Shattering Arctic Blast Keeps The US Midwest In A Deep Freeze

Millions of people across the Midwest are enduring a freeze normally reserved for the Arctic Circle as temperatures in some areas dropped below minus-50 degrees Thursday. The second day of frightful cold, bottoming out to record lows, was blamed for several deaths across the region, and fears grew for the most vulnerable populations.

In Mount Carroll, Illinois, a trained weather observer reported that temperatures plunged to minus-38 degrees Thursday morning, according to the National Weather Service. If certified, it would be the state's lowest temperature on record, supplanting a minus-36 degree day in Congerville on Jan. 5, 1999. In northeastern Minnesota, the unincorporated community of Cotton sank to minus-56 degrees - four degrees shy of that state's coldest temperature.

Frigid temperatures across the Midwest taxed the infrastructure that was keeping the coldest parts of America warm. Electrical grids collapsed, airline fuel lines froze and authorities encouraged the largely homebound population of the hardest-hit states to turn thermostats down to ease the burden on utility systems. Even that wasn't always enough. Power outages roiled swaths of Wisconsin and Iowa, plunging thousands into a brief, unheated darkness.

The dry, frigid air caused frostbite within minutes, led to spontaneous nosebleeds and turned even a brief foray outdoors into a potentially deadly activity. Officials across multiple states have linked at least seven deaths to the weather, including several people who may have frozen to death in Milwaukee, Detroit and Rochester, Minnesota. Authorities said a death in Peoria, Illinois, may have also been weather-related. In other cases, authorities say they are awaiting autopsies to determine whether people found outside died of exposure or some other cause.

University of Iowa officials said an "unresponsive" student had been found behind an academic hall early Wednesday and later died at a hospital. Authorities haven't released a cause of death, but police told a local TV station that they think the extreme weather was a factor; at the time the student was found, the air temperature was minus-21, with a wind chill of about minus-55, according to data from the National Weather Service.

And authorities in Ohio are blaming the cold for the death of a 60-year-old woman whose body was found in an abandoned house in Lorain, according to the Chronicle-Telegram. She had apparently been squatting in the abandoned house for months. Lorain County coroner Stephen Evans said she probably died in the past couple of days.

"When it gets this cold, this is terrible for the homeless," Evans told the Chronicle. "There's just no way if you're not near a heat source that you can survive for very long out in weather like this."

Governors of Wisconsin and Michigan declared states of emergency and ordered all state government offices closed; some state agencies in Illinois were closed, as well.

"I am urging people to prepare for this severe weather and to exercise caution when traveling or going outdoors," said Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers.

Arctic-like conditions are seen in the Parker River Wildlife Reservation in Plum Island, Massachusetts during the extreme cold temperatures caused by the Polar Vortex.

From Minnesota to Michigan, the polar vortex prompted school closures, mail service interruptions and thousands of flight cancellations, most of them in and out of Chicago. Eighteen factories run by General Motors, Fiat Chrysler and Ford shut down Thursday because of the brutal weather and a fire at a natural gas compressor station.

Scores of restaurants, grocery stores and coffee shops shut their doors because of the cold or shortened business hours. In Chicago, many performances went dark, including the musical "Hamilton" and "Disney on Ice."

For the region's most vulnerable - even those hardened to the Upper Midwest's long winters - this polar vortex has been especially perilous.

Karen Andro, director of Hope's Home Ministries at First United Methodist Church in Madison, has spent much of the past few days coordinating with other nonprofits and government agencies to arrange transportation, hot meals and warming centers for the city's homeless residents. She reflected on past winters, when one person froze to death on the steps of a church and another had a heart attack walking between shelters, and said that services here have improved.

"The cold exacerbates everything," Andro said, noting that homeless people with mental illness, disabilities and health problems are at extreme risk.

Early Wednesday, there remained a small but dangerous gap in service. An hour before sunrise, dozens of men, bundled up and carrying their belongings in grocery bags and suitcases, ventured into the frigid morning air. It was minus-24 degrees, and winds made it feel like minus-48.

