Ice storms can be very damaging.
When an ice storm develops the ice that falls down can coat things such as tree branches, power lines etc and make them heavy enough that the tree branches will break off or the power lines will sag and eventually snap causing a power outage.
The ice from the ice storms can even bring down steel pylons that hold up major high voltage electric transmission lines disrupting electricity to a lot of places and homes.
Ice storms also coat the roads with ice making the roads impossible and unsafe to travel across.
During an ice storm never venture out on the road because you could get into a wreck or even be left stranded out in the cold weather.
Stay home and make sure you have some form of emergency heat such as a wood stove, natural gas or propane heater that uses no electricity.
Without electricity your furnace will not run because of the blower.