By Carol Thompson, Anne Snabes, Jennifer Pignolet, The Detroit News
First responders, hospitals and organizations that provide temporary shelter during extreme cold snaps are bracing for multiple days of frigid weather bearing down this week on southeast Michigan.
Covenant House Michigan, a Detroit-based emergency shelter for young adults, has a normal capacity of 45, but during extreme weather conditions, it makes as many overflow beds available as needed, CEO Meagan Dunn said.
“We try not to cap it,” Dunn said. “With these frigid temperatures, we just take in as many people as we possibly can.”
Frigid is right.
Arctic air will hang over Metro Detroit on Friday and through the weekend, bringing wind chills below minus 15 degrees Fahrenheit on Saturday and Sunday mornings, according to forecasts, leading to warnings from health officials about frostbite and falls.
High temperatures are expected to reach 32 degrees on Wednesday and 23 degrees on Thursday, then remain under 8 degrees from Friday-Sunday, when they could reach close to 14 degrees as a high, National Weather Service meteorologists in White Lake Township predicted Tuesday.
Detroit Chief Public Health Officer Denise Fair Razo declared a cold-weather health emergency last Friday. Two standby shelters are now open in addition to the city’s regular shelters for those who need housing right away. Michigan’s most populous city also has street outreach teams in place.
Terry Linzner, Detroit’s homelessness solutions director, said Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries has a standby shelter now open for adults and families, and the Pope Francis Center has one open for adults only. Those in need can also call (866) 313-2520 at any time to get help finding shelter, she said.
“It’s activated around the clock,” Linzner said. “Households can use that number and call at any time.”
Since the weekend, it has been “all hands on deck” at Covenant House Michigan, Dunn said. The nonprofit’s street outreach teams are working around the clock to find people who need shelter, drive them to a warming shelter and give them a bag with a hat, gloves and nonperishable foods.
Dunn asked people to call their street outreach team at (313) 459-4345 to report when they see someone who looks like they need help. The phone line is available 24/7, she said.
“These are unsafe temperatures,” Dunn said. “They are very dangerous, so whatever we can do to proactively pick folks up and take them to a safe place that is warm, that’s all we’re really focused on at this point.”
How to detect frostbite
Extreme cold can be dangerous, particularly for people who live outdoors or are vulnerable to falls on ice.
Corewell Health family medicine physician Dr. Asha Shajahan said she sees homeless patients at a weekly clinic at the Pope Francis Center in Detroit on Fridays. Last week, she saw “so much frostbite.” One patient had frostbite on a hand, and some had frostbite on their toes, which can occur when people wear wet socks in cold weather.
“It looks like a burn,” Shajahan said. “It’s really unfortunate.”
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, frostbite symptoms start with cold, pale, or grayish skin, numbness, tingling, and a “pins and needles” feeling, progressing to hard, waxy skin, aching pain, and potential blisters, with severe cases leading to black, dead tissue (gangrene). Early signs include redness or pain in cold-exposed skin, but you might not know you have it due to numbness, so watch for skin turning white/pale and feeling firm.
The doctor also sees patients at a family medicine clinic in Novi. She hasn’t seen any frostbite there during the current cold snap, but she has heard about frostnip, which is when people have a “cold, numb tingling feeling” or a “burning sensation” that improves when they get indoors, Shajahan said. She also has seen an increase in falls on ice over the past week.
Shajahan recommended people avoid going outside when the temperatures are as cold as they are this week. If they have to go outside, she recommends dressing in three layers.
“Your inner layer is keeping you warm and your skin dry, so usually like something wool, and then your middle layer is probably something that’s more insulating, like a fleece product,” she said. “And then your outer layer, you want to try to make it like wind-resistant, water-resistant, so it’s blocking that from coming in.”
The doctor also recommended wearing hats, gloves, mittens, scarves and face coverings, as the areas of the body that are most likely to get frost bitten are the fingers, toes, ears and other extremities.
Dr. Brad Uren, an associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Michigan Health, said cold-related illnesses such as exposure, hypothermia and frostbite do happen during winter, primarily among people who are unhoused or who work outdoors for long periods of time.
The recent blustery winter weather has led to a slight increase in injuries due to slips and falls and motor vehicle collisions, Uren said.
In a statement, Henry Ford Health said the Detroit-based health system doesn’t track weather-related emergency admissions, but said some locations are reporting increased visits related to the extreme cold, including injuries from falls, cases of frostbite, cardiovascular concerns and respiratory conditions that can be worsened by exposure to the cold.
How schools are affected
The frigid temperatures are being felt in other ways. Northville Superintendent RJ Webber said he learned early Tuesday morning that 16 buses wouldn’t start because of the cold.
Webber said the district prioritized transporting students with disabilities and sent messages to families well before pickup time that their bus wouldn’t be coming and they would have to drive their kids to school, he said.
“We gave them that notice as soon as we practically could,” Webber said.
Whether to have school is always a district-by-district decision, he said, one made based on localized weather projections, student population needs and local road conditions.
Schools where few students walk may be more inclined to have school, Webber said, than ones where students are going to have to brave the cold or snow to walk to school. More rural or hilly areas might have to close schools for poor road conditions, he said.
Northville is in both Oakland and Wayne counties, so if there is a potential for the weather to disrupt the school week, each county will hold a virtual meeting with all the superintendents and a meteorologist.
“We will have a conversation around the likelihood of who’s going to be in or out,” he said.
Webber said he will get up at 3 a.m. to drive the roads after a storm to see if they can have school. In December, he posted a video on Instagram at 4:15 a.m. of himself standing at the clock tower in downtown Northville, announcing that there would, in fact, be school that day.
“The roads are safe, we can’t wait to see you today,” he said in the video.
Webber said the goal is always to have school when possible.
“We serve kids who might not eat regularly without us,” he said. “We love what we do. We take care of our kids.”
Tina Kerr, the executive director of the Michigan Association of Superintendents and Administrators, said superintendents always want to “make sure you’re not alone” in having or canceling school.
Most school districts’ policy manuals have stipulations on wind chills that would cancel school, somewhere between minus 15 or minus 20 degrees for an automatic closure.
“It’s always about kids standing at a bus stop,” Kerr said. “…You want to keep them safe.”
