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Bitter cold wind chills proving deadly, hindering airlines, power grids, schools
Dangerously cold temperatures affected much of the Rockies, Great Plains and Midwest on Tuesday, with wind chills below minus 30 degrees in many parts of the central U.S.
CBS News senior weather and climate producer David Parkinson reports more than 40 cold temperature records are likely to be broken Tuesday from Texas to Tennessee and in Michigan.
He notes that Baltimore and Philadelphia picked up over an inch of snow for the first time in more than 700 days Tuesday and New York City is on track to do the same for the first time in just under 700 days.
Tens of thousands of U.S. homes and businesses were without power early Tuesday, according to PowerOutage.us, the bulk of them in Oregon after widespread outages that started Saturday. Portland General Electric warned that the threat of freezing rain Tuesday could delay restoration efforts. Transportation officials urged residents to avoid travel as roads were expected to be hazardously slick with ice that could weigh down trees and power lines, causing them to fall.
Parkinson says a far larger ice storm is likely in Oregon and Washington state Tuesday evening into Wednesday morning, adding that the accumulations in some of Portland’s suburbs could exceed half an inch of ice, which would take down countless trees and lead to many power outages. In the Cascade Mountains, Parkinson says, that ice will turn to several feet of snow — and that storm system will cross the country and eventually bring more snow to the I-95 corridor Friday into Saturday.
Charlie Riedel / AP
ERCOT, which manages the Texas power grid, appealed to customers for the second morning in a row to conserve electricity, CBS News Texas reports.
CBS Houston affiliate KHOU-TV says it took one commuter six-and-a-half hours to make the drive home from work Monday that usually takes a little more than a half-hour.
Classes were canceled Tuesday for students in Portland and other major cities including Chicago – home to the nation’s fourth-largest public school district – Denver, Dallas, and Fort Worth, Texas.
Air travelers experienced delays and cancellations. The flight tracking service FlightAware.com reported about 2,900 cancellations Monday within, into or out of the United States and some 1,200 as of 6:45 a.m. Tuesday.
Storms and frigid temperatures affected everything from air travel to NFL playoff games to Iowa’s presidential caucuses, and caused of several deaths around the country.
At least four people in the Portland area died, including two from suspected hypothermia. Another man was killed when a tree fell on his house and a woman died in a fire that spread from an open-flame stove after a tree fell onto an RV.
In Wisconsin, the deaths of three homeless people in the Milwaukee area were under investigation, with hypothermia the likely cause, officials said.
The National Weather Service Chicago office said on X, the former Twitter that there was no relief in sight Tuesday:
Freezing rain and sleet were expected continue across portions of the Southeast Tuesday morning. Winter storm warnings were in effect for Lawrence, Limestone and Madison counties in Alabama and in Franklin County in Tennessee, southeast Arkansas, northeast Louisiana and much of northern, central and southwestern Mississippi.
Monday night saw temperatures drop as low as 10 degrees in Olive Branch, Mississippi, and Jackson, Tennessee.
Frigid temperatures in the Northeast didn’t stop fans from heading out to cheer on the Buffalo Bills at a snow-covered Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, New York. The Bills beat the Pittsburgh Steelers on Monday in an AFC wild-card playoff game that was delayed 27-1/2 hours because of a storm that dumped more than 2 feet of snow on the region and prompted the Bills to ask the public for help shoveling out the stadium.
And voters handed former President Donald Trump a win Monday night in the coldest first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses on record. Temperatures dipped to minus 3 degrees in Des Moines, with the wind chill making it feel far colder.
Temperatures are expected to moderate midweek but a new surge of colder air is forecast to drop south over the Northern Plains and Midwest, reaching the Deep South by the end of the week.
NEW YORK — Former New York Gov. David Paterson and his stepson were attacked in New York City on Friday night, authorities said.
The incident occurred just before 9 p.m. on Second Avenue near East 96th Street on the Upper East Side, according to the New York City Police Department.
Police said officers were sent to the scene after an assault was reported. When officers arrived, police say they found a 20-year-old man suffering from facial injuries and a 70-year-old man who had head pain. Both victims were taken to a local hospital in stable condition.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the former governor said the two were attacked while “taking a walk around the block near their home by some individuals that had a previous interaction with his stepson.”
The spokesperson said that they were injured “but were able to fight off their attackers.”
Both were taken to Cornell Hospital “as a precaution,” he added.
Police said no arrests have been made and the investigation is ongoing.
The 70-year-old Paterson, a Democrat, served as governor from 2008 to 2010, stepping into the post after the resignation of Eliot Spitzer following his prostitution scandal. He made history at the time as the state’s first-ever Black and legally blind governor.
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A 17-year-old boy was critically injured and a person is in custody after a gunman opened fire on a SEPTA bus in North Philadelphia Friday evening, police said.
At around 6:15 p.m., Philadelphia police were notified about a shooting on a SEPTA bus traveling on Allegheny Avenue near 3rd and 4th streets in North Philadelphia, Inspector D F Pace told CBS News Philadelphia.
There were an estimated 30 people on the bus at the time of the shooting, Pace said, but only the 17-year-old boy was believed to have been shot. Investigators said they believe it was a targeted attack on the teenager and that he was shot in the back of the bus at close range.
According to Pace, the SEPTA bus driver alerted a control center about the shooting, which then relayed the message to Philadelphia police, who responded to the scene shortly.
Officers arrived at the scene and found at least one spent shell casing and blood on the bus, but no shooting victim, Pace said. Investigators later discovered the 17-year-old had been taken to Temple University Hospital where he is said to be in critical condition, according to police.
CBS Philadelphia
Through their preliminary investigation, police learned those involved in the SEPTA shooting may have fled in a silver-colored Kia.
Authorities then found a car matching the description of the Kia speeding in the area and a pursuit began, Pace said. Police got help from a PPD helicopter as they followed the Kia, which ended up crashing at 5th and Greenwood streets in East Mount Airy. Pace said the Kia crashed into a parked car.
The driver of the crashed car ran away but police were still able to take them into custody, Pace said.
Investigators believe there was a second person involved in the shooting who ran from the car before it crashed. Police said they believe this person escaped near Allegheny Avenue and 4th Street, leaving a coat behind.
According to Pace, police also found a gun and a group of spent shell casings believed to be involved in the shooting in the same area.
“It’s very possible that there may have been a shooting inside the bus and also shots fired from outside of the bus toward the bus,” Pace said, “We’re still trying to piece all that together at this time.”
This is an active investigation and police are reviewing surveillance footage from the SEPTA bus.