Cold Front Pushes the South to New Lows
Arctic cold spread misery in the South on Monday, shattering low-temperature records that had stood for more than a century, imperiling Florida oranges, bursting pipes in New Orleans and freezing fishing boats to their moorings in North Carolina.
Temperatures dropped into the single digits as far south as Huntsville, Ala., at 4 degrees; Chattanooga, Tenn., at 2; and Meridian, Miss., at 8. Thousands of people still had no electricity after weekend ice storms snapped power lines.
The Plains and upper Midwest began to warm slightly, but the morning lows in the South rewrote cold-weather records that had been on the books since 1886, including 20 at New Orleans and minus 10 at Lynchburg, Va.
But the record cold in much of the nation is good news for workers at a Polartec mill in Lawrence, Mass., that was nearly destroyed in a December fire.
Demand for the warm, fuzzy fleece is soaring, just as Malden Mills Inc. is approaching a return to full production.
Company owner Aaron Feuerstein had vowed to rebuild and has continued paying his 1,800 workers while the mill is repaired.
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