During her drive home from church on Christmas Eve, Lynn Payette noticed that the rain on her car's windshield had turned to ice.

"I come from Illinois," said the organist and choir director at St. Luke's Church in Hot Springs, Ark., "so I'm used to ice and bitter cold, but the devastation down here is just unbelievable. It's miraculous that more houses weren't damaged."

By Christmas morning a tri-state area known locally as "Arklatex" was coated in ice from perhaps the most destructive ice storm on record. Although most Episcopal churches in the area appear to have been spared serious damage, many canceled services on Christmas Day.

"I was fired up to come down even if I would have been the only person there," said the Rev. Larry Williams, rector of St. Luke's. "I was urged not to travel by the state police. There are some foothills around here, and when they are coated solid with ice, even a four-wheel drive isn't going to be able to go anywhere."

The Associated Press reported that Hot Springs was "ground zero" for the massive ice storm. Falling trees and limbs knocked out electrical power and phone service to most residents of the state and caused shut downs and contamination of many municipal water systems.

Without electricity to power central heating systems, area homes gradually began to cool down. Ms. Payette, who owns nine tropical birds, eventually took her own pets and several others to the church which, because of its downtown location, still had power.

About 18 miles away in Hot Springs Village, Holy Trinity Church was not so fortunate. Don Edgington, diocesan treasurer, retired president of Kerr McGee Corp. and a member of Holy Trinity, lives almost within sight of his church. On Dec. 28, Mr. Edgington's only contact with the outside world was the telephone.

"I'm about out of firewood," Mr. Edgington said. "It's pretty cold inside the house and the ground is like New Orleans gumbo outside. There are a lot of retirees around here and this is pretty hard on some of them."

Although Hot Springs received the brunt of the storm, other churches throughout the state became overnight havens for church staff and members.

At Christ Church in Little Rock, parish administrator Carol Flowers, spent several nights at the church after she lost power at her own home.

"I tried to go to sleep, but I just couldn't," she said. "This is a big, old building and it makes a lot of noises in the wind. I guess being afraid and warm is better than being cold."

Sandra Kennedy, an administrative assistant at St. James' in Texarkana, Texas, did not spend the night at the church, but she did take advantage of the church's electrical power to prepare a hot meal for her family.

"I feel bad whining about a leaky roof at my own house when I see how badly some other people's homes were damaged," she said.