Last week, though, the smugness met its match. Arctic air and powerful surface winds combined to produce wind chills of 80 degrees below zero in parts of Minnesota. The cold wave pushed all the way to the Eastern Seaboard, causing 142 deaths from heart attacks. traffic accidents and other tragedies–twice as many as the California earthquake. The Midwest got the worst weather, but the least sympathy. That’s the trouble with the stoic routine: Americans in warmer climes can’t tell the difference between a frigid Midwest winter and a lethal one. In Chicago, police rescued a 91-year-old widow they found kneeling prayerfully in an inch of solid ice in her basement. For the first time ever, Chicago schools closed for two days because of the cold.
To some, that was one more gutless surrender to the weenie ’90s and its hyperdevotion to Safety First. Some parents thought that closing schools sent kids the wrong message. Like hurricanes and tornadoes, winter storms prey most on those who know the least about surviving them. Death tolls were far higher in North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia than in New Hampshire, Minnesota or Massachusetts.
Chicagoans spent the sweetest moments last week watching the East Coast cities wither in temperatures near zero. When the federal government shut down, the jokes were predictable: how could a city so full of hot air be silenced by a cold snap? At The Washington Post, one editor told his subordinates to leave if they thought they were “nonessential,” but said he’d be keeping a list of those who defined themselves that way. Nobody left.
Meteorologists said the cold wave was actually overdue. But even the brashest Midwesterners weren’t eager for more of last week’s ordeal. Besides, the equally perilous flood season is approaching–bringing more bragging rights with it.
