ATLANTA - More than 300,000 customers had no electricity Sunday in Georgia as crews worked to repair power lines snapped by an ice storm, and hundreds of people stranded by canceled airline flights spent the night sleeping at the citys airport.

Two traffic deaths in Georgia and one in South Carolina were blamed on the storm that spread sleet and freezing rain across parts of the Southeast on Saturday.

The weather was taking a sharp turn on Sunday with highs in the 40s forecast for northern Georgia and in the 60s in the southern part of the state, the National Weather Service said.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport got ready to open a third runway Sunday, spokeswoman Lanii Thomas said. Only two  and at one point only one  of its four runways were available Saturday as crews labored to scrape off ice.

Still, fewer than 100 departures were scheduled out of one of the worlds busiest airports Sunday morning, she said. About 300 travelers spent the night at the airport Saturday night.

"Im sure the airlines are going to do everything within their power to rebuild their schedules," Thomas said.

Trains, planes and electricity

AirTran canceled 33 of its estimated 500 flights scheduled for Sunday, but the airline expected operations to return to normal by early afternoon, said spokesman Tad Hutcheson. Calls seeking comment from Delta were not immediately returned.

The icy weather also forced airlines to cancel scores of flights Saturday at airports in Greenville-Spartanburg and Columbia, S.C., and at Charlotte and Raleigh, N.C.

Amtrak canceled rail service for Sunday morning from Raleigh to Charlotte.

Georgia Power said 235,000 homes and businesses it serves were without power Sunday and the Electric Membership Corp. reported 87,000 customers blacked out. Nearly two-thirds of the outages were in the Atlanta metropolitan area.

Hundred of workers toiled through the night to restore power "only to have new pockets of customers go out as the ice collected on the power lines," said Electric Membership Corp. spokeswoman Terri Brown.

Both companies said they hoped to return power by Monday at the latest.

Utilities and public officials in South Carolina estimated about 11,000 customers were blacked out Saturday.