Mike Groll/AP
Hundreds of thousands of Americans woke up in the dark and cold on Christmas morning, as a harsh ice storm killed the power in parts of Michigan, Vermont, New York State and Maine. Repair crews are working furiously to bring back the heat and lights, but some electricity might not be restored until later Wednesday or even Thursday. “This is our largest Christmas-week storm in our 126-year history, and it’s our largest ice storm in the last 10 years,” said a spokesperson for Consumers Energy in Michigan, a total of 303,000 electric customers were affected by the storms over the weekend, and 230,000 were still without power as of Tuesday evening. “We are working as hard as we can to get people back on. We recognize that this is a terrible time for this to happen.”