Code Blue

With temperatures in the low 20s and wind gusts of 30 miles per hour, Baltimore officials declared the season's first "Code Blue" day Tuesday, extending hours at the city's shelter and opening an additional facility to offer the homeless a respite from the elements. Forecasts called for the bitter conditions to continue Wednesday, with lows in the low 20s and gusts again of up to 30 miles per hour. City officials announce a Code Blue day when temperatures are expected to be below 25 degrees with winds of 15 miles per hour or higher, when temperatures are less than 20 degrees, or during other periods of intense winter weather.

The National Weather Service is calling for Tuesday to be mostly cloudy in the Baltimore area, with occasional flurries before 1 p.m., a high near 33 and northwest winds of 13 to 18 miles per hour, gusting as high as 30 miles per hour. No snow accumulation is expected. Because of the cold temperatures, Baltimore has activated its Code Blue program , which offers additional services to the homeless. A gale warning is in effect Tuesday for the Maryland portion of the Chesapeake Bay between Sandy Point and Smith Point, including all inlets.

The National Weather Service is calling for Tuesday to be mostly cloudy in the Baltimore area, with occasional flurries before 1 p.m., a high near 33 and northwest winds of 13 to 18 miles per hour, gusting as high as 30 miles per hour. No snow accumulation is expected. Because of the cold temperatures, Baltimore has activated its Code Blue program , which offers additional services to the homeless. A gale warning is in effect Tuesday for the Maryland portion of the Chesapeake Bay between Sandy Point and Smith Point, including all inlets.

It will now need to feel at least 7 degrees colder on a winter day for the mayor's Code Blue program — which requires the city to offer additional homeless services and encourages private organizations to do the same — to be activated, a health official said Wednesday. "There are jurisdictions north of us that have fewer [cold emergency] days even though they're colder than us," said Brian M. Schleter, a spokesman for the Baltimore City Health Department, explaining that the decision to adjust the Code Blue criteria was made in part to keep Baltimore's actions in line with other cities on the eastern seaboard.

Baltimore City's health commissioner, Oxiris Barbot, has declared a Code Blue alert and announced that 10 emergency shelters will extend their hours. Anticipating plummeting temperatures, the city issued the alert Saturday and urged the city's homeless and those living without heat to retreat to the 10 emergency shelters. According to the National Weather Service, temperatures will be in the high 30s today, dipping to the mid- to low 20s tonight. City officials announce a Code Blue when temperatures are expected to be below 25 degrees with winds of 15 miles per hour or higher or during other periods of intense winter weather.

Anna Richardson is eighty three years old. She is not unlike many patients in the autumn of their lives; she has collected a vast number of illnesses associated with aging. She has high blood pressure, cataracts, and severe arthritis; she is unable to walk without assistance. Anna -- the name, of course, is not real -- also suffers from senile dementia.Anna does not know where she is, nor who are her visitors; she has been unable to comprehend these simple things for many years. Her dementia is advanced to the point that she even forgets sometimes that she is eating; hours later you may find her in bed, still holding food in her mouth, forgetting to swallow.

The city Health Department and the Oliver Community Association announced yesterday that they have agreed to work together to run an emergency cold-weather homeless shelter in the East Baltimore neighborhood. The agreement, announced at a news conference by city health officials and neighborhood activists, resolved a dispute over plans to locate the shelter at the Oliver Recreation Center at 1400 E. Federal St. Community association leaders complained last month that city officials had not adequately consulted them before choosing the center, which will house homeless people on extremely cold nights that are declared "code blue" by the Health Department.

The street is no place for a 24-year-old single mother and her four daughters - especially with below-freezing temperatures. But that is the situation Melissa Ray found herself in last night after she and her children were forced to leave her friend's East Baltimore apartment because of a landlord's threat of eviction. Ray said she has been in Baltimore for two weeks since fleeing South Carolina on a Greyhound bus to escape an abusive boyfriend. When her housing fell through yesterday, she was forced to find a place to stay, a search that led her to the city's Code Blue emergency shelter at 1400 E. Federal St. last night.

It will now need to feel at least 7 degrees colder on a winter day for the mayor's Code Blue program — which requires the city to offer additional homeless services and encourages private organizations to do the same — to be activated, a health official said Wednesday. "There are jurisdictions north of us that have fewer [cold emergency] days even though they're colder than us," said Brian M. Schleter, a spokesman for the Baltimore City Health Department, explaining that the decision to adjust the Code Blue criteria was made in part to keep Baltimore's actions in line with other cities on the eastern seaboard.

The deaths of two homeless men who spent Saturday night huddled under blankets in downtown Baltimore in freezing temperatures are heartrending indicators of a flaw in the city's "Code Blue" winter weather emergency shelter plan. Under the plan, city health officials open a 200-bed emergency shelter when the temperature falls below 25 degrees and wind and snow are expected. That shelter is meant to supplement 18 other year-round shelters in the city that tend to fill up fast on normal nights and even faster on frigid ones.

