go in hers and use the electic heat, we just are not up there enough in the cold weather to be concerned about the amount of electricity, but one thing , if there is a storm in the summer, and the power goes out, welll we are on a well and its not like home ,, no elecricity to run the well pump, no water, lol,

These new window AC units are so efficient that you can get a 5000 BTU unit that runs on 115V and can be plugged into the wall just like a fan.

ihave 3 bedrooms at teh lake, but only 2 have the 5000 btu units, but in the den or greatroom i guess it is , i have a larger one that is older, and i think every year it will go out , because sometimes the compressor does not want to come on, but as for now i usually can get it to come on and not kick off, so i would need to have the larger one and one that heats there, that should do it, i think, well i need to get offline, take care,

" because sometimes the compressor does not want to come on, but as for now i usually can get it to come on and not kick off" /// Probably just a capacitor problem but being old, I'd shitcan it when it stops working altogether. Those baseboard convective heaters are easy to install,safe, and efficient in the sense that they only need to work in rooms that are actually in use. But they are generally grossly overpriced. I'm sure the Chinese workers who make them at $0.50/hr would say so.

meemoon wrote:" because sometimes the compressor does not want to come on, but as for now i usually can get it to come on and not kick off" /// Probably just a capacitor problem but being old, I'd shitcan it when it stops working altogether. Those baseboard convective heaters are easy to install,safe, and efficient in the sense that they only need to work in rooms that are actually in use. But they are generally grossly overpriced. I'm sure the Chinese workers who make them at $0.50/hr would say so.

lol thanks marc, i keep the house just comfortable, but at the lake they all acuse me of it being like a fridge inside,in the summer, they all cover up while watching a dvd, at nite, thanks for the info on the baseboard heaters,