OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) – Lisa Wofford had just moved out of her apartment and was planning to move her family into a house when a winter storm knocked a power pole onto the new digs, preventing her from closing on it.

By Friday, the newly homeless Wofford was on her fifth day at an American Red Cross shelter, and an approaching snowstorm cast even more uncertainty on her future.

“I’m praying for no snow. I don’t want to be here any longer,” Wofford said before starting in on her lunch of pasta and green beans. “I’ve slept, like, seven hours since Monday. I’m running on faith.”

The second wintry blast could complicate efforts to restore power to the more than 280,000 homes and businesses in Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri still blacked out after the first storm put a million customers in the dark at its height this week.

That storm, which coated much of the Plains in ice before moving dumping snow on the Northeast, has killed at least 38 people, mostly in traffic accidents. It has been blamed for 23 deaths in Oklahoma alone.

The first storm changed from ice to snow as it blew into the Northeast, dumping 2 inches to a foot across the region and catching many municipalities by surprise, even after it wreaked havoc to the west.

Some commuters in Boston spent eight hours driving home Thursday evening, and public school buses were still dropping off students at 11 p.m.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick defended the state’s storm response Friday after meeting with public safety, transportation and emergency officials.

“People were asked to leave early, and they didn’t,” Patrick said. “What would have helped, I think in this case, would have been a more uniform early release.”

As the snow fell, traffic on Rhode Island highways backed up past the Massachusetts state line, and about 300 vehicles got stuck or collided with others.

But while the worst was over in the Northeast, at least for now, Plains residents continued to cope with maintaining the basics.

The next storm was predicted to bring 2 to 6 inches of snow to parts of Kansas and Oklahoma, said Ken Harding, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Starting Sunday night, the system will drop “huge amounts of snow, probably blizzard conditions in New England,” he said.

The service issued winter weather watches for the northwest two-thirds of Oklahoma from Friday afternoon through this morning. By late Friday afternoon, snow was already falling on the outskirts of Oklahoma City.

An Xcel Energy serviceman working to restore power in an Oklahoma City neighborhood peppered by toppled trees said Friday that he expected the new storm to hamper recovery efforts, but not create massive new power failures.

“All this kind of work is safety-based, so any time you get another weather aspect, then there goes another safety factor,” said Scott Falkner, of Clovis, N.M.

The storm also threatened to steal manpower from efforts to clear fallen trees.

Dan Crossland, a public works official in Tulsa, said almost every city crew removing downed tree limbs will be spun off to clear the streets when the second storm comes.

“I intend to stay on 12-hour shifts until every street is clear,” Crossland said. “These guys are dragging.”

The Kansas National Guard continued to deliver generators and supplies to communities, knowing more would be needed.

The first storm changed from ice to snow as it blew into the Northeast, dumping 2 inches to a foot across the region and catching many municipalities by surprise, even after it wreaked havoc to the west.

Bill Weaver, a Tulsa resident who moved here two years ago to escape hurricane-battered New Orleans, waited in his frigid home Friday for the electricity to be turned back on, deadpanning: “So, here we are.”

He had two gas-log fireplaces going, warming about a third of his home.

“It doesn’t keep the showers warm,” Weaver said. “It’s cold baths.”

Wofford hoped the new storm would blow over and allow her to get back to house-hunting after the weekend. She was trying to stay positive and said her spirits were lifted by volunteers who she knew didn’t have electricity at home, either.

“To me, this experience, you’re going back to what Christmas is really about,” Wofford said. “Everything is real commercialized and ‘I want this iPod. I want this.’

“We want basic human needs. It’s getting back to love, and that’s what’s beautiful about the whole thing.”

—

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Justin Juozapavicius in Tulsa, John Milburn in Topeka, Kan., Ken Maguire in Boston and Ray Henry in Providence.

AP-ES-12-14-07 1752EST