Excerpts
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): ....... This brutally cold winter has created an icy wonderland on the surface of the Great Lakes.
Special correspondent Elizabeth Brackett of WTTW Chicago ventured out to see it.
ELIZABETH BRACKETT, WTTW Chicago: The sun is just beginning to rise over Chicago’s ice-clogged harbor.
Docked at Navy Pier, the Coast Guard’s ice cutter, the Biscayne Bay, starts gearing up for a long day. Breaking a track through the harbor ice, the Biscayne Bay heads out to clear shipping lanes in Lake Michigan. The ship is based in Northern Michigan near the Straits of Mackinac. It’s rare that the icebreakers are needed in the southern half of the lake.
LT. J.G. PAUL JUNGHANS, Coast Guard: This is actually our first time this winter down to the south end of Lake Michigan, so I can’t say what it’s been like down here, but in the straits, it’s been — this has been the worst winter in 25 years.
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ELIZABETH BRACKETT: The Great Lakes haven’t seen this much ice since 1979. The Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory reports that 91 percent of all the Great Lakes have been covered with ice this winter.
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