A winter storm blew threw Chicago over the weekend, snarling traffic and canceling thousands of flights, but even after the snow cleared out, bitter cold has kept those impacts going.
Jordan Kessler has been trying to get home from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, but is still in the city.
“Right as I stepped off the Blue Line it was canceled,” Kessler said.
Tammie Karpinski is having similar issues trying to get home via Amtrak.
“About an hour before I got here I got an e-mail saying that the train was canceled,” she said.
Kessler was supposed to fly to Chicago on Friday and the flight was rescheduled, and now thanks to the cold his return flight is experiencing similar challenges.
“I told my wife I got O’Hared,” he said. “You’re ready to go home, you come to the airport, you look up at the board, and the flights are canceled.”
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Kessler said that the earliest he’ll be able to fly home to Charlottesville is Wednesday, so he’s spending time at the airport and catching up on work.
Karpinski meanwhile is hoping to get a train sooner than that back to Peru, Illinois.
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“I know on the way here we had to stop a lot because the arms were frozen up and they weren’t coming down automatically,” she said.
Amtrak paid for overnight accommodations for Karpinski and other travelers amid a series of issues at Union Station Monday. Cold weather caused significant problems with switches and broken rails among other issues, forcing cancellations on Amtrak and Metra trains.
A Metra spokesperson told NBC Chicago they anticipate similar issues Tuesday, but that they’re prepared to deal with the ongoing cold.
“We are just going to do what we are doing today,” Marta Hill said. “We have an amazing staff and like I said we are working around the clock and we’re also going to keep looking at the weather alerts and if we need, whether it’s extra equipment or extra crew, we will call them in and we will handle the situation accordingly.”
Still, travelers in Chicago are trying to make the best of a bad situation.
“And because I’m here so long I get to go to another Hawks game,” Kessler said.
Temperatures are expected to struggle once again to rise above zero degrees Fahrenheit on Tuesday, but those readings could warm into the 20s by Wednesday, according to forecast models.