"They should take a bus and pull it right here," said Randy George Friesen, 66, who carried two bags six blocks from the auxiliary shelter where he slept Tuesday night to the headquarters of Porchlight, an organization that assists homeless people. The man's glasses were frosted over, his snow-white beard was frozen and he had used scarves to tie a blue blanket around his shoulders.

Friesen said he didn't understand why there wasn't a shuttle between the two warm buildings.

"That will never happen," said Murrel Swift, 48, who also made the journey between shelters. Tiny white crystals had accumulated on his eyelashes.

Inside the shelter, night manager Maurice Robinson was rattled. One guest had attacked another with a bike lock, prompting the police, fire department and EMS to descend upon Porchlight. On nights like Tuesday, when the temperature is life-threatening, the city's shelters do not turn away anyone - even if an individual has been previously banned for bad behavior or intoxication.

Porchlight was more crowded than usual, and Robinson had to place people on mats along a hallway wall. At least eight men streamed in hours after the scheduled check-in time - at 1:09 a.m., 2:22 a.m., 2:37 a.m.

"The cold brings a lot of people in," Robinson said.

Even some Midwestern homes were not cold-proofed refuges for hardened residents.

Brian Wallheimer, a science writer for Purdue University, corralled his three young children at home in Rockford, Illinois, after schools closed their doors Wednesday. The freezing air infiltrated his two-story home northwest of Chicago, he said, and frost accumulated on the window sills and door hinges.

"I've never seen that happen," Wallheimer, 39, said, as his children - 9, 6 and 4 - hatched plans to build a blanket fort in the basement.

In addition to grade school and university closures throughout the Midwest, districts and colleges from Pittsburgh to Buffalo canceled classes because of extreme weather.

Wind chill estimates plummeted to minus-50 in the Dakotas and northern Minnesota on Wednesday. The Arctic air started to loosen its grip on the Midwest by Thursday afternoon; temperatures might even approach zero degrees in Chicago and Milwaukee. By the weekend, daytime temperatures will be above freezing across most of the Midwest.

As Chicago neared record lows ahead of the expected thaw, the region's Metra commuter rail suspended some train service after extreme temperatures caused wiring problems. Some Chicago Transit Authority buses were being turned into mobile warming shelters for the homeless, The Associated Press reported, while Lyft said it would offer free rides to warming centers in the city, as well as in the Twin Cities, Madison, Milwaukee and Detroit.

In Rochester, Minnesota, where temperatures dropped to minus-27 degrees Wednesday, all municipal transit services were suspended after buses began experiencing mechanical difficulties. Xcel Energy asked Minnesota customers to lower their thermostats to 63 degrees until Thursday morning, "if possible," to help "ensure that all of our customers continue to have gas service during this bitterly cold weather."

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer made a similar request Wednesday night, urging Michiganders in the Lower Peninsula to turn their thermostats down to 65 degrees or lower until Friday at noon, citing "extremely high demand for natural gas and a facility incident."

As many as 13,500 customers experienced power outages in Wisconsin and Iowa by midday Wednesday, according to utility company outage maps. Workers scrambled to restore electricity in a race to keep homes and businesses warm in the dangerous cold.

Most outages were resolved in a matter of hours.

About 900 We Energies customers were without power for about an hour and a half Wednesday afternoon in West Allis, Wisconsin, after neighbors on a residential street heard a transformer explode and saw a spark immediately before the lights went out.

They closed their curtains to keep cold air from leaking in around window panes and opened cabinet doors to prevent pipes from freezing.

"I was amazed how fast they got it back," said Dan Bark, whose house sits diagonally across from the damaged power lines. "We were trying to figure out contingency plans."

He pondered taking his family and cats to his mother's home nearby. Bark has a generator, but it was in the garage - and frozen. He conceded that it was not ideal, but he also had never seen the temperatures dip quite so low.

"This is the coldest it's ever been," Bark said.

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Wang, Fritz, Horton and Wootson reported from Washington.