Slammed by a blizzard of historic proportions and still struggling to dig out, the Chicago area now braces for a spiteful cold, freezing out any thought of a quick return to normal.
The powdery drifts blocking porch steps, garages, cars and seemingly everything else will harden into thick and stubborn mounds Thursday, when temperatures are expected to barely creep into double digits after subzero lows overnight.
That means another day of canceled school, missed work and treacherous, if not impossible travel everywhere from urban side streets to the rural fringes of collar counties.
The Chicago Public Schools had gone 12 years without a snow day until Wednesday, and a second one has been called for Thursday, with plans for Friday still undecided. Scores of suburban districts and Catholic schools, as well as the City Colleges of Chicago, were also closed for a second day.
With the storm striking in midweek, many people are anxious to get back to work and resume regular activities. But in Chicago, there was still no word on when hundreds of streets will be plowed, and emergency officials emphasized that wintry hazards are far from over.
“If you don’t have to go out, please stay home,” Jose Santiago, head of the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications, said Wednesday. “Even though the snow has moved on, the danger has not.”
The storm that roared in Tuesday with 70-mph winds did not die until the following morning. By then, 20.2 inches had fallen at O’Hare International Airport, the city’s official recording station. It was the biggest since the New Year’s Day storm of 1999, and third behind the Big Snow of January 1967.
Train lines, mostly in the suburbs, were crippled and more than 2,600 flights were canceled at the city’s two major airports. Most downtown businesses were closed and the Loop was strangely still through Wednesday.
Hundreds of people spent the night stranded in their cars on Lake Shore Drive and in far-flung suburban areas where most roads were impassable. Dozens of truck drivers and motorists were stuck at the Des Plaines oasis on the Jane Addams Tollway because of snowdrifts that covered entrance ramps to the toll road.
One woman spent the night in the Wheaton police station after winding up in a ditch while making a valiant attempt to get home from her job.
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“I should have slept at work,” said Beverly Newman, pining for a change of clothes and some warm socks.
In Lake County, police helped rescue some 200 stranded motorists. A jackknifed truck left more than 30 people stuck at one intersection. A 48-year-old man stuck in his car on U.S. Highway 45 in Grayslake was dead of undetermined causes by the time help arrived.
Six more deaths that might be related to the storm were being investigated, including that of a 60-year-old man who fell into Diversey Harbor in Lake Michigan. The man’s body was retrieved early Wednesday morning.
A 58-year-old Lyons man suffered a fatal heart attack while shoveling snow.
Chicago firefighters mounted snowmobiles to make rescues on snow-clogged side streets. In Lake County, emergency workers said four-wheel-drive trucks weren’t enough to get to some areas.
“It’s as bad as you might expect,” said Grayslake police Cmdr. Matt McCutcheon. “People should not go out in this.”
The snowstorm knocked out power and heat to thousands of homes. In Elmhurst a car ran off the road and into a fire hydrant, leading to a water main break that left some residents without water and made the street even icier.
As the storm moved off toward the Northeast and the snow in Chicago subsided Wednesday, Lake Shore Drive had an apocalyptic appearance — with several hundred cars that had been abandoned by drivers covered in snow and waiting to be towed away by city workers.
The Cook County Jail went into lockdown after power began to flicker, causing worries about security and leading officials to add more guards at the facility.
While the extreme weather caused extreme hardships, it also brought out acts of heroism. Babies were born as sirens wailed on their way to rescue storm victims, with one expectant mother walking an entire block in the snow to make it to a waiting ambulance that could not reach her.
Neighbors pitched in to help dig out cars, clear away sidewalks and offer rides to work.
Lunette Castillo, a nurse in Oak Lawn, had no way to get to work Wednesday. So, she turned to her “friends” on Facebook.
“I’m a nurse at a hospital just trying to save lives,” she posted, after a cab company declined to send a car for her.
Within an hour, Dornise Pewett, a hairdresser who barely knew Castillo, pulled up with her husband, two kids and dog.
“I was just really in awe,” said Castillo, 26.
Tribune reporters Duaa Eldeib, John Byrne and Stacy St. Clair contributed.