Pileup in whiteout leaves 2 dead

18 vehicles crash in Pennsylvania; cold puts Midwest on ice

Firefighters in Springfield, Ohio, try to pull out a frozen hose Wednesday after battling an overnight five-alarm blaze that destroyed a warehouse.
Firefighters in Springfield, Ohio, try to pull out a frozen hose Wednesday after battling an overnight five-alarm blaze that destroyed a warehouse.

CHICAGO -- A blast of cold air closed schools Wednesday throughout much of the Midwest, while snow in Pennsylvania caused an 18-vehicle pileup that killed at least two people, authorities said.

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AP

Naperville, Ill., commuters make their way to the Metra commuter train Wednesday as frigid conditions moved into the suburbs of Chicago.

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AP/Daily Herald

Resident Donielle Johnson faces the cold at the Palatine, Ill., train station as frigid conditions moved into the suburbs of Chicago on Wednesday.

The two people killed were struck after leaving their vehicles during a snowstorm on Interstate 80 in western Pennsylvania, Clarion County Emergency Services Director Vern Smith said.

Dozens more were hurt in the crash, which occurred in whiteout conditions, police said. They were being treated for everything from bumps to broken bones, officials said.

Nine trucks, several of them semitrailers, and nine cars were involved in the pileup.

Elsewhere, the cold was more of a problem than snow.

The National Weather Service predicted subzero temperatures in Chicago with wind chills of minus 27 degrees. Wind chill describes the combined effect of wind and low temperatures on exposed skin.

In parts of Vermont, the weather service warned that wind chills could be 20 to 40 degrees below zero into today.

Even Southern states such as Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi were expecting wind chills overnight of zero or below.

Besides closing schools, the blast of cold led to the suspension of trash collection, delayed the opening of government offices and hampered public transit. In St. Louis, where the sun was expected to be out even as wind chills dipped well below zero, city officials announced they would operate an overflow shelter at night to provide food and a place to sleep for people in need.

Chicago Public Schools announced Tuesday evening that its roughly 400,000 students would have Wednesday off. The district has had only a handful of weather-related closings in recent decades.

Foot traffic in downtown Chicago was noticeably lower. In Millennium Park, a popular tourist spot, the sidewalks were mostly empty.

School officials in Minneapolis; Kansas City, Mo.; Des Moines, Iowa; Omaha, Neb.; and many other districts also canceled classes Wednesday.

Erin Beck, a hotel employee on Mackinac Island in northern Michigan, said she rode her snowmobile 2 miles to work Wednesday. The extreme cold is good news for islanders, she said, because it means the lake soon will freeze, and she can go to the mainland for groceries.

"For me, it was a breath of fresh air," she said.

Bob Dexter of Island Pond, Vt., where temperatures were expected to fall sharply Wednesday night, was planning to turn up the heat in every room of his motel, even though many are empty, to stave off problems with pipes.

"To heat every room to 72 instead of 55, it costs us a couple hundred dollars," Dexter said.

Dexter, who is the president of the Brighton Snowmobile Club, also decided to have the snowmobile paths groomed during the day Wednesday instead of at night.

"We figured we'd try to get everything done today so it wouldn't be extremely cold -- it's dangerous," said Dexter, explaining that his machinery is more vulnerable in deep cold. "Even metal, the colder it is the easier it will break."

But he said: "We're used to it. Once it goes 10 below zero, 25 below doesn't feel like much."

Information for this article was contributed by Mitch Smith and Jess Bidgood of The New York Times and by staff members of The Associated Press.

A Section on 01/08/2015

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