Heavy snow and ice brought down power lines in Kintyre on Friday, which blacked out a huge area, including Arran, over the weekend.

BBC: Scotland

In Providence, where the drifts were 5 feet high and telephone lines encrusted with ice and snow drooped under the weight, Jason Harrison labored for nearly three hours to clear his blocked driveway and front walk and still had more work to do.

NPR: The Big Dig-Out: New England, NY Slammed With Snow

Long ago, in the days before passenger ships featured climbing walls, ice rinks, on-board zip lines and nonstop gastronomic gorging sessions, stately ocean liners plied the transatlantic route between London and New York.

FORBES: Captain Bernanke At The Helm Of The QE2 Hopes To Avoid A Titanic Outcome

On the rail network, Mr Hammond said night time "ghost trains" were being run in an attempt to keep lines open but "build up of ice on third rails across the Southeastern and Southern networks have led to loss of power and trains being stranded, causing severe delays and cancellations".

BBC: Labour berates 'complacency' of snow response

Overhead lines come into contact with trees, high winds, rain and ice storms.

FORBES: Upgrading the Grid by Going Underground

These outages were the result of a combination of whipping winds and power poles and lines sagging, and sometimes snapped, under the weight of especially heavy, wet snow and ice.

CNN: February 11, 2013 -- Updated 1005 GMT (1805 HKT)