Arctic Blast Locks Midwest in Deep Freeze

After the summer’s record-shattering heat, which killed hundreds in the Midwest, it hardly seems fair. But the nation’s midsection is currently beset by a more familiar weather crisis: Arctic air that sent temperatures plunging to new lows in 13 U.S. cities this week.

The 60 degrees below zero measured at tiny Tower, Minn., on Friday set a state record and, experts believe, a Midwest record low as well.

Chicago’s weather emergency plan, prepared after 625 people died there in July, began operating at full tilt on Friday, with two-person teams knocking on the doors of the elderly and a special hotline logging 14,600 calls over 4 1/2 hours. About 5,000 people spent Thursday night in city shelters.

In rural areas, some newborn calves lost ears and tails to frostbite, while hog farmers fretted that the cold could keep pigs from breeding as prodigiously as usual come spring.

Although the great chill reached from Huntsville, Ala.--where the state university canceled classes--through the northern Plains to Denver, the heart of the frigid zone is Minnesota, where even the hardiest natives are complaining.

Wary volunteers at the 110-year-old Winter Carnival in St. Paul--with a record 32 below Thursday night--will be replaced this weekend by the Minnesota National Guard Signal Battalion, 500 strong.

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Most of the carnival’s 130 events are proceeding as scheduled, but Softball on Ice, as well as the half-marathon and the 5-kilometer run were postponed. The 200-foot chutes on the snow slide were closed three days this week and attendance, usually 1 million people over 10 days, is down by more than 15%.

“A lot of cars are stalled and people are scared to come out because even if they get here, they might not get home,” said Carolyn Reiman-Baldus, a spokeswoman for the nonprofit group that runs the event.

Gov. Arne Carlson ordered all primary and secondary schools closed on Friday, fearing that the 813,000 students would risk frostbite waiting at school bus stops.

The state Department of Natural Resources is considering an emergency deer-feeding program because plants are buried under deep snow in the western part of Minnesota.

Despite the disruption, this season’s extremes seem easier for the region to handle than the even more unusual 100-degree-plus days of the summer.

“There are always some deaths, but we won’t expect [the summer’s] huge number,” said Ken Kunkel, director of the Midwestern Climate Center in Champaign, Ill. At least six deaths have been attributed to this week’s cold.

“Almost everybody has heating; not as many have air conditioning,” Kunkel said. “You can always put more clothes on, but you can only take so much off.”

Dangerous cold is certainly not unheard of. The last prolonged period of widespread, below-zero temperatures came just two years ago.

That bout may actually have been tougher for residents here, Kunkel said, because five abnormally mild winters preceded it. Before 1989, however, very cold spells had occurred each year since 1976.

There are no mountain ranges to block Canadian winds when they sweep south, and no ocean to moderate their effects, Kunkel explained. “Once you get this deep into the heart of the country,” he added, “it takes a while for that air to move out to where it can get modified.”

But a close acquaintance with severe cold has not jaded Midwesterners. They take precautions.

A United Airlines flight left Des Moines for Chicago 2 1/2 hours late Friday morning because, the pilot announced, the Boeing 727’s engines needed more time to warm up.

In Fredonia, Wis., dairy farmer Lori Paulus and her husband bedded their small calves with straw and made sure they were on the barns’ south sides so they would catch as much sunshine as possible. The Pauluses wanted to avoid the notched ears that some of their older cows sport, courtesy of the cold of ’94.

Among the 150 cows in the herd they milk daily, production is off a percentage point or two, Paulus said. “They don’t move too quick,” she said.

In the South, freezing rain and sleet coated roads with ice, and heavy snow fell in a band from Oklahoma to West Virginia.

Tens of thousands of customers throughout the South lost electricity when ice-laden branches pulled down power lines. The Texas Department of Public Safety warned motorists to stay at home and said driving conditions were “extremely hazardous” in most of the state. Schools, businesses and government offices were closed in most of the state’s major cities, officials said.

In Pennsylvania, some of the 10,000-plus people who watched Friday as Punxsutawney Phil predicted six more weeks of winter considered reviving the tradition of ending Groundhog Day with a dinner of groundhog stew.

Scores of airline flights were canceled or delayed, and Delta Air Lines said it was shutting its operations Friday at its Atlanta hub, one of the world’s busiest airports.

The city of Chicago has never taken cold lightly. But “the heat emergency of the summer showed how to better utilize resources,” said Henry Locke, a spokesman for the city’s Department of Human Services. “All city agencies now work in concert and practice. We had two dry runs preparing for this.”

Among ringing phones, a crackling radio and shouting colleagues, Philistine Brewer dispatched the city crisis teams. “We are very, very busy,” she said emphatically.

Chicago’s government has received nearly 900 carbon monoxide alarms over two days as residents shut doors tight and blanket window edges to trap heat. More than 900 people have complained of inadequate heat. More than 80 cases of food have been distributed to those trapped inside by the cold.

After the weekend, there may be relief--at least what passes for relief around here. “We could approach 20 degrees above zero by Tuesday,” said Greg Spoden, assistant state climatologist for Minnesota. He spoke with an eager lilt.

Times wire services contributed to this story.