Record Cold Sweeps Across the Midwest

Temperatures plunged well below zero Friday across the Midwest, in many areas to their lowest levels in a decade.

A howling wind dropped the windchill in Devils Lake N.D., to 68 degrees below zero. Even without the wind, the temperature plunged to 36 below zero overnight at Tower, Minn.

Highway patrols warned motorists to make sure that their cars were equipped with plenty of warm clothes and blankets in case they got stalled far from help.

Soup kitchens and shelters opened early in many areas to keep the destitute from waiting outside in the cold.

While the severe temperatures could be life-threatening, some people who work outdoors shrugged off the discomfort.

“Oh, it’s bearable,” said Bob Voight, a Wausau, Wis., utility meter reader who had icicles dangling from his eyebrows.

Forecasters, however, said it would get even colder today and that another arctic blast was expected early next week. A low pressure trough was expected to spread across the Great Lakes into the Ohio Valley and the Northeast.

For northern Indiana there was the added problem of snow Friday. Frigid winds whistling southward down Lake Michigan picked up huge amounts of moisture capable of producing a foot of snow, forecasters said.

In Warren, Ohio, about 50 miles southeast of Cleveland, several inches of snow piled up on city streets after 20 municipal snowplow drivers parked their trucks and went on strike. The strike was settled about eight hours later.

Elsewhere, several deaths were attributed to the cold.

Four people were killed in a fire in a Chicago apartment where the gas had been turned off. Fire officials said it appeared that electric space heaters may have caused the blaze.

In another apartment where both the gas and electricity were turned off, neighbors found the body of a 79-year-old man who police said may have frozen to death.

Chicago officials activated special cold weather plans to help keep the poor and homeless warm. But Human Services Commissioner Daniel Alvarez Sr. said some of the city’s homeless refuse to use any of the 4,700 emergency shelter beds.

Officials in North Dakota, where heavy snow has paralyzed some areas, urged residents to stock up on food and medical supplies.

“There’s a chance that people may not get to their normal services on a daily basis if this keeps up,” said Doug Friez, North Dakota’s emergency management director.

The cold forced several school districts to close in Wisconsin, including the 100,000-student Milwaukee system.

Milwaukee officials also decided that windchills from 30 below to 50 below zero made it too dangerous to celebrate the season, so they suspended the city Winterfest for two days.

The South did not go unscathed, either, as snow fell, schools closed and motorists skidded across Kentucky. Some of those school districts have been out since before Christmas, when the first of four snowstorms hit the state.