SAN ANTONIO (AP) ndash; A bone ndash;rattling blast of sleet and snow kept Texas and Oklahoma residents shivering in its icy grip, while a blizzard north of Los Angeles caused big ndash;rigs to jackknife.

-- Copyright (c) -->Traffic flows through snow flurries on southbound Interstate 35W near downtown Fort Worth, Texas, Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2007.

Ice covered the freeway and sanding trucks had not yet made it to the location. Photo: AP

-- /image1 --> At least 65 storm ndash;related deaths have been reported in nine states since Friday, including 10 in Texas and 23 in Oklahoma. The Alamo was closed Wednesday, as was a 300 ndash;mile stretch of Interstate 10 in Texas from Fort Stockton to San Antonio.
Much of the brunt of the latest Southern storms was to move east Thursday ndash; but the reprieve may be short ndash;lived.

Another barrage was to bring up to 8 inches snow to the Plains by late Friday.
Students who enjoyed extended weekends after Martin Luther King Jr. Day were to head back to class Thursday in San Antonio, Houston and Austin as transportation officials reopened some roadways that were closed because of icy conditions.

Snow accumulations were light by some other regions rsquo; standards ndash; the Dallas area topped out at 3 inches ndash; but hundreds of airline flights were canceled and tens of thousands of electricity customers lost power.
A Houston city employee was killed Wednesday when he was hit by a car and knocked over a guardrail as he and a co ndash;worker tried to help an accident victim, said Frank Michel, spokesman for Houston Mayor Bill White. Very tragic, Michel said.

He was attempting to be a good Samaritan and lost his life.
No place in Oklahoma has been harder hit than McAlester, where many stores were operating on generator power. At the E ndash;Z Mart, store manager Becky Clayton was selling out of bags of ice, soda, water and potato chips.

With most restaurants and cafes closed down here, customers also made a run on her deli.
I was ready for summer before it ever got cold, Clayton said.
Ice coated power lines throughout McAlester, and nearly 1,000 linemen, tree ndash;trimmers and support workers from Kansas, Louisiana, Texas and Tennessee were there Wednesday to repair the damage.

Many schools across Oklahoma planned to remain closed Thursday, some through the rest of the week, prompting concerns about how that instruction time will have to be made up.
In Tulsa, Okla., the city rsquo;s salt supply was running critically low, as 50 spreaders worked to clear streets near schools and hilly areas.

Everyone rsquo;s in the same boat, said Dan Crossland, the city rsquo;s street maintenance supervisor. We rsquo;re scrounging for resources.
The number of customers without electric power in Oklahoma dropped by about 18,000 on Wednesday, but 74,000 thousand others still were waiting for the lights to come on again.

More than 250 flights were canceled from Dallas ndash;Fort Worth International Airport on Wednesday. Austin ndash;Bergstrom International Airport canceled 102 flights, while San Antonio International Airport canceled 23 morning flights and Houston rsquo;s two major airports experienced delays.
In addition to the fatalities in Oklahoma and Texas, the wave of storms was blamed for 11 deaths in Missouri, eight in Iowa, four each in New York and Michigan, three in Arkansas and one each in Maine and Indiana.

Elsewhere in the country, frigid conditions tested even those used to snow and ice. The entire state of Maine was no warmer than the single digits, and several communities saw dangerous wind chills. It was minus ndash;16 degrees in Caribou.

In New Hampshire, only about 825 of the more than 50,000 homes and businesses that lost power in the ice storm remained without power Thursday, said Martin Murray, a Public Service Company of New Hampshire spokesman.
Freezing rain and some snow showers were reported across South Carolina early Thursday morning as some school districts delayed the start of classes.
In California, a four ndash;night cold snap wiped out as much as three ndash;quarters of the state rsquo;s citrus and harmed virtually every other winter crop, from avocados to flowers.

A fast ndash;moving cold storm dropped snow in the mountains above Malibu, left white coats of hail in the city and unleashed a blizzard Wednesday that closed Interstate 5 north of Los Angeles.
Texas citrus growers in the usually balmy Rio Grande Valley also suffered a cold snap, but it wasn rsquo;t severe enough to damage crops, said John McClung, president of the Texas Produce Association.
The weather rsquo;s nowhere near cold enough to do anything here, he said, noting that Texas growers might get a small windfall because of the California freeze.

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