Roughly 850,000 Americans and Canadians were still without power Tuesday, five days after a devastating ice storm paralyzed the region and severely damaged the distribution system of the region's utilities.

Roughly 130,000 electric customers in the Maine shivered without heat or electricity Tuesday as an army of utility workers struggled to restore power. President Clinton declared 15 counties in the state as a federal disaster area.

The situation was somewhat better in the three other states hit hard by the ice storm. More than 120,000 utility customers were still without power Tuesday in upstate New York, 5,400 customers in New Hampshire, and about 4,000 in Vermont.

Canada was harder hit. After a freak power outage early Tuesday afternoon outside Montreal, officials put the number of those in eastern Canada without electricity at 600,000.

After causing deadly floods across the South last week, the storm spread thick ice across the Northeast and the eastern third of Canada. Fifteen deaths in Canada were blamed on the storm, seven in New York and four in Maine. Flooding killed 11, including seven in Tennessee.

The ice storm caused more damage to Maine's electric delivery system than any previous storm. Hundreds of utility poles snapped and power lines were strewn on frozen snow and roads after limbs and trees caked with an inch and more of ice crashed to the ground.