Winter weather brings hazards that can affect people indoors and outdoors, including carbon monoxide poisoning, hypothermia and frozen pipes that can burst and make homes unlivable, public safety officials and experts said.
During a winter storm, officials said people should stay indoors. At the same time, they warned that running home heating systems for hours can increase the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning, because the deadly fumes can be produced by furnaces, stoves and heaters, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Officials also warned that carbon monoxide can be created when people use portable generators or run cars in their garages to stay warm or charge their phones. Dr. Alex Harding, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, said carbon monoxide is odorless and colorless and people won’t necessarily be aware of it. He added that “The symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning can be really insidious. They can sneak up on patients and can range from just developing a headache or maybe a little bit of nausea to all the way to losing consciousness and seizures,” he said.
Cold exposure can also become dangerous quickly. Jon Palmer, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine, said “Really cold temperatures and winds can make temperatures feel a lot colder, and the result of that could be cold air that could eventually lead to frostbite at a much faster rate or hypothermia at a much faster rate than normal.”
The report said prolonged exposure to frigid temperatures can put people at risk to hypothermia, a condition that happens when one’s body loses heat faster than it can produce it. It said the danger is greater for someone who is outside, exposed to wind gusts and isn’t wearing appropriate clothing or has clothing that gets wet.
Dr. Harding said hypothermia is a bigger concern especially if power grids or electricity fail, and he advised people to find a warm place to shelter. “If they have a safe place that’s warm, where they can hunker down, where they have water and food and all those kind of necessities … then that’s going to limit their exposure to those risks,” Harding said. The report noted that vulnerable populations like people with disabilities and homeless individuals can have problems finding a warm and safe place to stay.
The report also focused on protecting homes from frozen plumbing. It said frozen pipes are a particular problem in parts of the South because such equipment is often located outside structures, though other parts of the country also deal with the issue.
Jose Parra, a master plumber with Abacus Plumbing, Air Conditioning & Electrical in Houston, advised homeowners to insulate any pipes exposed to the outside, turn off and drain sprinkler systems, and let faucets inside a home drip during freezing temperatures so water can run through the pipes. Parra said, “A lot of what we’re fixing, I would say 80% to 90%, could have been prevented with just a little bit of work ahead of time,” he said.
The report also addressed electric vehicles in cold conditions. It said experts acknowledge cold weather can be hard for electric vehicles, but that with planning and a little adjustment, owners should be able to travel “pretty much as normal.” It explained that inside EV batteries, lithium ions flow through a liquid electrolyte, but they travel more slowly through the electrolyte when it gets cold and don’t release as much energy, which can cut into range and deplete a battery faster.
Neil Dasgupta, an associate professor of mechanical and materials science engineering at the University of Michigan, told The Associated Press that automakers are likely to improve ways to protect battery life and warm batteries for charging, and that new battery chemistries in development are more resilient in cold weather.