WBEZ | cold

Is there a time and a place for fur?

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 09:37:00 -0600

A few weeks ago my colleague Leah Pickett wrote a blog post about how to stay warm yet remain fashionable when the temperatures dip, suggesting, to my chagrin, that black puffer coats are démodé (I got one for Christmas and I LOVE it. You will literally have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.)

I think there are small ways one can try to perk up a winter wardrobe (I choose to express myself with a pair of outlandish teal leather gloves) but at a certain temperature (26 degrees Fahrenheit), it all goes out the window. Earlier this week I walked the dog while wearing polka dot pajama pants over wicking running pants for an extra layer of warmth. Hat head is a small price to pay for an insulated noggin. The company Sorel has launched a successful campaign convincing women that bulky, furry snowboots are a fashion statement (successful in that yours truly owns a pair of Helen of Tundra boots a few years ago and will wear them over said pajama pants.)

In this vein, I have a theory that in Chicago, anyway, at a certain temperature, animal fur is considered slightly more tolerable.

If you pressed me, I couldn’t argue why humans should wear fur, just the same way I know deep in my soul that humans probably don’t need to eat meat. We do it because it’s enjoyable and feels nice and it’s one of those ethical issues that, for some, is easy to not worry about. When some of us see a delicious buffalo wing, we don’t envision a miserable, trapped chicken and when I wear my very warm fur scarf, it doesn’t resemble a terrified, doomed fox (or raccoon? Or coyote? I have no idea.) It’s a moral elision, where it’s easy not to think too hard about it for those who don’t want to.

But a lady (or gent! Because I’ve seen these guys) wearing a full-length fur coat on the bus in single-degree Chicago temperatures, stirs up far fewer objections, at least in my mind, than observing a fashionable young woman trotting around in a fur vest on Oak Street on a fall day*. The ends maybe do not justify the means but one fur coat looks like survival whereas the other simply is a sign of ostentatiousness. When the temperatures dip, wear what you want: pajamas, fur, a heating blanket plugged into a portable generator, whatever. Then again, perhaps it’s not a measure of whether some fur is justified and some is not: perhaps when it’s just that cold, one is too busy staying warm to have much of an opinion on what others are wearing.

There are plenty of you out there for whom fur is never acceptable in any situation. But are there others out there who let their ethical (or fashionable) guard down the same time the mercury slides down?

*For some reason, fur looks much less strange on older people than it does on the young.

Chicago woman, 83, dies of cold exposure

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 09:55:00 -0600

Authorities say an 83-year-old Chicago woman was the first cold-related death of the season in Cook County.

The Cook County Medical Examiner's Office says a relative found Florence Hawkins unresponsive in her bed. She was pronounced dead at her home on the city's South Side on Tuesday.

The medical examiner's office says an autopsy on Wednesday found Hawkins died of cold exposure and that heart disease was a contributing factor.

The National Weather Service reports that the low temperature on Tuesday was 17 degrees and Monday night's low was 23 degrees.

Authorities say there were at least seven cold-related deaths in Cook County during the cold season of 2011-2012 with the first reported on Dec. 3, 2011.

Snow ends, but dig out and recovery just beginning

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 12:09:00 -0600

Updated: 3:09 PM

Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley says the city's public schools will be open tomorrow. But Daley says there is still a "long way to go" as the city digs out from the third-largest winter storm in its history.

Daley spoke Thursday morning, two days after the snow started falling in Chicago. The storm left more than 20 inches of snow at O'Hare International Airport. The mayor says "while all the snow has ended, the effects of the snow will be with us for a while."

Chicago's iconic Lake Shore Drive was reopened early Thursday morning, after being closed down since Tuesday night due to the massive snow storm that hit the city.

Crews continued working to clear and reopen Lake Shore Drive overnight, which was closed on Tuesday evening after blizzard conditions, snowdrifts and a series of traffic accidents made the road treacherous and impassable.

Meanwhile, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s chief of staff, Raymond Orozco, told reporters Thursday morning that plowing the city’s side streets are now the top priority.

“Most of the focus has moved to the side streets, just eight hours after the storm ended,” he said.

The announcement comes after crews worked through the night to re-open Lake Shore Drive around 5:30 Thursday morning. Orozco said the city has in its possession 519 vehicles that were abandoned on Lake Shore Drive during the snow storm. He said a website has been created for vehicle owners to search for their license plates to find out where their cars are being held. Orozco addressed concerns from the public that they couldn’t find where the city had taken their car which had been abandoned on Lake Shore Drive.

“Because the situation was fluid as we got to a relocation site that may have been full, we moved that vehicle to another relocation site. So early on the situation was fluid.”

Hundreds of motorists were stranded on the Drive as a result of the closure, and some waited for hours to be evacuated from their cars.

Frigid temperatures and subzero wind-chills threaten to make travel and recovery efforts difficult during the next few days. That's according to emergency management leaders with the City of Chicago.

During a news conference late Wednesday, city officials urged people to stay home if at all possible, as temperatures are expected to drop sharply during the next 12 hours. Public health officials, however, encouraged people to check on friends, family and neighbors. So far there have been at least four deaths attributed to the weather in the Chicago area.

Emergency officials are also urging those shoveling snow to be extra careful, especially those with heart conditions 40 people in the Chicago-area died of heart attacks sparked by shoveling snow during the major blizzard of 1999, according to the National Weather Service.

Bitter cold lingers over Chicago region

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 14:00:00 -0600

The wind chill Friday morning is making the temperature feel like it's below zero.

Stephen Rodriguez is a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. He said the wind chill is expected to taper off a bit as the day goes on.

"Despite this ridge of high pressure moving over and sunny skies today, we can still only anticipate forecast highs trying to struggle to get out of the single digits today," he said.

It's expected to warm up just a little this weekend, getting into the teens. For Sunday's Bears' game, we're looking at a high of 20.

Meantime, Illinois officials say residents can take refuge at more than 120 warming centers, including the seven Illinois
Tollway Oases, as bitter cold settles over the state. The Illinois Department of Human Services says the other centers are located at IDHS offices throughout the state and will be open during regular business hours.

IDHS Secretary Michelle R.B. Saddler says the centers are a safe place to stay for people who need a warm place to go or who cannot afford to turn up the heat during the day.