With the temperature not expected to rise above minus 14 degrees today, Evanston schools and most government operations are closed — with many residents hunkering down at home until the cold snap passes.
The city will offer drop-in activities for children ages 5-14 at the Fleetwood-Jourdain Community Center and Levy Senior Center today, but all other parks and recreation facilities will be closed.
One bright spot on the horizon — temperatures will start warming up tomorrow, and the National Weather Services says we can look forward to a relatively balmy high temperature of 36 degrees on Saturday.
And, if you parked your car in a city garage earlier this week to get it out of the snow, you can leave it there a while longer. The city has extended the free parking period at it’s three downtown garages through end-of-day Thursday.
Read more stories from our ongoing coverage of the polar vortex.
Update 8:50 a.m.: Evanston police this morning did well-being checks on residents inthe 2300 and 2400 blocks of Bradley Place after a power failure hit that area — potentially leaving many residents without heat.
ComEd says the outage was caused by damaged power lines, and the utility hopes to have power restored by around 1 p.m. today.