People who work outdoors for a living piled on layers and pulled on long underwear, hats and scarves against the season's strongest blast of frigid air.
"You've got to make your money somehow," said Daniel Williams, a parking lot attendant in Buffalo, N.Y. "People pull in here and say, `Man, you must be freezing,' but I don't mind it. I've got my coat, my longjohns, my scarf, my hat."A cold spell that took hold on Christmas continued in much of the Northeast and Midwest Tuesday. Temperatures dropped to 18 below zero in Bismarck, N.D., and minus 10 in Minneapolis before dawn. The mercury in western New England was expected to fall as low as minus 30 by daybreak.
Snow was forecast in Minnesota, Maryland, West Virginia, Illinois and Kentucky.
The frigid weather caused pipes to burst and cars to break down. Homeless shelters were filled to capacity. In many cities, people slept on floors.
In New York City, many of the homeless headed to 10 shelters affiliated with Peter's Place to escape 12-degree temperatures.
Peter's Place offers meals, medical care and clothing to the elderly and frail but does not have beds. In the bitter cold of Monday night, the center was filled with as many as 130 people. Many waited for buses to take them to shelters around the city where they could sleep.
The cold has been blamed for at least two exposure deaths. In Indiana, an elderly woman died Sunday after she apparently slipped while walking her dog. And a 39-year-old Baltimore woman was found dead in a cemetery Sunday.
Rafael Caban, doorman at Boston's Hotel Meridien, said he heaped on four layers for his shift Monday. And when he gets home from work, he said, "It takes me an hour and a half to thaw out enough to take a hot shower."