Deep freeze spreads into Deep South
Published 11:35 pm Friday, January 16, 2009
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Miserable, lung-burning, face-numbing temperatures are one thing in the Midwest and Northeast. But the Deep South?
Temperatures plummeted Friday across the Midwest and eastern U.S., and delivered a stinging slap to Southerners unaccustomed to the frigid weather. Schools were closed in a dozen states and homeless shelters were overcrowded. Those who did venture outside bundled up and made quick trips.
In an odd twist, Alabama was colder than Alaska.
“I never thought I’d see weather like this, not at all,” said Maya Morgan, a 20-year-old Christian missionary from Barbados, who is on a fellowship at the Atlanta University complex. “And so that’s why I like have, literally, six jackets on. Sometimes it’s too cold to keep your eyes open.”
Forecasters said temperatures in the upper Midwest could turn into the coldest in years as a stubborn Arctic air mass keeps spilling southward from Canada.
The cold snap has claimed at least six lives and contributed to dozens of traffic accidents. One death involved a man in a wheelchair who was found in subzero temperatures stuck in the snow, a shovel in his hand, outside his home in Des Moines, Iowa.
The cold weather has gripped the Midwest and Northeast for days, but as it crept farther South, some were growing worried.
“We’re afraid people will die in this kind of weather,” said Anita Beaty, who works with the homeless in Atlanta, where temperatures dropped below the teens, some 20 degrees below normal lows in January.
About 900 men packed a shelter that normally houses 700.
Freezing temperatures threatened to kill picturesque Spanish moss hanging from Gulf Coast trees. And it was too cold to bet on dogs in West Virginia: A greyhound track shut down because of a predicted high of 7 degrees.
Then again, the cold was testing even the heartiest winter-weather states. On Friday morning, it was minus 10 in Cleveland, minus 6 in Detroit and minus 11 in Chicago. In upstate New York, areas near Lake Erie received up to 2 inches of snow per hour.