Baltimore City's health commissioner, Oxiris Barbot, has declared a Code Blue alert and announced that 10 emergency shelters will extend their hours. Anticipating plummeting temperatures, the city issued the alert Saturday and urged the city's homeless and those living without heat to retreat to the 10 emergency shelters. According to the National Weather Service, temperatures will be in the high 30s today, dipping to the mid- to low 20s tonight. City officials announce a Code Blue when temperatures are expected to be below 25 degrees with winds of 15 miles per hour or higher or during other periods of intense winter weather.

With temperatures in the low 20s and wind gusts of 30 miles per hour, Baltimore officials declared the season's first "Code Blue" day Tuesday, extending hours at the city's shelter and opening an additional facility to offer the homeless a respite from the elements. Forecasts called for the bitter conditions to continue Wednesday, with lows in the low 20s and gusts again of up to 30 miles per hour. City officials announce a Code Blue day when temperatures are expected to be below 25 degrees with winds of 15 miles per hour or higher, when temperatures are less than 20 degrees, or during other periods of intense winter weather.

The roast turkey and ham came up short, so the volunteer Christmas Day crew at Red Springs Cafe went to backup provisions, carving up the 20-pound bird that had been planned for the restaurant owner's family dinner and frying chicken from the cafe's regular stock. They were figuring on serving 250 or 350 meals to homeless people, but the need turned out to be greater. "It's been a busy, blessed day for us," said Cheryl P. Townsend, who owns the restaurant specializing in Southern cooking.

City officials are expected to designate today a "Code Blue," because of the frigid weather blanketing the region. But that terminology will not pack the same meaning as it used to. No extra shelters are scheduled to open, as had been the case under previous Code Blue designations. Instead, the city plans to run vans today for those needing to escape what should be one of the coldest days of the year, with the temperature expected to dip into the teens with the wind chill. Vans will take passengers to the city's winter shelter, an old school in the 1600 block of Guilford Ave. that opened late last year and houses more than 300 people a night.

Nights like these are the worst, when the mercury dips below 32 degrees and the streets are cold, even for a man whose bed is usually nothing more than a bench downtown. And so on a night like this, Michael Jones makes his way onto a bus that shuttles him to the city shelter, where he joins nearly 300 others to weather that most difficult part of the year when the sun sets and the streets stand empty and the cold closes in all around. Jones has been homeless for about eight years, spending nights in various spots downtown.

Sustained high winds made cold temperatures seem colder and disrupted electrical power to more than 60,000 Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. customers over the weekend. Though the winds had diminished by yesterday afternoon, BGE was still catching up with the damage scattered across its system. "It's a different kind of effort in the sense that these aren't big blocks that are out and we can simply bring back on," said Rob Gould, a BGE spokesman. Emergency and fire officials in the region reported no serious weather-related incidents, though winds caused a few vacant houses in Baltimore to collapse.

With winter approaching and temperatures falling, the city announced yesterday that its cold-weather shelter is ready for business should weather conditions turn severe. The "code blue" shelter will open for its third year to take in the homeless should the temperature fall below 25 degrees with sustained winds of 15 mph. This will be the shelter's second year in the Oliver neighborhood, on the second floor of the Oliver Recreation Center at 1400 E. Federal St. Last winter the shelter opened on 22 nights, shielding 3,780 people from the elements.

Two homeless men died and a third was hospitalized in critical condition yesterday after spending a freezing night in a small brick plaza in downtown Baltimore, authorities said. The three men were found huddled "under a couple of heavy coats and blankets" at Pratt and Eutaw streets after a dispatcher received a call about 8 a.m., said Chief Kevin Cartwright, a spokesman for the Fire Department. He said medics arrived to discover that the men were not breathing and showed few vital signs.

After exposure to extreme cold contributed to the deaths of four homeless people this month, the city is raising the temperature threshold for the Code Blue emergency shelter program from 25 to 32 degrees. The city's new health commissioner, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, made the change yesterday and said that a review of information on hypothermia shows that "there was still quite a risk up to 32 degrees" and that about half the city's deaths from the cold in the past few years had occurred in temperatures over 25 degrees.

The deaths of two homeless men who spent Saturday night huddled under blankets in downtown Baltimore in freezing temperatures are heartrending indicators of a flaw in the city's "Code Blue" winter weather emergency shelter plan. Under the plan, city health officials open a 200-bed emergency shelter when the temperature falls below 25 degrees and wind and snow are expected. That shelter is meant to supplement 18 other year-round shelters in the city that tend to fill up fast on normal nights and even faster on frigid ones.