MEMPHIS, Tenn.—Arctic weather brought more misery to much of the United States on Saturday, especially for people unaccustomed to such bitter cold in places like Memphis, Tennessee, where residents were urged to boil water and some had no water at all after freezing temperatures broke water mains across the city. Temperatures weren’t expected to rise until after the weekend.
Winter storms this month claimed at least 67 lives around the United States, many involving hypothermia or road accidents.
At the Four Way Grill in Memphis, owner Patrice Bates Thompson said the water problems have closed their soul food kitchen for days.
“This is our staple, and this is what basically drives the force of my family financially,” Ms. Thompson told Fox-13 Memphis. “We depend on business, and we have been at home.”
So many pipes broke in Memphis that water pressure fell throughout the city. Concerned about possible contamination from the breaks, Memphis Light, Gas & Water was urging all of its more than 400,000 customers to boil water for drinking or teeth-brushing or use bottled supplies on Saturday while crews worked around the clock to make repairs.
The utility said more than one hundred employees were volunteering on Saturday to help identify breaks, and they were asking residents to report leaks seen in the street, at homes, and unoccupied buildings to help them restore pressure.
“Our production and treatment of water is working well,” the utility said in an email. “We cannot give restoration estimates until all leaks are identified.”
Meanwhile, the Memphis City Council opened seven bottled water distribution stations around the city on Saturday, one in each council district. Two others were operating at fire stations. One had 300 cars lined up when it opened on Saturday, Shelby County Emergency Management Director Brenda Jones said in a telephone interview.
“You have people with absolutely no water, people with low water pressure, and you have the boil water advisory,” she said.
A huge swath of the United States was under a wind chill advisory, from parts of Montana all the way into central Florida. It was particularly harsh in the Midwest. The wind made it feel like minus 16 degrees (minus 26 Celsius) in Iowa City on Saturday, and overnight wind chills hovered around zero in Oklahoma City, where David Overholser sought shelter at the non-profit Homeless Alliance.
“Being 63 and from Florida originally, I don’t like cold. I can’t handle it,” Mr. Overholser told The Oklahoman. “It’s been very, very rough and painful and I just, you know, try to hang on one day, one hour at a time … it’s definitely scary.”
Wind chills dipped to minus 20 Fahrenheit (minus 28 Celsius) early Saturday in Vermont, where the Stowe Mountain Resort urged hardy skiers to be cautious.
“Bust out all the stuff you need to hang on the mountain safely, take frequent warm up breaks inside, and keep a close eye on each other for signs of frostbite,” the resort warned on its website.
Ravens fans unaccustomed to such cold in Baltimore were bundling up for wind chills near zero (minus 17 Celsius) for Saturday’s playoff, but the weekend weather was business as usual in Buffalo, where the Bills called out for more shovelers to finish clearing snow from the stands before Sunday’s big game. Highmark Stadium got smothered by five feet of lake-effect snow in five days.
Snow was tapering off in other parts of the Northeast after blanketing a large area including Washington and New York City, but more was coming to West Virginia, where the weather service said up to 4 more inches (10 centimeters) could fall Saturday, along with winds gusting to 40 mph (64 kph), driving wind chills down as low as 20 below zero (minus 29 C).
Meanwhile, northwestern Indiana was pounded overnight Friday into Saturday with lake-effect snow off Lake Michigan and near white-out conditions, making the busy corridor into and out of Chicago treacherous for truckers and other motorists.
“We’re kind of taking a chance—rolling the dice,” Frank Finney told WBBM-TV. Finney and his family were navigating Interstate 94 through Michigan City to La Porte, Indiana.
Tennessee alone recorded 19 deaths, including a 25-year-old man found dead on the floor of a mobile home in Lewisburg after a space heater overturned and turned off, said Bob Johnson, chief deputy for the Marshall County Sheriff’s Office.
“There was ice on the walls in there,” Mr. Johnson said.
On the West Coast, more freezing rain was forecast Saturday in the Columbia River Gorge and the area was expected to remain near or below freezing through at least Sunday night. Trees and power lines already coated with ice could topple if they get more, the National Weather Service warned.
“Stay safe out there over the next several days as our region tries to thaw out,” the weather service said. “Chunks of falling ice will remain a hazard as well.”
Thousands have been without power since last weekend in parts of Oregon’s Willamette Valley because of storm damage. Despite work by repair crews, more than 41,000 customers were without electricity in the state early Saturday, according to the website poweroutage.us.
A potential thaw isn’t expected until next week, when the forecast calls for above-average temperatures across most of the country, according to the National Weather Service.
But the winter weather isn’t bad news for everyone.
“It’s fun right now,” Michigan City resident Andrew Smith told WBBM-TV. “We haven’t had this much snow in a minute, and Christmas wasn’t snowy, so it’s fun to do this. I can play with the kids, make snowballs, make a snowman.”
By Adrian Sainz
