Last fall, Charleston City Council allocated money to warming stations for the first time. The stations, held overnight at the SHOP at Bream Memorial Presbyterian Church, have been open 12 times with 326 different people stopping by to eat, warm up or sleep, according to Traci Strickland, executive director of the Kanawha Valley Collective — the organization that coordinates the shelters.
It will stay below freezing for most of the week, and the Charleston region could see about five inches of snow by Wednesday morning, according to the National Weather Service in Charleston, which has issued a Winter Storm Warning — in effect until 10 a.m. Tuesday — for Kanawha County and counties in southern West Virginia.