Residents and business owners in northwest Missouri will likely be without power for days after an ice storm left entire towns in the frigid dark.

President Bush declared a state of emergency in Missouri Wednesday and mobilized the Federal Emergency Management Agency to assist local authorities. A FEMA spokeswoman did not immediately return a message so it's unclear what resources FEMA will send.

About 400 utility linemen are working to restore power to roughly 65,000 homes and businesses in the area after ice-laden tree limbs crashed onto power lines and left at least eight small towns completely without power, said Al Butkus, a spokesman for utility Aquila Inc.

"We have a lot of trees down ... lots of infrastructure that needs to be put up," Butkus said. "This is not going to be quick. It's just a massive project now because of the storm."

Most parts of western Missouri were expected to get a reprieve Wednesday after four straight days of freezing rain. The National Weather Service predicted that storms would taper off into a light drizzle during in the morning hours.

But ice was likely to build on untreated roadways as temperatures fell into the 20s during the afternoon, making work tougher for power crews that are coming to the region from as far away as Kentucky and Colorado.

Power has largely been restored in central Missouri, where roughly 42,000 homes and business lost power when the winter storm first hit this weekend. St. Louis-based AmerenUE reported that just 7,500 customers remained without power Wednesday morning.

In the northwest Missouri town of Hopkins, Jennifer Torres was busy helping customers at Wilson Grocery. She said there wasn't any power in the building, so she was hand-writing receipts using a flashlight.

Most customers are buying batteries and canned food, she said. Most have generators in their rural homes to keep the lights on -- but the same isn't true at the grocery store. With the refrigerators shut down, Torres said she's relying on the cold temperatures to keep products from spoiling.

"It's chilly in here," she said. "The meat case is staying pretty stable, but it's on a wait-and-see basis."

Shelters opened Tuesday at a community center and a church in Maryville, though most people were either toughing it out or staying with relatives. Members of the Missouri National Guard arrived to help transport people to shelter, clean up debris, and perhaps go door-to-door to check on some residents.

St. Louis has largely escaped the icy conditions, with temperatures in the high 30s and low 40s.

Gov. Matt Blunt issued an executive order giving the Missouri Department of Natural Resources the discretion to waive regulations concerning waste disposal in some counties to allow for faster elimination of storm-related debris.

Blunt ordered 40 additional National Guardsmen and women to report to northwest Missouri, bringing to 150 the number of guardsmen checking on residents.

At least three deaths in Missouri were blamed on bad weather since the weekend.