Work week, folks in chicago woke up to subzero cold with the temperature going nowhere but down. Howling winds kicked up waves on lake michigan, creating a wall of ice on shore. In minnesota, it was hazardous to spend more than just a few minutes outside. The thermometer dipped to 20 below in some places. The deep freeze extends through the midwest and winter storms are headed for the deep south. We have a team of correspondents covering this beginning with Dean Reynolds in the very windy city. Dean . Reporter scott, the windchill tonight in chicago is expected to be 40 degrees below zero and the actual temperature is not expected to peak above zero into wednesday in what may turn out to be the longest period of bitter cold in 31 years. The snowplows arrived too late for this Greyhound Bus that slipped off the pavement 50 miles south of chicago in windchills of 20 below. No one was hurt. 40 mile an hour gusts created whiteout conditions and forced road closures like this one in indiana. Passable routes in iowa and elsewhere were hard to find or even see. But this Law Enforcement officer did see in michigan was terrifying. In ohio, the wind blew so hard it spontaneously built what are called snow rollers which caught the attention of mary bruni. Like a bunch of tumbleweeds. Ohio tumbleweeds. Reporter in chicago, it was minus one at 2 00 and heading down as cordell hill headed to work. The wind is disrespecting the jacket i got on right now. Its very cold out here. Reporter because frostbite can occur in minutes in these conditions, schools in chicago, cleveland, and milwaukee were closed until wednesday. Chicago students will be missing their fourth day this month. Chicago commuter train workers lit fires below track switches to keep them from freezing. While on the street, potholes proliferated. Chicago Transportation Department Deputy Commissioner tom carney. For the calendar year 2014 were at about 75,000 potholes filled already. Reporter 75,000 potholes . Yes. Reporter 75,000 potholes, scott and by comparison, for the hole month of january last year the city filled 55,000 potholes and, of course, there are four days left in january this year. Pelley and 400,000 chicago students staying home from school. Dean, thanks very much. Staying inside did not always provide relief today. Heres jamie yuccas of our minneapolis station wcco. Reporter the temperature dropped to 16 degrees below zero overnight. Meals on wheels volunteer Michael Stevens was making sure his clients had food and heat. Hey, man, how are you doing . How are you feeling . Pretty good. Just want to make sure people are okay because when it gets really cold like this, this is bonechilling cold. Just want to make sure people are okay. Reporter the deep freeze has driven demand for natural gas to record levels in the minneapolis area. The timing could not have been worse for this explosion on one of the main Gas Pipelines into north dakota and minnesota. It prompted a plea from supplier excel energy. Reporter the gas company has worked around the pipeline problem, but amy rowe is still keeping the thermostat set to the low 60s. We are at a limited income and so we just have to be really responsible with our money and be watchful about what we spend it on when it is cold out there. It feels really good in here. Reporter tomorrow, amys kids will stay home for a fifth time this month because of the cold. So far this year, the Salvation Army has taken 8,500 applications for emergency heating assistance. Scott, last year they took just 2,700 but this time. Pelley its going to be negative 23 there tomorrow. Jamie, thanks very much. Eric fisher is our chief meteorologist at wbz, our cbs station in boston. Eric, this time around, whats behind the cold air mass . You know, scott, i feel like weve had a lot of these conversation this winter. Its been so persistent. The polar jet stream taking another big deep across the central and eastern u. S. And this time around all the way down to the gulf coast. This will drag extremely cold air down to the shores of alabama, mississippi, and florida, scott. Pelley and we have cases of we have storm warnings up from galveston all the way around the gulf. How big is that storm going to be . This is going to be a pretty significant storm by southern standards. This is a map you wont see many times in a lifetime. Winter storm warnings from houston to new orleans over toward pensacola and reaching up through the carolinas, Southern States that dont have a lot of infrastructure to deal with ice and sleet and snow and thats whats in the forecast. This begins tomorrow. Well be breaking out lit icing and snowfalls as we head through the day, including new orleans and reaching toward the Southern Suburbs of atlanta. Its tomorrow night into wednesday morning. Snow, sleet, freezing rain all moving through. This can be quite significant in parts of the carolinas before it all wraps up heading into wednesday morning. So how much snow . Well, one to three inches of snow for many but keep in mind freezing rain and sleet, as much as three to six inches in the carolinas. Scott, maybe some folks seeing more than a half foot of snow. Pelley eric fisher with wbz. Eric, thanks a lot. We were curious how the weather is hitting the economy so we called the economists over at moodys analytics. They told us the frigid temperatures slowed the growth in employment between 60,000 and 75,000 jobs. Of that, 25,000 would have been construction jobs, as you might expect. Jobs will be a theme in the president s state of the Union Address tomorrow. Hes expected to say that he will bypass congress if necessary and use executive powers to bring relief to the longterm unemployment. Theres a debate right now between democrats and republicans over whether extending Unemployment Benefits encourages people to stay unemployed. Nancy cordes went to North Carolina to see that debate in action. Medical assistant in raleigh, you okay with that one . Yes. Reporter at this Unemployment Office in raleigh, theres a new sense of urgency for job seekers. Job counselor Larry Campbell sees it everyday. Ive had people say ill take anything just to get food on the table. And i understand that. Reporter six months ago, the states Republicanled Legislature cut Unemployment Insurance from 26 weeks to 20 and slashed the weekly payment by 35 . The move left the state and its residents ineligible for 40 additional weeks of federal longterm Unemployment Benefits. 