A Wind Chill Warning remains in until 6 p.m. Thursday. Dangerously cold wind chills will continue that could dip as low as 25-below zero. WBFO's senior reporter Eileen Buckley says Erie County's top health leader has a warning for citizens about the extreme cold.
“It's very important that people stay in doors - do not go outside,” announced Dr. Gale Burstein, Erie County Health Commissioner.
Burstein explained the dangerous health risk of extremely cold weather. Burstein said if you have to be outside, make sure it is for short periods of time, keeping it under 20 to 30-minutes to prevent frostbite or hypothermia.
“People who are most at risk for frostbite and hypothermia are the very young, the elderly and then people with poor circulation,” said Burstein.
Winds gusting as high as 40-miles an hour continues pushing the ‘feel like’ temperature well-below zero into double digits. You can suffer an medical emergency very quickly.
“If you do see frostbite, what you would see is an area of skin that is numb and kind of a waxy, white golden area of skin, so this can cause permanent tissue damage -so it is a medical emergency,” Burstein explained. “But hypothermia - people’s body core temperature decreases sometimes to a level that is not compatible with life - what you would see initially is shivering - so uncontrolled shivering.”
As of Wednesday afternoon,
Burstein reported that fortunately the Erie County Medical Examiner had not received any 'storm related' deaths so far.
Burstein encouraged residents to be “smart” and “safe” in this weather.
