[Daryn Kagan, Cnn Anchor:] More than 100,000 people remain without electricity five days after a deadly ice storm in the Midwest. In Kansas alone, more than 50,000 are without power. It could be another few days before people in the hardest hit areas have their electric service restored. Joining us now to talk about the outages in Kansas is Cynthia McCarvel. She is with Westar energy. Cynthia, warm greetings to you.
[Cynthia Mccarvel, Westar Energy:] Thank you, Daryn. Nice to be here.
[Kagan:] Joining us from Topeka as I understand.
[Mccarvel:] Right.
[Kagan:] This has been going on for a while. The bad ice storm was about a week ago?
[Mccarvel:] Yes, it started last Tuesday and finished on Wednesday.
[Kagan:] Now you have made some progress.
[Mccarvel:] Yes, we've made progress. At the peek of storm, we had over 100,000 of our customers without power, and today, we're down to 4,300 customers without power.
[Kagan:] And what's the challenge in getting those last 4,000 people back on-line.
[Mccarvel:] A lot of times, it's individual customers that we're working on at this point, and it just takes a little bit of patience and some time to get out and get to everyone's home.
[Kagan:] Meanwhile, how is weather cooperating as you are trying to get everyone plugged back in?
[Mccarvel:] The weather has been working with us. We've had some 40-degree weather which has been helping in melting the ice and keeping the days good.
[Kagan:] Cynthia, it seems like we do these stories every winter the ice comes in, the power lines go down. Is it possible to build power lines that are more resistant to the ice and to the weight that they put on them?
[Mccarvel:] Well, our power lines are built to withstand that weight of the ice, but there's just special circumstances that some of these storms are just more powerful than others.
[Kagan:] Sometimes. We wish you good luck and getting people back on-line. Thank you. Cynthia McCarvel, joining us from Topeka, Kansas. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com