Kentucky ? Thousands of National Guard troops swinging chain saws cut their way into remote communities Sunday to reach residents stranded by a deadly ice storm, freeing some to get out of their driveways for the first time in nearly a week.

The soldiers went door-to-door handing out chili and beef stew rations to people cooped up in their powerless homes as authorities ratcheted up the relief effort for what Gov. Steve Beshear called the biggest natural disaster ever to hit the state.

Kentucky was hit hardest by the ice storm that paralyzed wide areas from the Ozarks through Appalachia early last week. Officials blamed or suspected the storm in more than 40 deaths across nine states, most from hypothermia, traffic accidents or carbon monoxide poisoning from improperly installed generators or charcoal grills used indoors.

At its height, the storm knocked out power to 1.3 million residential and business customers from the Southern Plains to the East Coast, more than 700,000 of them in Kentucky, a state record.