Chicago Area Local News

CHICAGO (CBS) ― A blast of winter means Chicago is freezing cold once again. CBS 2's Mike Puccinelli reports on how people are coping with the sudden drop in temperature.

With the sun shining brightly in a clear sky it almost looked warm outside Wednesday, but a quick look at the thermometer advertised the harsh reality that is a 9 degree arctic front.

"For me it's so cold I don't believe it," said Madrid, Spain native Inaki Rubio.

It was cold enough to even make pigeons look uncomfortable and to turn broken water pipes into frozen works of art.

"It's pretty brutal as the wind is blowing on us all day long," said ComEd foreman Roy Hudson.

And ComEd crews were out all day long restoring power to more than 14,000 customers whose homes and businesses fell victim to more than 50-mile-an-hour wind gusts.

ComEd officials say crews have special instructions because of the dangerously low temps.

"We have them take breaks so they can watch out for frostbite," said ComEd Vice President Fidel Marquez. "The work has to get done but safety is paramount."

At the airports, things are gradually getting back to normal. There were no longer delays at O'Hare and only 75 cancellations as of Wednesday morning. About 350 flights were canceled there on Tuesday. Midway was reporting only a few delays and no cancellations.

As CBS 2's Rafael Romo reports, by early morning, the snow had moved on to western Michigan, but the cold, combined with the snow and ice already on the ground, made for misery on the roads.

"It's horrible. You can't see nothing," said motorist Dominick Zmico. "You drive 20 miles an hour all the way."

High winds, blowing snow, and slippery roads created many problems Wednesday morning. In Crestwood, a car went into a ditch, and across the area, visibility was another issue.

"It's like you can barely see one car-length in front of you. You can't see the lines. You can't see nothing," said driver David Johnson.

At a gas station in Frankfort, the blinding high winds made filling up a challenge. Several drivers decided to wait out the storm inside the station.

"We have guys coming in that have been on this earth 50 and 60 years living in Chicago and has never in their lives driven in anything like this," said gas station attendant Darlene Thompson. "They say it's madness. You can't see two feet in front of you."

"It's pretty torrential," added driver Bill Hanus. "I remember this when I was about eleven years old. I was delivering newspapers in the blizzard of '79, and it's pretty wicked out there."

Snow plows with the Illinois Department of Transportation were having a hard time keeping up.

At a Wal-Mart in Country Club Hills, two shoppers could not even get back to their cars.

"We couldn't even get across the parking or get to the car," said shopper Roberta Raymond. "It was that cold outside. Oh, my gosh. My head almost blew off in this."

The city Department of Streets and Sanitation had its 273 snow fighting trucks out on main roads all night, but shifted to side streets from 5:30 a.m. to 7 a.m. The narrowest side streets were treated beginning at midnight by 24 smaller plows, the department said.

Cold weather also presents a challenge for thousands of postal carriers like Jorge Salinas.

"It's cold," Salinas said. "I'm like an onion right now; I got like 17 layers on right now. Three T-shirts, two pairs of pants, two socks."

Most folks spending time outside Wednesday are there because they have to be, but Rubio is on vacation and he wasn't about to let the cold keep him from strolling along the lakefront.

"I think it's amazing," he said. "I've never experienced such weather."

His friend was wearing so many layers she felt like her sense of fashion had fallen victim to the weather as well.

"We look like astronauts when we walk like this," Rosa Deguindos, also a Madrid native, said.

CBS 2's Mike Puccinelli and Rafael Romo contributed to this report.

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