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It was expected that the icy climate would muffle Thursday, but temperatures could still reach record lows in some places before the region begins to melt.
Disturbances caused by the cold will also persist, including power outages and canceled flights and trains. The Detroit teams will need a few days to repair the water pipes that erupted on Wednesday and other pipes can still burst with persistent sub-zero temperatures.
Before the cold began to dissipate, the National Weather Service said Chicago could reach minimum levels on Thursday morning. to break the city record of minus 27 (minus 32 Celsius) set on January 20, 1985. Some isolated areas nearby could see temperatures as low as minus 40 (minus 40 Celsius). That would beat the Illinois record of minus 36 (minus 38 Celsius), set in Congerville on Jan. 5, 1999.
As the temperature returned to a 10% figure on Thursday and a score compared to 20 on Friday New people were expected to return to the country's third-largest city, which looks like a ghost town after most offices ordered their employees to stay at home.
The polar air explosion that enveloped much of the Midwest Wednesday closed schools and businesses, as well as a tense infrastructure of some of the lowest temperatures of the generation.
Chicago fell to a minimum of about minus 23 (minus 30 degrees Celsius), slightly above the lowest level ever recorded by the city, minus 27 (minus 32 degrees Celsius). January 1985. Milwaukee had similar conditions. Minneapolis recorded minus 27 (minus 32 Celsius). Sioux Falls, South Dakota, saw less 25 (minus 31 degrees Celsius).
Shivers caused by the wind would have looked less than 50 (minus 45 degrees Celsius) or worse. Chicago trains and buses operated with few passengers. The toughest commuters only ventured after covering almost every square inch of flesh against the extreme cold that froze the ice crystals on the eyelashes and eyebrows in a matter of minutes.
The postal service took the rare step of suspending mail delivery in many places and in southeastern Minnesota, even the snow plows were idle
The freezing cold was a result of the poor weather conditions. a split in the polar vortex, a mass of cold air that normally remains bottled in the Arctic. The split allowed the air to spread much further south than usual. In fact, Chicago was colder than the Canadian village of Alert, one of the most northerly inhabited places in the world. Alert, located 804 km from the North Pole, reported a temperature a few degrees higher.
In a dozen cities, authorities have focused on protecting vulnerable people from the cold, including the homeless, the elderly and the elderly. living in substandard housing.
At least eight deaths were linked to the system, including an old man from Illinois found several hours after his fall while trying to get home and a student from the University of Iowa found behind a university hall several hours later. before dawn. Elsewhere, a man was hit by a snow plow in the Chicago area, the vehicle of a young couple hit another on a snowy road in northern Indiana and a man from Milwaukee died of cold in a garage, said the authorities.
Physical discomfort, icy adhesion of the system also had serious consequences on the infrastructure, interrupting transport, cutting off power and interrupting water service.
Amtrak canceled many trains to and from Chicago, one of the busiest rail centers in the country. Several families who were planning to leave for Pennsylvania were held at Union Station in Chicago to be told that all trains had been canceled until Friday.
"If I had known we would be stuck here, we would have stayed longer in Mexico – it was warmer," said Anna Ebersol, who was traveling with her two sons.
Unlike the power grid , ten diesel train lines from Metra's commuter rail system continued to operate, but crews had to heat up for cracked or broken rails, and when steel rails broke or even cracked, trains would automatically shut down until 39, that they are deflected or that the rail section is repaired, explained the spokesman of Metra, Michael Gillis.
track remaining for a few hours
In Detroit, more than two dozen water mains were frozen and customers were connected to other distribution systems to avoid water service interruptions, said Detroit Water and Sewerage spokesman Bryan Peckinpaugh
Most water systems were installed from the early 1900s to the 1950s. They are 1.5 to 1.8 meters underground and below the frost line, but this does not matter. if the temperatures drop so dramatically, said Peckinpaugh.
On a typical winter day, the city has five to nine breaks, with each taking about three days to repair. But these repairs will take longer now with the large number of failures to repair, he added.
Detroit is in the second year of a $ 500 million program intended for the rehabilitation of its water and sewer system. Last year, 40 kilometers of water supply pipes were replaced.
"The water pipes are brittle. Plus they've gone from freeze-thaw cycles to years, "said Greg DiLoreto, a volunteer with the American Society of Civil Engineers and chairman of its US Infrastructure Committee, at his stress and constraints .
Pipes asked the question According to DiLoreto, who described the aging process as "living according to the time borrowed", far exceeded the lifespan for which they were conceived a century ago.
"When we reinstated them – at first we did not think they would do it.
The same freeze-thaw cycle beats roads and bridges in asphalt and asphalt concrete, creating hairy potholes.
"You will not see them until it starts heating up the trucks are starting to roll back on the sidewalk," said DiLoreto, based in Portland, Oregon.
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