ice storm

Ice Storm Results in 11 Traffic Deaths
By KEN MILLER � 1 hour ago

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) ― Commuters contended with treacherous roads Monday from the southern Plains to the Northeast as a storm spread a coating of ice and freezing rain linked to at least 11 deaths.

Thousands of people had no electricity and airline flights were canceled Monday in Oklahoma. During the weekend, hundreds of flights had been grounded because of the weather.

Ice storm warnings, freezing rain advisories, winter storm watches and winter weather advisories extended along a cold front from Texas to New Hampshire. The wintry weather was expected to continue through midweek.

Oklahoma was especially hard hit, with a quarter-million customers blacked out Monday morning and schools closed across the state. The Highway Patrol discouraged travel for the whole state.

Ice accumulations already a half-inch thick were reported Sunday in parts of Oklahoma and could build up to as much as an inch thick in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area, the weather service said.

Most morning flights were canceled at Oklahoma City's Will Rogers World Airport, where two of the three runways were iced over.

Oklahoma utilities said about 300,000 homes and businesses were blacked out Monday, mostly in the Oklahoma City and Tulsa areas.

There was no way to estimate when power might be restored, said Oklahoma Gas & Electric spokesman Gil Broyles. "It's a changing situation, almost minute by minute," he said.

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

Blackouts affecting thousands of customers also were reported Sunday in parts of Missouri, Illinois and Kansas.

In the Northeast on Monday, many schools across upstate New York were closed or started late because of icy roads. Last Monday, a mixture of snow, rain and sleet closed schools across a large area of upstate New York state.

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

Seven other people also died on icy Oklahoma roads.

Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt declared a state of emergency Sunday and activated the National Guard to aid communities affected by the storm.

In Chicago, poor weather and low visibility forced the cancellation of more than 400 flights Sunday at O'Hare International Airport, authorities said. About two dozen flights were canceled at Kansas City International Airport, and 13 were canceled at Lambert International Airport in St. Louis.

A section of Interstate 70 in Missouri's Montgomery County was closed Sunday when a large power line fell across the highway. A nursing home in the county was without power, and its generator didn't work.

Associated Press writers Jeff Latzke in Oklahoma City and Cheryl Wittenauer in St. Louis contributed to this report.

The Ice Storm
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For other uses, see Ice storm (disambiguation).
The Ice Storm
First edition cover
Author Rick Moody
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Family, Drama, Tragicomedy
Publisher Little Brown & Co
Publication date 1994
Media type Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages 279 pp
ISBN ISBN 0316579211
The Ice Storm is a 1994 American novel by Rick Moody. The novel received large amounts of acclaim by readers and critics alike, widely hailed as a funny, acerbic, and moving hymn to a dazed and confused era of American life.[1]

In 1997, the novel was adapted into an acclaimed a feature film directed by Ang Lee, featuring a cast including Joan Allen, Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, Christina Ricci, Elijah Wood and Tobey Maguire.

Contents
1 Plot summary
2 Characters
3 Themes and analysis
4 Critical reception
5 Film adaptation
6 References



[edit] Plot summary
The novel is set before, during and after Thanksgiving, leading up to a threatening ice storm and centers two neighboring families, the Hoods and the Williamses, and the difficulties they have dealing with the tumultuous political and social climate of the day, in affluent small town America, in 1973. The novel is narrated from four different perspectives, each of them a member of the two families, who are promoting their own opinion and views of the several complications that arise throughout the novel, including their encounters and daily life. The Hood family is overridden with lies: Ben is currently in an affair with his married neighbor Janey, his wife Elena shoplifts, her daughter ventures on her own sexual liaisons with both females and males of her age, including her neighbors Mikey and Sandy.

The Hoods are Ben, Elena, Paul and Wendy and the Williamses are Jim, Janey, Mikey, and Sandy. The story focuses on a brief period of time when a major ice storm hits their town of New Canaan, Connecticut, just as both families are melting down from the parents' alcoholism, escapism and adultery, and their children's drug use and sexual experimentation.


[edit] Characters
Ben Hood
Elena Hood
Paul Hood
Wendy Hood
Janey Williams
Jim Williams
Mickey Williams
Sandy Williams

[edit] Themes and analysis
The novel's central themes are the loss of innocence and moral compass in middle-upper class Americans, and the 1970s era. It also deals with several underlying themes, including the Watergate scandal and suburban secrets, such as sexual experimentation by youths, and the same thing being done by the adults who are failing to be role models for their children, as well as their absence from their children's lives, which causes the most significant problems in the novel. The novel is also set during the time of the sexual revolution, which is obviously a central part since a recurring theme is sexuality. The rapidly changing sexual era are reflected in the lives of both families, who, as the revolution approached, have experimented with new, taboo sexual acts, such as incest and adultery.[1]


[edit] Critical reception
The Ice Storm was largely commended for its audacity and the many daring subjects explored in the novel.[citation needed] Critic Adam Begley of the Chicago Tribune called the novel: "A bitter and loving and damning tribute to the American family.... This is a good book, packed with keen observation and sympathy for human failure"[citation needed] while The Guardian called it "one of the wittiest books about family life ever written."[citation needed] Amanda Heller of The Boston Globe stated "Moody brings this profusion of metaphor to order with a fierce, subversive intelligence. His characters, drawn with a manic acuity that isn't fully accounted for until the end, stay with us long after we've finished reading."[citation needed]

The novel was a moderate success commercially; however its sales were boosted in 1997 with the release of the film adaptation.[citation needed]


[edit] Film adaptation
The film adaptation of The Ice Storm featured a cast including Sigourney Weaver, Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Christina Ricci, Tobey Maguire and Elijah Wood. The film was a success d'esteem as an art house film and critically acclaimed despite a poor box office, however it gained a modest reception on subsequent home video releases.[citation needed] While remaining more or less faithful to the book, some details were changed. Most notably, Weaver and Jamey Sheridan's characters were named Janey and Jim Carver, while in Moody's book, their name was Williams.