PORTLAND, Ore — Tyrone McDougald wore a long-eared, leopard-style hat as he sorted through racks of warm clothes at a homeless service center in Portland, Oregon. He was already wearing multiple layers, but with no roof of his own, he grabbed two more coats to help him face a bitter cold snap arriving in the Northwest.
“I’m hoping that I can get in a shelter,” he said. “That would relieve a lot of the burden.”
An approaching storm was expected to deliver snow to Portland, a city more accustomed to winter rain, by Saturday. It’s one of a number of sprawling storms bringing everything from what the National Weather Service called “life-threatening wind chills” in South Dakota to the possibility of tornadoes in the South
School and flights were canceled in advance in parts of the South and Midwest. Republican condidates campaigning ahead of Monday’s Iowa caucuses were contending with a blizzard warning covering most of the state, and Nikki Haley’s campaign canceled three Friday events and said it would be hosting “telephone town halls.”
Julie Showers, the nonprofit’s spokesperson, said people were desperate for dry clothes and shoes after days of cold rain.
“We worry about frostbite, hypothermia,” she said. “There are a lot of people experiencing homelessness in Portland that are in mental health crisis … and slowly become hypothermic laying on the street because they don’t understand how cold it’s getting.”
In the Chicago area, which could see more than half a foot (15 cm) of snow by Saturday, advocates also worried for the growing population of migrants sent up from the U.S.-Mexico border. Hundreds are staying in eight parked “warming buses” to avoid sleeping outside while they await space in city-run shelters.
Among them was Angelo Travieso, a Venezuelan bused up from Texas. He wore a light jacket and sandals with socks.
“I slept sitting because there is almost no space left,” he said. “The buses are also small and you practically have to stay inside because of the heating, because it is deadly cold outside.”
In Portland and Seattle, temperature highs were expected to hover around the mid to upper 20s (0 to -3.3 Celsius) and lows in the low 20s and teens (about -5 C to -7.7 C) from Friday through at least Monday.
