Chicago commuters battled one of the heaviest December snowfalls on record Monday, but the worst could lie ahead: Nose-diving temperatures and high winds promise another icy morning slog Tuesday.
After first deciding to open Chicago’s public schools on Tuesday, chief executive Paul Vallas reversed course late Monday and said they would be shut because the wind and snow proved to be more hazardous than expected.
High winds that produced white-out conditions forced the closing of Lake Shore Drive from Hollywood Avenue to 67th Street Monday night, and commuters reported treacherous driving on expressways. By midnight, 141/2 inches of snow had fallen at Midway Airport, breaking a 24-hour record for December set in 1960. At O’Hare International Airport, 91/2 inches of snow had fallen by midnight.
With a blanket of soggy snow smothering Illinois and much of the Midwest, Chicago-area schools, offices and stores closed early or never opened Monday as airlines slashed hundreds of flights at O’Hare and Midway. Plows were to ply roadways and runways overnight, but city and state transportation officials warned that disruptions would continue.
“People should expect delays and cancellations,” said Aviation Department spokeswoman Monique Bond. “It is going to take us a good day and a half to go back to normal operation.”
The snowfall broke the record of 12.5 inches recorded at Midway in one 24-hour December snowfall Dec. 19 and 20, 1960, the National Weather Service said.
Even more bracing, though, would be an overnight low of 4 degrees in some Chicago-area suburbs with windchills far below zero. The cold promised to extend the misery for shoppers, students and workers.
“I looked out the window and saw the snow and said, `Oh God,'” said Judy Mallace of the Wilmette Park District, who canceled a holiday party for seniors Monday, saying it won’t be rescheduled until June. “We won’t get poinsettia plants, that’s for sure.”
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In addition to Chicago, where schools closed an hour early Monday, more than 200 public and private school districts in the area called off Tuesday classes. That figure will climb, according to the Emergency Closing Center, a consortium of radio and television stations that coordinates closure information.
Monday’s snow forced more than 800 public and private school districts to close. Chicago’s 601 public schools were emptier than usual: Only 65 percent of high school students and 78 percent of teachers showed up, officials said. Usually, high school attendance rates are 88 percent for students and 94 percent for teachers.
“It’s really bad, horrible right now, and I guess it’s going to get worse,” said Larry Chase, principal of Disney Magnet School on the North Side. The elementary and middle school let out shortly after noon.
“With the temperature drop [on Tuesday], it’s going to be terrible,” Chase said.
With 75 percent of all flights scuttled at O’Hare, most travelers followed public announcements and turned back to hotels or home.
By evening, O’Hare’s passenger waiting areas were deserted. Plows were out on the runways, but with big, wet flakes falling at the rate of an inch an hour, they couldn’t keep up, officials said.
“I’m so depressed right now,” said Hatidza Green of Milwaukee, one of four women stranded at Midway less than two hours before their Royal Caribbean cruise ship was scheduled to steam from Miami to the Bahamas. “All year long I’ve been looking forward to that cruise.”
Like many other passengers, their early morning flight actually boarded and pushed back from the gate at one point, before mounting weather proved too much.
“This has been a horrendous day for our customers and employees,” said United spokesman Chris Brathwaite.
One plane skidded off a slick O’Hare runway Monday morning, though none of the 66 passengers and crew members was injured. The Sun Country Airlines flight from Minneapolis touched down just after 7 a.m. and slid slowly into a muddy mess 75 feet from the end of the runway, an airline spokeswoman said.
At Midway, two-thirds of flights were operating, though delays and cancellations were expected to continue into Tuesday.Chicago police said Lake Shore Drive was expected to be closed overnight because of visibility and to give work crews time to clear snow in preparation for the Tuesday morning rush hour.
The storm also knocked out power to more than 2,700 customers, most of them in Chicago, Commonwealth Edison said. Crews were able to restore power to all but 441 homes by late Monday, officials said.
Though the storm did not reach the level of the Blizzard of ’99–which dumped more than 20 inches of snow in some places–some people began heading home from work before lunchtime.
An estimated 15,000 federal workers in Chicago were told they could leave early, the first such advisory in at least five years, officials said.
Mayor Richard Daley urged employers to release workers in the early afternoon, and by 3 p.m. Union Station swarmed with drenched and shivering commuters.
“Am I happy about getting out of work? No,” said Chris Kanda, a computer network technician at Blue Cross/Blue Shield, who was let out of his Schaumburg office at 2 p.m. “Because that just means it’s going to pile up tomorrow.”
Metra added extra rush-hour trains Monday to absorb waves of workers dismissed early, but switch problems stranded hundreds of riders on two Union Pacific trains to the northwest suburbs.
Fred Wickham, a downtown real estate manager, said he arrived at North Western Station at 5 p.m. His train didn’t pull out of the station until 9:40 p.m.
Another stranded train got going around 10 p.m. said Metra spokesman Tom Miller, who said the long delays were caused by problems with the electronically operated switches.
The real test for Metra, though, would come overnight as workers prepared to combat ice forming on overhead electrical lines, Miller said.
Crews were poised to work overnight and mechanics were stationed in the train storage yards to get the trains going by the morning rush hour, which begins as early as 4:30 a.m. on some lines.
Though Monday morning drives crawled, stretched out to 50 percent longer than normal, evening commutes showed no major tie-ups, officials said. But commuters working their way home reported tough going, with snow-clogged expressways and poor visibility.
Expressways were littered with fender-benders and stranded cars, but no serious accidents, state police said. The Illinois Department of Transportation had its full fleet of almost 300 trucks plowing and salting roads in the six-county northeastern Illinois region. “It’s a constant battle, and we’re out fighting it,” said an IDOT dispatcher late Monday.
Transportation officials fretted over what Tuesday morning would bring. Gusting wind could easily foul up highways and reduce visibility, and falling temperatures could lead to even more stalled cars.
Public transit users faced moderate delays but no major problems Monday, officials said.
CTA President Frank Kruesi said evening rush-hour service was unhindered. Where many trains had failed during the January 1999 storm, the CTA had 100 more cars in service Monday than it needed, he said, thanks to efforts to keep melting snow from fouling train circuitry.
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Kruesi said workers would pay particular attention overnight to roughly 300 “2600 Series” rail cars–a model susceptible to mechanical failure in heavy snow–that have not been rehabilitated since serious service interruptions in the January 1999 blizzard. Those cars are on the Blue Line.
Chicago officials warned that the city’s overnight parking prohibition on designated snow routes would be strictly enforced, with cars towed to keep those streets clear for snow plows.
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