Ice, Ice Baby

Up and down the East Coast, the storm that tracked from south to north left a legacy of whiteout, power blackouts, thick snow, thin, slick ice and at least 17 storm-related deaths.

The next one could be coming before they clean up from this one. CBS News correspondent Maureen Maher has the cold facts.

Like many in North Carolina this morning, William Loy ventured outdoors a little less sure-footed than usual. Over the weekend, Old Man Winter wrapped an inch thick icy blanket around Loy's small farm, along with the rest of the state.

"If you just leave the ice off it would be alright. I like snow, but this ice I can't get along with..."

Neither could Monday morning commuters. In Charlotte, slick slopes flipped cars, and kept kids doing their own stunts, after school closed for a fifth consecutive day.

It wasn't much better along the rest of the eastern seaboard, where more snow fell from Philadelphia to Maine. Even the space shuttle was grounded by a combination of bad weather and faulty computer problems.

Ice hitting the ground rapidly became the problem, as the sun came out in the Carolinas. But even that wasn't enough to warm the thousands who remain cooped up without power, like Martha Ashley and her family. "All of us being stuck in here are getting on each others nerves, I think," she said.

With warm weather days and frigid nights ahead, it will take several days for North Carolina to thaw out completely. But after five winter storms in two weeks, it's a forecast people around here can live with.

In the West, the latest wet and windy storm system barreling into the Central Pacific Coast is part of a huge turnaround in the drought fears of farmers, especially in California. Rainfall this month alone has filled reservoirs to capacity.
Some computer models say this could be the next major storm system to slam the South and East. Other projections have it tracking up north and into Canada.