CHICAGO — The bitter cold lifted in the Midwest on Friday, ending days of dangerously low temperatures and allowing a region that had all but vanished into hibernation to re-emerge. In many places, like Chicago, the temperatures climbed just above zero on Friday morning but after record-breaking double digit negatives, that felt surprisingly fine. Offices were back to business, many schools reopened and people filled neighborhoods that had been ominously empty for days.
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| A bitterly cold Detroit on Thursday. The Midwest is warming up after several days of extreme cold. |
But the warm-up was expected to take a jarring jump in the coming hours and days — sending the battered region into a temperature roller coaster. The thaw gave cities and towns a chance to begin assessing deaths, injuries and damage to infrastructure that the deep freeze had caused. But the fast-rising temperatures were also causing a new set of risks to contend with, including the potential for flooding, abundant potholes and clogged stormwater drainage systems.
In Wilmington, Ill., along the Kankakee River, the Police Department warned of flash flooding “that may occur without any warning” as ice moved downstream. In Niagara Falls, N.Y., crews raced to remove a large tree blocking a creek, a potential flood risk during the coming thaw. And at Oakland University in suburban Detroit, a library was closed Friday because of a water main break that flooded the building.
Read the story from The New York Times by Mitch Smith and Julie Bosman - “Midwest Weather Whiplash: From Deep Freeze to Melt, Bringing New Risks.”
