Northeast, Midwest Reeling From Brutal Cold; 87 Dead : Weather: U.S. government cuts operations. Hundreds of schools, businesses shut. Manhattan posts 119-year low.

An Arctic express gripped the Northeast and Midwest on Wednesday, plunging temperatures to a 119-year low for the day in Manhattan, forcing utility companies to ration power to hundreds of thousands of customers and federal officials to sharply curtail operations of the U.S. government in Washington, D.C.

Hundreds of schools and businesses were shut. Flights were canceled at airports as millions bundled against cold so bitter it cut into lungs like a knife and threatened exposed skin with frostbite.

All-time record lows were reported Wednesday in Ohio, where the temperature plummeted to 40 degrees below zero in Darrtown. Columbus, Ohio, recorded minus 22--the coldest reading in more than 100 years of record keeping.

At least 87 deaths were blamed on winter’s wrath over a six-day period, beginning last Friday. Some of the victims were killed on icy roads or suffered heart attacks shoveling show; others simply froze to death.

The temperature in Whiteland, Ind., bottomed out at 36 below zero, the coldest day ever recorded in the state.

Wednesday’s low at Hell, Mich., was 25 below. “It’s colder than hell in Hell,” said Jim Ley, 62, owner of the Devil’s Den gift store.

Sheets of ice turned streets into skating rinks and ice fishing even was canceled on Lake Erie, where the windchill factor made it feel like it was 60 below zero.

Washington, D.C., Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly declared a state of emergency at the request of regional utilities who feared a continuing drain on energy capacity after temperatures Wednesday dipped to a record for the day of minus 4. She asked all businesses, including shops and restaurants, to close today. Some major supermarkets said, however, that they would remain open.

The mayors of Parkersburg and nearby Vienna, W. Va., also ordered their cities shut down.

“It’s better to be safe than to be sorry,” Kelly said.

The entire state of Pennsylvania, where Erie posted an all-time record of 18 below zero, was put under a disaster emergency Wednesday because of heavy snow and the record cold. State government offices closed at noon and thermostats were set back to 60 degrees.

In Milwaukee, Miller Brewing Co. canceled its evening and morning work shifts because of the weather for the first time in at least 10 years, rather than make employees come to work in the cold. It was 17 below zero.

“They usually like to make beer, so it takes a lot to shut them down,” Miller spokesman Mike Brophy said. “It’s nasty out there.”

Single-digit temperatures extended all the way south in Alabama, forcing dozens of schools to close and putting a quarter-inch layer of ice on the alligator pond at the Birmingham zoo.

Potomac Electric Power Co. officials said that almost impassable roads and ice-clogged rivers were making it very difficult to ship fuel oil to power plants.

“We’ve got a double whammy effect,” explained John M. Derrick Jr., president and chief operating officer of the utility with more than 660,000 customers in Washington and adjoining areas of Maryland.

President Clinton canceled a speech he was scheduled to give today at Georgetown University because of the weather emergency. The presidential address was designed to mark the first anniversary of his inauguration.

Interlocking utilities serving 21 million people from Washington to New Jersey instituted strategy normally reserved for peak use during heat waves--short term “rolling blackouts”--and asked customers sharply to cut back on their use of electricity.

“My hot water pipes froze in my bathroom and I hope they don’t explode,” said Kathy Brown, who remained at home in Bethesda, Md., with her two children. “My main challenge today has been keeping the fire going in the fireplace.”

In Atlanta, where Wednesday’s low was 6 degrees, Mayor Bill Campbell banned all use of water, except for emergency purposes after a huge 48-inch main ruptured. The mayor said he hoped the rationing would cut water consumption, which is normally 80 million gallons a day, to 20 million until the crisis is over.

Across a span of shivering states, hospital emergency rooms struggled with a blizzard of sprains and broken bones because of falls. Thousands of motorists were stranded because cars would not start.

In New York City, where the temperature fell to minus 2 degrees in Central Park, breaking the record for the date set in 1875, a spokesman for the Automobile Club of New York said an average of 700 calls an hour--a record--was being received from motorists with dead batteries and frozen door locks.

“I have never seen anything like this,” said Paula Duarte, an engineer, whose outfit included earmuffs and a heavy coat with a scarf as she hurried to her office near the United Nations in New York. “I have a lot of clothes on. But I am freezing.”

The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island were closed Wednesday because the docks in Manhattan were too icy for tourists to board the ferries.

Huge chunks of ice floated on the East and Hudson rivers and clouds of steam from chimneys shone in the sun. The beauty contrasted with the seriousness of the situation. Shelters were crowded with the homeless. But some street people, fearful of shelter life, still tried to remain outdoors.

On the east side of Manhattan, a homeless man wearing a heavy overcoat built a canvas bulwark against the wind and cold as he spent the night below street level outside the entrance to a Laundromat.

In Chicago early Wednesday the temperature reached minus 16 degrees. The Department of Human Service tripled its teams of employees seeking to bring the homeless to shelters.

Bishop Chears, executive director of the Center for Street People, a northside Chicago drop-in center, said he normally has 150 clients a day. On Tuesday, 225 people came in from the cold, and on Wednesday the pattern of increased use continued.

“I’d say roughly these are people who don’t (take) to shelters,” Chears said. “They’re die hards. They live out in the elements. But climate dictates.”

Meteorologists said more seasonal temperatures were expected by the weekend, which will be none too soon for most locations.

Louisville, Ky., was still reeling from 18 inches of snow. The last time the region was hit by such a sudden snowfall was 1978, when 16 inches blanketed the city. Residents with four-wheel drive vehicles were urged to help ferry doctors and nurses to local hospitals. Police in some cases acted as free taxis, shuttling people to pharmacies to pick up badly needed medicines.

Kentucky’s highways were closed to all but essential traffic for the third day and more than 200 travelers were stranded at the Grant County High School.

Despite the record cold, the siren song of spring remained for some in Manhattan. At the World of Golf, a popular discount store, Tom Connolly, who sells retirement plans, stood dressed in an overcoat and scarf. He lifted the three-wood he had just purchased.

“You have tapped into the ultimate optimist,” Connolly said. “I plan to use the club the first day that it is above 45 degrees.”

Goldman reported from New York and Cimons from Washington. Also contributing to this story were Times staff writers Stephen Braun and Judy Pasternak in Chicago, and researchers Tracy Shryer in Chicago, Lynette Ferdinand in New York, Edith Stanley in Atlanta and D’Jamila Salem in Los Angeles.

The Big Chill

It was even too cold for ice fishermen. The weather was so bad that:

Miller Brewing Co. stops brewing beer in Milwaukee, where it was 17 below.

Some guides cancel ice fishing on Lake Erie when temperatures plunge to 17 below zero.

The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island closed because docks are too icy for tourists to board the ferries.

Utilities from Washington, D.C., to New Jersey institute “rolling blackouts” and ask customers to sharply cut back use of electricity.

Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell asks residents not to bathe after 6-degree temperature causes three pipes supplying water to the city to break.

Whiteland, Ind., had 36 below zero, the coldest on record at any time anywhere in the state.

Source: Accu-Weather