How Cold Was It?

How cold was it? You tell me. What is the freezing point of neon?

The bank sign, which usually flashes the time and weather, is fully frozen. It’s neon solid frozen as solid as everything around it.

In Northern America, cold isn’t unexpected but this cold… no.

The above the fold headline in the local paper shows a picture of the bank sign with the caption, “How cold is it? You don’t want to know.” They didn't. Nor did they want to know how cold it would get.

But they found out.The local news was all about the weather. Stories about emergency shelters opening, not only for the homeless but for those homed with inadequate heating ( which is most of them), are dispersed with Breaking News! giving increasingly lowering temperatures.

“Arctic Catastrophe” screams the banners. If it bleeds it leads, not that people are bleeding. It is too cold. The blood would freeze solid. Still bad news sells.

Negative zero, yes they have experienced that. A standard winter has several days of that. But negative fifty? Negative sixty? No. That is North Pole and South Pole type temperatures. Unheard of.

Temperatures that can cause frostbite within seconds on unprotected skin. The normal advice, layering, face coverings, aren’t even close to good enough.

The hardy homeless, these men ( mostly men), that survive through the standard winter weather, flood the dreaded shelters. More are opened. It isn’t enough. Churches empty their coffers paying for hotel rooms, to help get them off the streets.

Arrests soar as those with nowhere else to go, decide jail is better than freezing to death. The police department, understanding, fill cells that they will empty without charges once the cold breaks.

Even so, the temperature continues to drop.

Even underground power lines, protected from the wind and rain, ice and snow, are no match for the hardest of freezes. Electricity goes out everywhere. Gas in backup generators freeze. A series of events unheard of and completely unanticipated.

Emergency calls are unable to get out. The trucks aren’t able to deliver much needed medicine and other crucial supplies. Their engines, rated to drive in the hardest weather conditions, are no match for the brutal reality of the deepest of deep freezes.

In desperation, people start fires inside fireplaces unchecked or cleaned in years. The Fire fighters aren’t able to get to them to help. With truck engine locked and water frozen, all they can do is helplessly watch.

Lives and property are lost. Still, the temperature continues to plummet.

The biggest state of emergency ever declared, is declared over the area. There is talk of moving them out, evacuating them south.

The problem is the same that doesn’t allow trucks full of much needed supplies to get in. Neither airplanes or helicopters can fly into the Second Antarctica, as the press is calling it.

To make it worse, it is a dry cold. Snow or even ice, would give them much needed water. The air is almost waterless, with a humidity level at five percent. It isn’t likely to change.

Finally, the amazing temperature bottoms out at an amazingly low -80 degrees.

Special vehicles from the military, rated to run at temperatures even less than that, are shipped in. They send them out with personnel that have worked in the Antarctic to start rescue and recovery operations.

These men and women never, in their wildest thoughts, believed that they would be operating in the mainland of America. That their own fellow Americans would need their help.

They moved through the frozen wasteland, pulling open doors, long frozen shut. What they find behind the doors will give them nightmares for years after.

Entire families, huddled in one bed, covered with every blanket and coat they can find. All blue and frozen as solid as their environment.

Babies and children, unable to be removed from their parent’s arms due to rigor mortis and frozen limbs.

They load them up as single units placing them in the morgue wagon, a converted vehicle last used for research in the Antarctic.

They despair finding anyone alive. Finally they reach one of the final homes.

“Christ alive, I see movement!” Under the amazing pile of blankets, there is a small movement. They quickly move the blankets out of the way. In the middle of the expected group of people, a small baby lays. Its tiny hands and feet are moving!

They are quick to gather it up, placing it in the special clothing they have been carrying around in the vain hope of finding someone alive.

The clothing heats up the person placed in it. It is a stop gap measure. It will keep the baby alive long enough for them to get the child’s blood warmed, heating from the inside/ out.

It is rushed into a heated vehicle where a medic takes over. And IV is started and warmed O + blood starts running through her veins. Another is started for nutrition. The president is notified that a survivor has been found.

My life hasn’t been easy since that day. My whole family, community, and state are gone from the deep freeze, the arctic blast that froze the entire area for a week.

Just a week but it changed everything. I was adopted by the president and his wife.

I grew up in luxury, the lucky, blessed child the sole survivor of the catastrophe. I was told from the beginning about where I came from and the deep cold that took my family. As I grew, my interest in my past also did. I became obsessed with finding a solution. With my parents' support, I focused on science. After much trial and error, I developed the solution that leads me here today.

That is accepting this award for the development of the Heated House, able to keep a home and the family inside safe for temperatures down to -80 °. No matter what the

future weather brings, no one else needs to lose their life’s.