38yearold marcus dunn lost his security job in august and his Unemployment Insurance ran out this month so he moved in with his father. How many jobs would you say youve applied for . Id say about 40. Reporter has the experiment worked . Yes, it has worked. Reporter republican governor pat mccory argues the new law has given the jobless more incentive. People now are accepting jobs that they might have been turning down due to continuation of Unemployment Benefits. It might not have been the job they wanted but its at least getting them back into the job market where they have an opportunity to progress and learn skills. Reporter he points to the states Unemployment Rate which fell from 8. 9 last july to 7. 4 today. The steepest drop in the country. But democrats note that according to government statistics, for every North Carolina resident who found a job, two more gave up looking all together. State senator josh stein. Cutting Unemployment Benefits off for people, thats not going to create a job. Reporter a similar argument is playing out here on capitol hill. Republicans say the nation cannot afford these extended longterm benefits that Congress First approved at the start of the recession, while democrats argue it can still take a year or more to find a job in some hardhit industries, scott. Pelley nancy, thanks very much. Cbs news will provide live coverage of the president s state of the Union Address address tomorrow night at 6 00 pacific time. Late today, house and Senate Negotiators reached agreement on a new farm bill. This matters a lot because now farmers will be able to make plans knowing how much theyll be receiving in subsidies. The compromise also cuts the Food Stamp Program by 8. 5 billion over ten years. Thats about 1 of that program. There was tight security today when the olympic torch was carried through dagestan, a volatile region that is home to islamic militants who have threatened to attack the winter games in sochi, russia. There were no incidents. Security is just one of the reasons why these olympics are the most expensive in history. Rampant corruption may be another. Mark phillips investigated. Stigated. Reporter theyve been painting the Olympic Rings on the new roads built around sochi. They may as well have been dollar signs for what they cost just shy of 9 billion. Its become a local joke that the roads would have been cheaper if theyd been paved with caviar. Olympic spending records have also been set for the new venues along the coast and up in the mountains outside of sochi. A new report by a russian anticorruption group says the total cost for the games has soared to about 50 billion more than five times as much as the last winter games. Yet the best play to discover why costs have risen so high may not be among the gleaming new venues but on this street in a town just outside of london where Valery Morozov, once a olympic contractor lives. He fled russia for fear of his life, he told us, because he couldnt stand the corruption anymore. I was informed that there is a contract on my assassination. Reporter because you knew too much, because you could finger other people . No, because they miscalculated me. Reporter miscalculated, he said, because the local olympic organizers told him to add about 30 million to his bill for various sochi Construction Projects and then pay that money back to them as kickbacks. Where was this extra money supposed to go . What was it for . The only one reason for this was their pockets. Reporter their pockets . Yeah. There was only one reason. Reporter morozov rebuilt some of the crumbling facilities of the old sochi resort. The kickbacks, he said, followed a familiar formula. 40 was the usual amount for the kickback on a contract . Yes. Usually you can calculate at approximately 40 . Reporter russian president Vladimir Putin has said those who claim theres corruption should prove it, but with a suspect bidding process, little public accountability and the corruption running to high places, Valery Morozov says theres no incentive to investigate and, scott, nothing but trouble for anyone who tries. Pelley the olympics begin the seventh of february. Mark, thanks very much. Were about to get a rare look inside the leaking Fukushima Nuclear plant. And avalanches have blocked the only road into a key oil town, when the cbs evening news continues. [ female announcer ] we lowered her fever. You raise her spirits. We tackled your shoulder pain. You make him rookie of the year. We took care of your cold symptoms. You take him on an adventure. 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Take control with oxytrol for women. Available in the feminine care aisle. Pelley tonight, we have a rare look inside the damaged Nuclear Plant in fukushima, japan. Nearly three years after the earthquake and tsunami, the plant is still emitting radiation and likely will be for years. Seth doane went inside to see the painstaking cleanup. Reporter three miles from the plant, roads are still closed, radiation levels here soar 100 times higher than normal. To protect ourselves from radiation, we suited up like the 4,300 decontamination workers here. Once, this was the hard of a radioactive nogo zone. Now its safe enough to spend a few hours inside. The building on the left, its unit 4. Reporter tepco, the company that owns the crippled plant, is still struggling to deal with the disaster. All four reactors are still emitting radiation, but tepco has made some progress. This is what tepco wants us to see the heart of the decommissioning work taking place here in reactor 4. Following the earthquake and tsunami in 2011, a Hydrogen Explosion tore off the roof of this reactor. At the time, reactor four