Crews work to restore power lines that were damaged along DeMille Road in Lapeer, Mich. on Dec. 23, 2013, after the ice storm over the weekend.
Work crews are racing to restore electricity for thousands of families in time for Christmas after a weekend ice storm cut power lines and left about 380,000 people in the cold.
Homes and businesses in Michigan, Vermont, New York, and Maine lost power this weekend, and temperatures are plummeting as families wait for heat to return. Michigan alone has 250,000 power outages, and the temperatures has now fallen below 10 degrees, USA Today reports.
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One of Michigan’s power providers, DTE, said its teams were working “round the clock” to restore power in time for Christmas, and they estimate that 90% of their customers should have electricity by Christmas Eve.
As of Tuesday morning, more than 173,000 CE customers were still without power, and ice coating the tree limbs threaten to compound the problem before it can be fixed. Some of those affected may not get their power restored until Sunday.