Utility crews were working feverishly to restore power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in the eastern US after an ice storm knocked out electricity to more than a million customers, damage one official likened to that from a hurricane.

A SNOWSTORM with a ferocity more familiar in February than October hit the US northeast over the weekend, knocking out power to 2.7 million people, snarling air and highway travel and dumping more than 2 feet of snow in a few spots as it slowly moved north out of New England.

Highway and utility crews worked overtime today to recover from the huge storm that buried Ohio and other parts of the Midwest in snow and tore down power lines elsewhere.

A week after causing £1.4bn in damage in Houston, the remnants of Tropical Storm Allison flooded homes in southeastern Pennsylvania, blacked out thousands of electrical customers and chased firefighters up trees.