was not in use but that explosion sent debris and chunks of concrete into this pool where the nuclear fuel was being stored. We were able to watch the delicate and dangerous work of removing some of the 1,500 radioactive fuel rod assemblies. If the rods break, they could release more radioactive gases. Ive read an analogy that this is like removing a cigarette from a crushed pack. Take that analogy tepco engineer masayuki ono told us, and imagine its like the cigarette in that box is lit. So youre saying its even more difficult than that . I think so. Reporter ono told us theyve removed 15 of the fuel from reactor 4 but it will be far more difficult to retrieve fuel from three other reactors that melted down. Those are so radioactive that the technology to dismantle them does not exist yet. Tepco injects hundreds of tons of water daily into the reactors to keep them cool, but groundwater is pouring into the damaged reactors and has to be pumped out and stored. They cant build these tanks fast enough. An additional 400 tons of contaminated water needs to be stored everyday. Thats as much water as the average American Household uses in a year. At the end of our tour, we were checked for radiation exposure. In four hours, i received the equivalent of less than a chest xray. Pelley seth is in our tokyo newsroom tonight. Seth, whats it going to take to clean this up . Reporter well, quite a bit of time, scott. The cleanup operation is under way 24 hours a day. Its projected to cost upwards of 100 billion and could take as many as 40 years to complete. Pelley seth doane, thank you, seth, great job. Today the Shopping Mall in columbia, maryland, reopened two days after a gunman shot and killed two people and then himself. 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More than 600 passengers and crew aboard the explorer of the seas are suffering from a gastrointestinal illness. Theyve been quarantined. The ship is skipping its final port and will return to new jersey two days early. Today the only road into valdez, alaska, remained closed after several avalanches over the weekend. Have a look at richardson highway. Some parts of it are buried under 70 feet of ice and snow. City Officials Say it could take the rest of this week to clear the road. Valdez is an Important Oil town, but its still accessible by air and sea. There are some odd characters that thrive in the coldest conditions. Well introduce you next. [ coughs ] de and. [ all gasp ] [ male announcer ] robitussin dm max now comes in a new liquidfilled capsule. Nothing provides more powerful cough relief. Robitussin. Dont suffer the coughequences. Nothing provides more powerful cough relief. Imagine not beinge near this so often. , imagine not getting out of bed again and again. 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Then there are the folks that Barry Petersen met over the week end in brainerd, minnesota. Reporter call them the truly fishing faithful. 11,000 spreading across hole in the day bay braving windchills in about minus 20 competing for prizes in a an ice fishing extravaganza for charity. Here hope springs eternal through holes drilled through as much as two feet of ice. Some have tried for years to catch their first fish, like mat ericson. You brave it, come out, do it one day, stay inside for about three days. Reporter go get warm. Yup, warm back up. Reporter lesson one cold weather fishing fashion is all about hats of all sizes and species says aaron krepel. What are you wearing on your head . Im wearing a coyote hat made from the guy right down here, actually. Reporter is it a real coyote . It was, yes. Reporter joe goble, a machinist in the local area, knew enough to bring out his barca lounger. The barca lounger is part of your wind Protection System . Exactly. Because i can tuck back into it and the wind will go around you. laughs reporter when someone actually caught a fish, it was rushed to the weighing tent because the biggest fish wins. Youre not gonna win anything with that, do you think . Well, you dont know unless you try, sir. Look at that reporter in the end, avid fisherman art karskoy was the big win we are a 4. 73 pound caught just seven minutes before the contest ended. Art, how did you catch it . On a hook. Livers a e cold. They can laugh all day. I got a new truck laughs reporter for the losers, theres always next year and the belief in that old fishing saying about patience good things come to those who bait. Etrry petersen, cbs news, on hole in the day bay, minnesota. Pelley thats the cbs evening news for tonight. For all of us at cbs news all around the world, good night. Of control kpix5 has learned, expensive r. Now at 6 00, if you thought the price tag for the new bay bridge climbed outrageously out of control, kpix 5 is just learning expensive repairs are already being discussed. Good evening, im elizabeth cook. Im ken bastida. The bah bridge opened a few months ago but already needs a costly overall. Phil ma tier on the project thats going to cost millions. Phil . Reporter thats right. , you know, its interesting. It was brought to our attention by the mayor in the news last week. Its shocking. Heres the story. Its been open for only four months but already are concerns taxpayers may be in for a bigger sticker shock when it comes to the price for the bay bridge. Our expert said youll have to be spending money on retro fitting within five years. Reporter that was state senator mark desonier saying they may spend more money on the 6. 000000000 span. Were told we will get a world class product. Could be right or wrong, only time will tell but the state has already spent 25 million fixing one problem with faulty bolts on the stand. Cost more than twice as much as initially expected. Now cal tons spends 10 million and counting to test the rest of the bay bridges bolts. Got sandbag, sheets of steel on top. Reporter the tests are done heren a back lot of the construction site. Not exactly livermore labs but they say it will get the job done. Taking rods from the bridge and we submerge the ends in a highly corrosive salt