More Treated For Cold-Related Ailments

12:30 p.m.


Hundreds wait outside the Smithsonian Castle for police to open the doors. Some people and kids take turns jamming into the back of an ambulance for warmth. Others are hugging the hood and grill for heat from idling engine.

Chief Phillip Morse says there is a total of 50 medical cases in Capitol area as of noon, 46 of them low-priority. He doesn't know the status of four people taken to hospitals.

11:05 a.m.

The Museum of Natural History Natural has had 100 people treated for cold weather-related ailments. Each of the Smithsonian museums started out with one warming center but so many people have flooded in that each now is operating three warming centers, according to Channel 8 reports.

One tour operator with almost 50 students from Florida and Arizona decided they had to give up. One 10-year-old boy lost all feeling in his feet and the decision was made not to venture outside again.

8:24 a.m.

(14th and C Street) -- In the American Red Cross mobile command headquarters, a bus parked on 14th and C streets, a half dozen staff and volunteers hunch over laptops and radios to monitor reports from law enforcement, homeland security and other government agencies along with radioed reports from their 60 volunteers cruising the mall.

So far they have received reports of about half dozen missing people, including a missing 69 year old, said spokesman Ryan Kaltenbaugh.

Increasing numbers of reports of hypothermia are starting to come in, he said.

"We're expecting a very busy day obviously," said Kaltenbaugh.

-- Jacqui Salmon, Valerie Strauss Mary Beth Sheridan and Nick Miroff

By Washington Post Editors  |  January 20, 2009; 11:15 AM ET  | Category:  Crowds
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