An aerial view of snow-covered downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, on January 18, 2024, in this image from a social media video. Isaac Rowlett Media/via Portal
He arctic climate brought new hardships for a large number of us USAespecially for people who are not used to such cold in places like… Memphis, Tennessee, Residents there were told to boil water and many were left without water after the frost caused the city's main pipes to burst. No higher temperatures are forecast for the remainder of the weekend.
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The bitter cold was followed by a week of storms that caused at least 67 deaths in the United States, many of them Hypothermia or traffic accidents.
Patrice Bates Thompson, owner of Four Way Grill in Memphis, said he has had to close his soul food restaurant for days because of water problems.
A fan sits in the snow during a 2024 AFC Wild Card game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Buffalo Bills at Highmark Stadium. Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports/File Photo
“This is our livelihood and it’s essentially why my family is financially strong,” Thompson told Fox-13 Memphis. “We depend on business and stayed at home.”
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In Memphis, so many pipes burst that drinking water pressure dropped throughout the city. Concerned about possible contamination, public utility Memphis Light, Gas & Water on Saturday urged its more than 400,000 customers to boil water for drinking or brushing teeth or to use bottled water as crews worked around the clock to contain the leaks to repair the pipelines.
“Our water production and treatment is working well,” the utility said in an email. “We cannot provide remediation estimates until all leaks are identified.”
The White House is covered in snow in Washington, DC, U.S., January 19, 2024. Portal/Ken Cedeno
According to the utility, more than 100 employees volunteered to identify breakdowns on Saturday and residents were asked to report leaks on the street, in homes and in unoccupied buildings.
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Without running water since Thursday morning, Pamela Wells met a worker Saturday who asked if they had a leak.
“My husband said, 'How can we have a leak when we don't have water?'” she said.
A snow plow clears the commuter train station parking lot during the first winter storm of 2024, which is expected to bring heavy snow to the northeastern United States in Grafton, Massachusetts. Portal/Amanda Sabga
They were filling a bathtub with water for the toilet when they noticed the pressure was decreasing, Wells explained. They used bottled water less and less for everything else until their road became passable on Saturday and friends brought them fresh supplies.
“It was a struggle,” he said, recalling how they went without water for 10 days in December 2022. “You don’t know how long it will be gone.”.
Meanwhile, the Memphis City Council opened seven bottled water distribution stations Saturday, one for each district. Two others worked in fire stations. One of them had 300 vehicles lined up when it opened Saturday, Shelby County Emergency Management Director Brenda Jones said in a telephone interview.
Snow is cleared from the bike path and sidewalk along Third Avenue near the Linn County Courthouse in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Wednesday, January 17, 2024. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette via AP)
“There are people who have no water at all, people who have low water pressure, and there is a boil water advisory,” he said.
From Montana to Central Florida, large parts of the country were under a severe cold warning.. The worst affected area was the north center. The wind meant it felt like -26 degrees Celsius (-16 degrees Fahrenheit) on Saturday in Iowa City and in Oklahoma City, where David Overholser works at the nonprofit Homeless. Alliance sought shelter, the wind chill was around zero overnight.
“I am 63 years old and originally from Florida. I don't like the cold. “I can’t stand it,” Overholser told The Oklahoman. “It's been very, very hard and painful and I'm just trying to take it one day, one hour at a time… it's definitely scary.”
After a snowfall blankets the Washington region, a child licks a snowball while playing at the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia, U.S., January 16, 2024. Portal/Kevin Lamarque
Wind chills reached minus 28 degrees Celsius (minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit) in Vermont early Saturday.where Stowe Mountain Resort recommended skiers “prepare everything they need to stay safe on the mountain, take regular breaks to warm up indoors, and monitor others for signs of frostbite.”
In the Northeast, snow gradually eased after covering a large area, including Washington and New York City. In New York on Saturday, aid organizations distributed food and clothing to immigrants who protected themselves from the freezing temperatures with thick coats and wool hats.
More snow is expected in West Virginia, where the weather service predicted up to 10 centimeters more snow on Saturday, along with wind gusts of 40 mph (64 km/h), causing wind chills as low as -29 degrees Celsius (-20 degrees Fahrenheit). .
Tyson Ropp uses an ax to cut several inches of ice into a storage tank at the Double Cross Cattle Company ranch south of Roberts, Montana. The cold was expected to last for several more days. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown)
Lake-effect snow hit northwest Indiana again Friday through Saturday, creating near-whiteout conditions near Lake Michigan and complicating vehicular traffic on the busy highway corridor to and from Chicago.
“We’re kind of taking a risk and rolling the dice,” Frank Finney told WBBM-TV. Finney and his family were driving on Interstate 94 through Michigan City toward La Porte, Indiana.
Only There have been 26 deaths recorded in Tennesseeincluding that of a 25-year-old man who lay dead on the floor of a mobile home in Lewisburg after a heater fell and went out, Marshall County Sheriff's Deputy Bob Johnson said.
“There was ice on the walls,” Johnson said.
(with information from AP)