Texas Panhandle towns lose power from icy conditions

LIPSCOMB (AP) - Five towns in the far northeastern corner of the Panhandle lost power for about eight hours.

Icy conditions downed the main line Tuesday serving Lipscomb, Follett, Higgins, Booker and Darrouzett.

Power was restored to about 1,200 shortly after 7 p.m. Another 15 customers in this rural corner of Texas remained without power but were expected to get it back.

About 10 spans of feeder lines snapped around 11 a.m., causing the outage.

Texas has mostly avoided the ice-related problems of neighboring Oklahoma. Nearly 600,000 homes and businesses there were without power Tuesday in what has become the largest outage in state history.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)