ALTUS - Although local residents had to deal with some slick road conditions and brief power outages, the Altus area missed the brunt of the winter storm that has left many across the state under sheets of ice and without power for days. Today the local area is only having to deal with some patchy fog and rain. Temperatures moved up out of freezing during the night.

After fearing freezing weather conditions Sunday night, Altus only saw brief rain showers off and on during the day Monday, but the rain stayed fairly steadily overnight. The intensity of the rain increased around 4:45 a.m. today.

That was also about the time a power outage was reported in south Altus, south of Broadway and on both sides of Main Street for several blocks. City of Altus electrical department crews were out working to restore power shortly after the first call came in to the Police Department dispatch center.

The power outage widened a short time later, including the Altus Times and the service to the radio stations on W. Cypress Street. KWHW was able to get limited auxiliary power to return to the air.

Power was restored to the area about 6:30 p.m.

Elsewhere in the state, another traffic death has been attributed to a winter storm that blanketed the state in ice while more than a half million homes and businesses remained without power today and schools across the state were again closed.

Meanwhile, President Bush declared an emergency in the state and ordered federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts.

The declaration authorizes the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate all disaster relief efforts and to provide assistance in dealing with the storm.

Lt. Gov. Jari Askins signed a state of emergency declaration for all 77 Oklahoma counties Monday.

Sixteen deaths are now attributed to the storm, including 14 people killed in auto accidents on slick roadways, the latest late Monday, according to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.

Michele McDaniel, 44, of Elk City was killed about 11:30 p.m. when the pickup truck she was riding in skidded on an icy Interstate 40 on-ramp in western Oklahoma and ran off the roadway and overturned, troopers said.

Oklahoma Gas & Electric reported more than 276,000 outages, nearly 246,000 in the Oklahoma City metro area, while Public Service Company of Oklahoma had about 250,000 without power, approximately 220,000 of those in the Tulsa area.

The Oklahoma Association of Electric Cooperatives said about 65,800 rural electric customers were also without power.

Utility officials said it could be a week or more before power was fully restored.

More rain was forecast, but freezing rain should be confined to the northwestern corner of the state, according to the National Weather Service.

Rain will be passing through, after that there is another chance of rain this evening, maybe a little more light freezing rain, but we're not going to have the amount of rainfall we've had the past couple of days.

The freezing line has lifted to the northwest and much of the state is above freezing now., but it appears it will be Thursday before the state sees sunshine again.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sent 50 generators and three truck loads of bottled water from Texas to distribute to blacked-out areas.