Record-Setting Cold in East Sends Thousands of Homeless to Shelters

Record cold swept the eastern part of the nation Sunday, plunging temperatures into the low teens in the South and sending 23,000 of New York’s homeless people scurrying to city shelters for warmth.

Up to five inches of snow fell over the upper Great Lakes, the National Weather Service reported.

Winter storm warnings were posted for heavy snow, gusty winds and cold over the shore of Lake Ontario, western New York state, western Pennsylvania and northeast Ohio.

Temperatures were at freezing or colder from northern New Jersey and across much of the Ohio Valley.

The cold wave broke eight record low temperatures in Florida, North Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Asheville, N.C., had the coldest record low at 11 degrees. It was 14 in Huntsville, Ala.

In Tennessee, lows were 10 to 15 degrees below normal, with readings of 10 in Clarksville, 13 in Knoxville, 14 in Bristol, 15 in Nashville and 21 in Memphis, according to the weather service.

Tony Vargas, a spokesman for New York’s Human Resources, said that 8,305 people jammed 20 shelters in the five boroughs Saturday night and Sunday morning.

Another 14,500 people in 3,960 families slept in 50 welfare hotels and eight family shelters, bringing the total homeless population housed by the city to nearly 23,000 and breaking a record set two weeks ago when 8,239 sought haven from the cold, Vargas said.

The temperature in New York dipped early Sunday to 20 degrees, with a wind chill factor of 3 degrees--the coldest weather of the season, the weather service said.

Police and social workers in Philadelphia rounded up the city’s street people and took them to shelters.