In 1977, Cincinnati had almost 30 days that were below zero, and the Ohio River froze solid enough that people could walk on it. (I think someone drove a car onto it, though I don't know how far, or what the outcome was.) We lived in a fairly rural area, and I was off school for at least 2 weeks, if not longer, because of the temperatures. Too many kids walked to school, and that shit isn't safe.

Man, I sound like an old coot.

t edit Check that out: [link] That's the Ohio River, looking south into Covington, Kentucky. WHAT THE HELL. That's fucking cold, man.

As others have said, the main reason the schools are closed is that most kids don't have the clothing to dress for walking to a bus stop and waiting in 8-degree temperatures. While many could theoretically be warm enough with layers, except for their feet, neither they nor their parents have any experience with this kind of cold. We're also a land of carports, not garages, so many cars aren't starting.

On the other hand, people don't die in heat waves here.

I remember stories of the ice floes breaking up in the big rivers in the spring and the ice blocking the rivers and causing floods. National Guard units went out to blow the ice dams up. Good times Back In The Day.

I do worry about kids without good coats not having enough food at home, either, and they are missing out on school breakfast and lunch.

Yeah, that's a problem.

Come to think of it, we might have had a school closure for cold. I know I was home the day after an ice storm (the only one of my childhood) but I don't know whether school was closed or it was a weekend or holiday anyway.

Not only are they missing out on school breakfast and lunch, but they may well be home alone. And we've already had at least two space-heater-related fires just in the Atlanta area.

A day or two without enough to eat is awful, but the space heaters are terrifying.

someone could make a ton of dough opening their home to emergency day care. In TX and NY, I know you do not need a license for less than like 5 kids.

I spent an hour this morning reading articles about the blizzard Cincinnati (and much of the Midwest-NE region) had on January 26, 1978. Someone called wanting to know how many days the city schools were closed because of the blizzard. It turns out that noplace in the paper on the 26th, 27th, 28th, or 29th was there a specific mention of school closings, though there were tons of articles about mandatory no drive orders, people being rescued from their cars on highways and in rural areas, and a boat getting crushed into a dam by ice. Luckily in the paper for Monday the 30th there was an article stating that the city was planning to re-open schools on the 30th (rural areas were mostly still closed).

Now Teppy has me wanting to go back to the microfilm and see what the school closures were in 1977!

Here in an article about the 1976-77 and 1977-78 winters, with more pictures of people walking across the Ohio river. [link]