Brutal cold complicates jobs of firefighters, shelters, police
Body found outside shop in Woburn
As gusts of wind made single-digit temperatures feel brutally colder yesterday, Newton firefighters battled a blaze on Woodward Street while trying to keep their balance on surfaces that the spray of fire hoses turned into instant skating rinks.
Meanwhile, scores of homeless people woke up in the warmth of Boston area shelters that accommodated overflow crowds, drawn inside by the threat of Wednesday's storm.
And in Woburn, State Police were called to the Stop & Shop at 2 Elm St., where the body of an unidentified male was found about 8:30 a.m. yesterday.
Autopsy results were pending, and a spokesman for the Middlesex district attorney's office said it was too soon to say if the death resulted from the cold.
In Newton, everyone escaped without injury from a fire that began about 9:30 a.m. in the basement of a residence on the south side of Woodward Street, just east of the intersection with Pine Ridge Road.
With some forecasters estimating that the wind chill had dipped toward minus 20 degrees, firefighters faced multiple challenges.
"The weather is affecting all operations, everything's freezing," Joe LaCroix, Newton's fire chief, said as he stood in the middle of Woodward Street speaking with reporters. "The guys are slipping and falling and whatnot."
Behind him, swirling smoke poured out of the charred residence, enveloping the house next door one moment and forming a thick, gray haze out front the next minute.
Coughing firefighters scurried off the front porch, where they were ripping into the underside of the porch roof, then returned when the smoke went elsewhere.
LaCroix called it "a labor-intensive fire" and bumped it up to three alarms to provide backup and relief for firefighters.
The name of the homeowner was not available at the scene, and a few of the young men who were inside when the fire started took refuge in a neighbor's house.
They walked away without a word to reporters after 11 a.m.
Also displaced yesterday were 24 residents, including four children, from an apartment house at 300 Meridian St. in East Boston, where a fire in a basement electrical panel was reported at 12:17 p.m.
Steve MacDonald, a spokesman for the Boston Fire Department, said the chief on the scene estimated damage at $150,000.
Power was shut off in the building, he said, and representatives from the mayor's office were helping the Red Cross ensure that residents had a place to stay for the next couple of nights.
Meanwhile, a burst sprinkler pipe at the Independence Mall in Kingston forced the mall's evacuation yesterday evening.
The pipe burst at a coupling in an access corridor at the mall, and water flowed through light fixtures and caused the collapse of portions of the ceiling. No one was injured, said Kingston fire Captain Adam Hatch. The mall should be open today.
Finding shelter from Wednesday's snowstorm and subsequent cold were the homeless who headed indoors.
Lyndia Downie, president of the Pine Street Inn, said 42 people slept on the floor Wednesday night, after staff took 86 others to nearby shelters, where they filled every available bed.
"The good news is that people came in, it was warm, and they weren't outside," she said. "We only saw 25 people on the street, compared to, oh, 50 or 60 on a night when it's not so cold or damp. Our daytime street team was out Tuesday and Wednesday letting people know about the weather and trying to get them to come in before the snow and the cold. We hope that's what paid off."
Lieutenant Rich McCready of Boston EMS said it appeared that the agency handled no cases related to the cold yesterday, though it was difficult to tell if one call for a cardiac arrest had anything to do with the weather.
"At the moment, people are being smart," he said, a sentiment echoed by Petty Officer Connie Terrell of the US Coast Guard in Boston, who said that "it sounds like everyone is faring pretty well."
At Boston Medical Center, Dr. Wrenn Levenberg, a resident physician in the emergency room, said one patient was treated for "exposure for several hours in the cold, with damage to both hands and feet."
She advised people who must go outside on bitterly cold days to keep all exposed areas protected.
Rising temperatures and increasing clouds should offer respite today, said Charlie Foley, meteorologist for the National Weather Service. As for the cold, blame a low pressure system.
"The low did two things: It brought the snow, and as it departed, it brought the cold arctic air," Foley said. "It had a twofold purpose and it just drew down this cold Canadian air on northwest winds. So in spite of the sunshine, it was still bitterly cold."
Indeed, he added, "with a clear sky, any heating from the sun just goes right up into the atmosphere, and the temperature plummets. The clouds act as somewhat of a blanket to moderate things." 