The death toll from a bitter cold spell in New York City climbed to 18 on Sunday, as many New Yorkers hunkered down at home while others braved the outdoors despite dangerously low wind chills.
The most recent fatality was a person found around 9 a.m. Saturday near East Gun Hill Road and Seymour Avenue in the Bronx, a City Hall official said.
Separately on Saturday morning, an 81-year-old Brooklyn man was found dead on the roof of his apartment building, where the police believe he slipped on ice while carrying a bag of groceries, the official said on Sunday.
An autopsy has not yet been performed on the man, whose name has not been released. The official could not say whether the cold played a role in his death.
The deaths occurred as the Mamdani administration, which has been under pressure to stem the number of deaths during the prolonged period of frigid weather, worked to bring more people in from the cold. On Friday and Saturday night, city workers took a total of six people off the streets to local hospitals and placed another 70 people in shelters, according to City Hall. Officials said the number of people staying overnight in warming centers and buses increased to 462 on Saturday night, from 392 on Friday night.
Two more warming centers opened on Saturday, in addition to 10 already in use, and 48 new beds in more flexible shelters were made available for people who are resistant to traditional shelters, officials said.
“It’s actually colder today in New York City than in parts of Antarctica,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a video posted on X on Sunday evening. Wearing a beanie embroidered with the name of the city’s emergency management agency, he advised residents to “stay inside, stay warm and stay safe.”
Andrew Orrison, a meteorologist at the Weather Prediction Center, said the extreme temperatures this weekend have been driven by repeated and relentless surges of Arctic air, at the same time that many areas across the Northeast were still recovering from two recent storms that brought heavy snowfall.
The remaining snow contributed to an electrical problem that left nearly 1,000 customers in some parts of Brooklyn without power on Sunday. Ann Marie Corbalis, a spokeswoman for Con Edison, said the company’s underground equipment was damaged after melting snow mixed with road salt and seeped into the system.
Con Edison estimated that power could be restored by 7 a.m. Monday morning, noting that frozen layers of ice and snow-covered manholes were making it difficult to access the system. City officials were directing residents to a warming center at a nearby middle school.
In the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, the news of the 81-year-old man’s death was still reaching his neighbors in the quiet co-op building on Avenue H.
The man had lived alone, residents said, in a sixth-floor apartment next to the staircase that led to the roof. On Sunday afternoon, a ribbon of yellow caution tape lay at the base of the stairs.
“He’s a quiet guy, always kept to himself,” said Luis Irizarry, who lives in the apartment directly under the man’s unit.
While it was unclear why the man had been on the roof, several residents suggested that it might have been because of persistent elevator outages this winter. Neighbors said that when one of the building’s two elevators was not working, they would sometimes use one on the other side of the building and then cross the roof to get to their apartments.
According to the city, the building’s elevators were found to be safe and operable during inspections last fall. Officials said there were no recent 311 complaints or open violations at the building. The management company did not return a message seeking comment on Sunday.
In other parts of the city, the cold’s grim toll seemed far from people’s minds as they shopped, roamed a local zoo and shared pedicab rides. On the beach in Coney Island, some people reveled in the bone-chilling cold with a dive into the ocean.
A handful of couples and tourist groups took photos at the Central Park Zoo on Sunday afternoon, while a bundled-up pedicab driver, Frankie Legarreta, 47, draped a blanket over two women before setting off.
“There’s a frostbite warning!” he said cheerily.
At Coney Island, more than 40 members of the Coney Island Polar Bear Club stripped to their swimsuits and charged into the ocean.
The blue saltwater was 33.8 degrees — significantly warmer than the air.
To prepare for the plunge, members warmed up with jumping jacks on the edge of the surf, howling like coyotes and barking like sea lions. Brynna Tucker, 48, an administrator at the Brooklyn Public Library, blew into a conch shell, sounding a trumpet-like note.
Ellen Sexton 72, had brought extra warm clothes for the wet walk out: merino wool leggings, cashmere socks and two cashmere sweaters.
“It is, on a certain level, insane,” she said. “But it’s a physical reboot. Pure perfection. It doesn’t get any better.”
Reporting was contributed by Sarah Chatta, Nazaneen Ghaffar, Nate Schweber, Oishika Neogi and Davaughnia Wilson. Georgia Gee contributed research.
Ashley Southall writes about cannabis legalization in New York.
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