Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1897-02-04
WINTERS ICY BLAST.
MERCURY BELOW ZERO IN
MANY STATES.
cities Of the Northwest Suffering with
the Intense Cold and Trains Block
AIDED in Several Places-coldest for
Many Years Deaths.
The Blizzard.

The remarkable and unreasonable mild
ness of December and the earlier part Of
January has been broken by severe cold
wave, which has swept across the conti-
nent from the far northwest. The wealth
er conditions prevailing in the middle west
for the previous ten weeks have been ex-
traordinary. The thermometer has regis
tered a temperature more suitable for
early November than for midwinter.
There has been little or no snow, and a
heavy, soggy rainfall has drenched the in
habitants of the Mississippi valley and
the lake region.
The sudden drop of the mercury upon
the arrival Of the cold wave marks an
other Of the curiosities of the temperate
zone in North America. The west has
been visited by blizzard of unusual vio-
lence. The entire region from British
Columbia has been swept by an icy wind,
followed by heavy fall Of snow. On the
whole, the average citizen will welcome
the change. The real winter article is
considerably more wholesome than the
''open" winter weather of preceding
weeks. The poor, however, suffer severe
ly from the sudden and severe cold.
The cold wave has been general
throughout tie CeulEul west anu udS Detu
felt more or less over the entire country.
The temperature has been below freezing
in Tennessee and central Texas. 1t is
below zero in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and
Missouri, and 20 degrees below zero over
the Dakotas and Minnesota.
Reports from every part of the North
west indicate that Saturday night was
the coolest night in two winters. st.
Paul, about the warmest point in this
whole section, registered 25 below. The
range was from that figure to 30 below at
st. Cloud, SO below at Aitkin and 20
below at st. Hilaire. Suffering in the
country must have been very great Rail
way traffic is everywhere greatly retard-
ed, either because of drifts or inability
to keep up steam. A Chicago, Milwau-
kee and st. Paul passenger train stuck in
a drift near Bonilla, $. ID. Another train
containing $3.50. 600 Of the money Of South
Dakota stuck in a drift near Highmore,
s. ID. Reports from points along the
Missouri river indicate that there will
be heavy mortality among cattle and
sheep in that section.
In Chicago Sunday was the coldest day
in twenty-five years, according to the
records of the weather bureau. At no
time since the Chicago station has been
established has there been so low a max
imum temperature recorded. 1t was q
steady cold. There was a variation of but
four degrees in the twelve hours from G
o'clock in the morning until the same hour
in the evening. Not the poor alone felt
the sting of the thirty-mile "norther''
that blew in from the Dakotas before
sunrise and raved through the skeleton
iron work of the elevated roads long after
people had gone shivering to their beds
ut night. Suburban furnaces and down
town heating plants were rs inadequate
to the task of keeping the frost rime off
the windows as were the pitifully small
stoves in the tenements of the river wards.
Fifty-three persons were listed as over
come by the terrible cold and were res
cued in partly frozen condition. One
death occurred, which was due to the cold,
and a number of people are likely to die
as the result of frozen limbs or exposure.
Most of the sufferers succumbed to the
cold while about their work, but a number
of the victims were homeless wanderers.
In Wisconsin the lowest temperature
known for years was recorded Sunday.
According to the government reports Il
was IS degrees below zero in Milwaukee,
while private thermometers in various
parts of the city made it "a degrees. Out
in the State there were some great records
made, Stevens Point leading with 30 de-
grees below zero. In Michigan the tenn
perature ranged from @ degrees below
zero in Detroit to Is degrees below at
upper peninsula points. At Omaha, Neb.,
in twenty -four hours the thermometer
dropped from 30 above to 10 below zero.
and in some parts of the State it crowded
the 10 mark very closely in that time
In Indianapolis, Mt o'clock Sunday
evening the temperature was degrees be-
low zero, and the weather bureau an
nounced that il would continue to fall un-
til morning. There is a shortage of nat
ural gas in some sections of the city, and
1t is feared there will be much suffering
If the low temperature should last long.
At Lexington, Mo-, Martha Lacey, an
aged negro woman who had no home, was
frozen to death in the basement of a d.
lapidated and unused house, where she
had gone for shelter with her two little
children. The cries of the children at
tracted attention to them in the MORN
ing.
Park Sterling. negro coal miner, was
frozen to death near Hamilton, Mo. In
the vicinity of Milan, No., the mercury
fell fifty degrees Saturday night, reaching
10 below zero-the coldest il has been
for years. 1t was accompanied by n Sc
we're blizzard, doing great damage to
stock. At Dubuque, Iowa, the Missis-
sippi Is frozen solid as far as can be seen
up and down.