Barely underway for four hours now, the Insert-Hyperbolic-Name-Here Blizzard of 2011 is already having deleterious effects on both of Chicago’s baseball teams.
On the north side, the Tribune’s “Chicago Weather Center” page reports early damage to the Home of the Cubs:
A section Wrigley Field’s roof was blown off shortly after 6PM. Some of the debris landed in the intersection of Addison and Clark. Police are attempting to clean up the debris.
Meanwhile, on the south side, White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen is spending his first winter in Chicago, having decided, for some unknown reason, not to spend January and early February in Miami, as he usually does. He is currently sending out frantic distress signals via Twitter:
Ozzie Guillen Sorry people this is bad crazy oh my god
Ozzie Guillen Is to windy
As for me, I’m baking a pan of fudge brownies and sipping bourbon. Snow big deal.
UPDATE: Arvo Fingers, host of The Delirious Insomniac Freeform Radio Show at WLUW FM 88.7 (on the campus of Chicago’s Loyola University) started his usual shift last night at 1:00. Correction: He came in early, at 8 pm Tuesday night. He’s still on the air, as of 10:48 am Wednesday.
We were watching WGN last night and it sounds like some commuters got caught on the expressway for hours. Downstate we got between 12-15 inches of snow. Now we are looking at blowing and drifting. Cabin fever warning level is orange.
People were stuck on Lake Shore Drive for several hours. I heard reports on the radio of people in Lake County being evacuated from their cars via snowmobile. It’s still snowing.
Did the big waves materialize on Lake Michigan?
There are references on chicagotribune.com today to 25-foot swells, but not enough detail to make me feel confident as to the accuracy of that.
The snow fell impressively fast, which is why, I suppose, so many motorists got stranded around the region. The news has been warning us for days about this one — although they tend to cry wolf a lot, so warnings don’t always get heeded.
WGN reported flooding on Lake Shore Drive last night, but I haven’t seen the pictures.
How’s Ozzie Guillan holding up?
Ozzie seems to have bounced back. He was on the radio this morning talking baseball.
http://sports.espn.go.com/chicago/mlb/news/story?id=6083391
Good to hear. Of course I could’ve followed your link to his Twitter feed and read, “I touht this was fun now I know sorry to al u people I feel very bad now sorry” or “On espn1000 radio en chicago right now.”