An anonymous donor paid for 70 homeless people to stay in a hotel in Chicago amid near-record low temperatures.
The people were camping out in tents overnight despite the bitter cold, with temperatures plunging to -22 degrees Fahrenheit with a wind chill of 49 degrees below zero.
On Tuesday night, Jan. 29, the group camped on state-owned land near the Dan Ryan Expressway, but on Wednesday one of about 175 donated propane cylinders at the encampment, exploded after being placed too close to a space heater.
Officers rushed over and declared the tent city unsafe.
“This is extremely unsafe,” Maj. David Byrd, the Illinois State Police Region commander, told ABC 7. Chicago Fire Department Chief Walter Schroeder said that the situation was deemed a Level 1 Hazmat due to all the cylinders.
“There was a significant amount of propane there, and with that many cylinders, that’s like a bomb going off,’’ Schroeder told the Chicago Tribune.
Salvation Army officials began preparing to move those who had been staying in the tent city to a Salvation Army Warming Center but the city called about an hour later and said an anonymous good Samaritan offered to pick up the tab for the people to stay in a hotel.
All but one man accepted the offer; that man went to the warming center.
“All the folks there, some wonderful citizen is going to put all of them up at a hotel for the rest of the week,” Salvation Army spokeswoman Jacqueline Rachev said. “Isn’t that wonderful? At least they’re warm and they’re safe.”
Good Samaritan picks up hotel tab for 70 homeless as Chicago flirts with all-time cold record https://t.co/XZBH8tkuuh
— Jim Kirk (@kirkjim12) January 31, 2019
Doctors Visit Homeless
Doctors and other volunteers visited homeless encampments amid the bitter temperatures, trying to help anyone who needed assistance.
Dr. Ralph Ryan, a retired cardiologist, is a volunteer with a street medicine van operated by nonprofit Night Ministry. The group rolled out on Tuesday to check on homeless people across the city.
Ryan moved from tent to tent and asked if anyone needed anything. If he got no response, he told the Chicago Sun-Times, he was prepared to break protocol and open the tent to make sure those inside were alive.
One 53-year-old woman, Karen, who was staying in a tent, told Ryan what clothes she was wearing.
“Pants, sweatpants, long underwear, a long sleeve shirt, two sweatshirts, a jacket, two pairs of socks. And sneakers,” she said. “And five blankets when I sleep,” she said.
She said her feet felt numb and that she might have to go to a shelter. But Ryan said that many homeless people say what they believe the volunteers want to hear.
“They tell us what they think we want to hear a lot of the time,” Ryan said.
Warning
A wind chill warning was still in effect in northeastern Illinois and other parts of the Midwest on Thursday, according to the National Weather Service.
“Dangerous cold this morning and accumulating snow this afternoon and evening … dangerously cold wind chills of 25 to 45 below zero,” the service stated.
The cold wind chills can cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 10 minutes, the agency said.
“A Wind Chill Warning means the combination of very cold air and the wind will create dangerously low wind chill values. Frostbite can occur quickly and even hypothermia or death if precautions are not taken,” it added.
