Tonight Chicago is closed on account of the cold:
As the region braces for brutal sub-zero cold, Chicago city officials have one brief bit of advice: stay inside.
“If you can stay indoors, please do so,†Gary Schenkel, executive director for the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications, told reporters Sunday. He added: “Everyday activities may not be feasible.â€
Schenkel and a host of other city department heads addressed the media Sunday at the OEMC headquarters, laying out their plans for the next several days of bitter cold. Mayor Rahm Emanuel was not at the meeting and is out of town, officials said.
Chicago Public Schools reversed course on Sunday afternoon, canceling clases on Monday, hours after the Chicago Teachers Union issued a statement saying schools should be closed because of the extreme cold. Originally, CPS officials gave parents the option to send their kids to school – or keep them home.
Most schools in the Chicago area will be closed tomorrow, showing great caution about the sub-zero temperatures that are expected here then.
A word of advice to Mayor Emanuel: Chicagoans can be sensitive about mayoral responses to weather emergencies.
The other day as I was going through the checkout line at my beloved Happy Foods, I shared a chuckle with the assistant manager at the service desk, a woman almost as gray-haired as I am. “These kids”, referring to the teenage and early twenty-somethings who do most of the checking there, “have never experienced what’s coming down the pike at us. We have.” She agreed.
How cold is it in Chicago?
So cold that the muggers merely describe their knives.