0 passengers, some from san francisco and los angeles stranded on several trains overnight because trains hitting a big snow drift. most of the passengers have now been bussed to safety in chicago. they are telling stories of being okay through the night, of course there was nothing anybody could do. the staff were doing everything they could to make people comfortable with food and water and so forth. it's still bone chilling and awful extreme cold. people are staying inside. the governor has warned and suggested that people go outside if things -- if you absolutely have to do something. there's still tlas delays at the airport and at o'hare, the main airport in chicago, hundreds of flights canceled again after thousands over the past couple of days. we're still in a deep freeze here. it's going to take a few days to thaw out. we'll hopefully get into the single digits today and double digits tomorrow and the end of the week there's a promise of 35 degree weather. believe it or not. we'll welcome it. >> in terms of flight tracker, at least earlier today there were 750 flights at o'hare and additional flights at midway also canceled. and also this is a serious business because in the midwest states at least 11 deaths have been reported from the extreme cold. let's talk about that polar vortex now and what it means thanks to ron allen and his crew out there in the cold. let's go to new york and to rafael miranda. tell me, what the situation is with the polar vortex. let's go over it again. even though it's nothing new, but for it to break off and for some of it to break off from the pole, it's new to us, at least here. >> exactly. polar vortex happens every year, strengthens in the wintertime. it's a cold storm that sits across the arctic. what's going on and what's unusual about this cold outbreak, why we're seeing record low temperatures is this placement of that cold air, arctic air mass represented by the bright white color across the northeast today, that's why we're in the deep freeze. this is something that happens every year. it's nothing new and not dangerous in itself. when it travels so far south we're seeing such unusual cold krogs the northeast today. when i set this in motion, that returns to the pole. and back around the north pole. that's going to happen over the weekend and into next week, but not today. we're still feeling the worst of it, windchill warnings extending across the great lakes and northeast windchill advisory for a large portion of the one third of the united states. look at these records that have been broken from the cold outbreak. we hit a record low of 4 degrees in new york city. that record was standing for 118 years in central park. now this is the cold eflt day on record for 4 degrees. atlanta also broke a cold record for the day, 6 degrees and we had the record low of 16 below in chicago. right now the windchills are still brutal out there, ranging from 5 below in new york city, 23 below in chicago and windchills below zero in lexington, atlanta, feels like 9 degrees at this hour. the winds have been howling in the northeast all afternoon and that will continue, winds gusting around 46 miles per hour in buffalo and winds between 20 and 30 miles per hour in new york city. temperatures have dropped sharply around 35 to 40 degrees over the past 24 hours. it feels even colder. it feels like 60 degrees colder in new york city. now there is some relief in sight. the jet stream takes a jog to the north as we head throughout the end of the week. big time relief is coming their way in terms of temperatures. ron is excited about 20s in chicago. we're looking forward to 50s in new york city, adding on a few degrees day by day. by friday, back to above average. it's not going to last too much long. tomorrow the winds die down in the northeast and things gradually improve. but 50s will feel good in the weekend. even though we have rain coming our way. we'll take the tradeoff there. >> absolutely, rafael, thank you so much. for many of us it's an inconvenience, discomfort perhaps, for the homeless, the other disadvantaged, this is a life and death emergency. the coalition for the homeless in new york city, mary, thank you. how are you coping? do you have the resources you need? >> andrea, as you probably know, we have record homelessness in new york city, over 52,000 people, including 22,000 children just in our shelter system. and so the coalition is out every night feeding many thousands of people on the street, helping people get blankets and make it through the cold snap. we're very happy we have a new administration to work with to restore housing cut backs that mike bloomberg put in place that led to such a catastrophe in new york. >> in terms of the amount of food needed and other resources, tell me what the private sector is doing as well. we know the civic community in new york has been remarkable. >> absolutely. people from every walk of life stepped up. people committing themselves blankets and food and but what we're seeing and you led the show with this, that attempt now to cut back on unemployment benefits, you know, if the sequestration goes through, we'll lose 185,000 section 8 vouchers, 185,000 vulnerable families with children that are going to be homeless. it all ties together. the private sector has stepped up. but it can't begin to make up for these enormous cut backs that we're seeing in washington and in many states. >> mary, thank you very much. it's going to be top of mind. and that opens the door to administration action and congressional action as well. today the senate cleared a major procedural hurdle at least one for more than 1 million americans this morning, the first step for the push to extend unemployment insurance is there any compromise possible? >> i think today was an important day day moving forward with the senate invoking cloture to proceed in the senate. there's a long bipartisan history of support for extending long-term unemployment compensation benefits and that's because it's the right thing to do. it's the smart thing to do. five times during the administration of president bush extensions were granted with no strings attached. just recently when congress passed the bipartisan budget, there was a three month extension for the so-called doc fix, which is medicare doctors, the payments to them were extended for three months, no strings attached. i think we can do the same thing here. it gives us an opportunity to work out a longer term solution. but the reality is, if congress fails to act, given the current level of long-term unemployment, it would quite literally be unprecedented for them to do that. it is really the right thing to do and smart thing to do because saying you don't have a plan for jobs -- actually, that's not right. the president has put forth a very aggressive growth strategy that involves investing in infrastructure, roads and bridges. a tax cut for businesses which would finance these infrastructure investments, immigration reform which would grow the economy. investing in skills which we spend a lot of time on in the department of labor so people have the skills to compete for today's and tomorrow's jobs. i think we can get all of these done. i hope we can continue in the long rich and appropriate bipartisan tradition of extending emergency unemployment benefits. it's not called emergency unemployment compensation for nothing because for people like katherine hackett and others, they have moved from distress to catastrophe as a result of the loss of these benefits. >> what is your outlook also for unemployment more generally? do you continue to see the unemployment picture improving in the weeks -- well, friday i guess are your next numbers, in the weeks and months to come? >> you know, the economy is sloelly and steady moving in the right direction. we've had 45 consecutive months of private sector job growth to the tune of 8 million jobs. you see manufacturing on the rise. i was at a ford plant in louisville, kentucky recently. five years ago and in the depths of the recession, down to 700 employees, now they are at 4400 and growing. that doesn't even include their supply chain. you see other sectors that are growing. i talked to employer after employer who says i want to hire more people because the climate is right for me to grow my business here in america. and sho, we have to work to make sure that people have the skills to compete for those jobs and make sure that we pick up the pace of our growth. the president would be the first to say and has said we need to pick up infrastructure, passing immigration reform, a tax cut for businesses that would finance the infrastructure investments, these are ways to grow the economy even faster. the best way to help katherine hackett and 1.3 million people who lost benefitses and 3.6 million others who stand to lose thi benefits this year if congress doesn't act is to grow the economy faster. because the biggest source of gdp growth is when we have more consumption. when you put money in people's pockets, they spend more. when they spend more, businesses hire more, the economy grows. when you take -- when you get rid of unemployment benefits and when you don't have a fair wage, when the minimum wage as it is now is too low, people don't have money in their pockets and can't spend. and the economy doesn't grow fast enough. i'm confident we can move forward. we've done it before and done it in election years. 1996 was an election year. the minimum wage was raised. a lot can get done if we march on the will. that's what people want, want us to get the job done here in washington. >> tom perez, thanks for being here. >> pleasure to be here, an dree gentleman. >> the most accomplished skier will not have a chance to defend her olympic medal in sochi, lindsay vonn needs surgery. the skiing star underwent major knee surgery 11 months ago but not recovered to compete after a series of set backs and ended with this positive notes, this means there will be an additional spot so one of my team malts can go for gold. thank you for the love and support. i'll be cheering for all of the olympians and especially team usa. 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