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UP FRONTFriday 29 December 2017
Rising energy costs eyed amid brutal cold snap gripping US
By DAVID SHARP Even before the cold snap, Chelse Volgyes clears snow from her car in Erie, Pa., Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2017. Freezing
Associated Press the Department of Energy temperatures and below-zero wind chills socked much of the northern United States on Wednesday,
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) projected that heating and the snow-hardened city of Erie, dug out from a record snowfall.
— Plunging temperatures costs were going to track
across half the country on upward this winter, and (Jack Hanrahan/Erie Times-News via AP)
Thursday underscored a many people are keeping
stark reality for low-income a wary eye on their fuel
Americans who rely on tanks to ensure they don’t
heating aid: Their dollars run out.
aren’t going to go as far The burden caused by
this winter because of rising higher prices and higher
energy costs. energy usage is felt by
Forecasters warned peo- all Americans, especially
ple to be wary of hypother- those who struggle to stay
mia and frostbite from an warm.
arctic blast that’s gripping Elizabeth Parker, 88, of San-
a large swath from the ford, Maine, said she lives
Midwest to the Northeast, in fear of running out of
where the temperature, heating fuel and remains
without the wind chill fac- vigilant in monitoring the
tored in, dipped to minus gauge outside her trailer.
32 (minus 35 Celsius) on She said she is allowed
Thursday morning in Water- to request a fuel delivery
town, New York. thanks to federal aid, but
only when her gauge dips But projected energy cost
increases will effectively re-
to one-eighth of a tank. duce the purchasing pow-
er by $330 million, making
“I couldn’t get along with- it imperative that the re-
maining funds be released,
out it,” said Parker, who said Mark Wolfe, executive
director of the National En-
lives with her 93-year-old ergy Assistance Directors’
Association. This winter, en-
husband, Robert Parker, ergy costs were projected
to grow by 12 percent for
along with a cat, a dog natural gas, 17 percent for
home heating oil, 18 per-
and four birds. cent for propane and 8
percent for electricity, ac-
Prolonged, dangerous cording to the U.S. Energy
Information Administration.
cold weather this week On Thursday, cold weather
records were set from Ar-
has sent advocates for the kansas to Maine, and the
cold air will linger through
homeless scrambling to the weekend, reaching as
far south as Texas and the
get people off the streets Florida Panhandle through
the weekend.
and to bring in extra beds In New Hampshire, the cold
set a record for the day of
for them. Warming centers minus 34 (minus 37 Celsius)
atop the Northeast’s high-
also were set up in some est peak, Mount Washing-
ton, where a video was
locations. Frozen pipes and posted showing a weather
observer emptying a pitch-
dead car batteries added er of boiling water into the
air, where it immediately
to the misery across the re- turns to snow.
In the Midwest, tempera-
gion. In western New York tures in Minneapolis aren’t
expected to top zero (mi-
and Erie, Pennsylvania, resi- nus 18 Celsius) this week-
end, and it likely will be in
dents were still cleaning up the teens (minus 11 Celsius
to minus 7 Celsius) when the
from massive snowfall. Fire- ball drops on New Year’s
Eve in New York City.q
fighters had to use a buck-
et loader to rescue some-
one trapped in her home in
Lorraine, New York.
In Ohio, a dog was found
frozen solid on the porch
of a house in Toledo, and a
third body was recovered
near a car that slid off an
icy road and flipped into
a canal days earlier in the
city of Oregon.
Despite the cold, there was
some good news for re-
cipients of federal aid from
the Low-Income Home En-
ergy Assistance Program.
President Donald Trump re-
leased nearly $3 billion, or
roughly 90 percent, of the
funding in October after
previously trying to elimi-
nate the program.
