Chicago crossing guards at corners despite closed schools
CHICAGO (AP) — Despite frigid temperatures that closed hundreds of Chicago public and private schools, city officials ordered crossing guards to report for duty.
A spokesman for the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications says the guards were called to work Wednesday in the event children who didn’t know classes were cancelled were walking to school.
Rochelle Davenport was working a corner in Chicago’s Chinatown neighborhood at 7:30 a.m., when the temperature was about -22 degrees and the wind chill was about -51 degrees.
She tells CBS-Chicago it made no sense for her and other crossing guards to be out in such brutal cold.
A firefighter at a nearby firehouse allowed Davenport and a second crossing guard to use his car to stay warm.
The guards were pulled from their corners after their union, SEIU Local 73, contacted city officials.
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Information from: WBBM-AM, http://www.wbbm780.com