Layers, boots. Millions battle a bitter blast. All the way up the east coast. Many people seeing temperatures 35 degrees below average. Meanwhile, in maine, torrential rains triggered a mudslide. New york overnight, a manhunt is under way after two Police Officers were shot while responding to an armed robbery. These officers will recover. The United States ski team is reeling from the death of two up and coming stars killed in an avalanche in austria. The markets across the board stocks plunge as the u. S. Crude oil price tumbled. A couple more like this next time im on your show ill be voting for myself. Divers try to find the airasia wreckage. Facing bad weather. They found parts of the plane that may contain the black boxes. An off Duty Police Officer shooting himself in the stomach is expected to be okay. After dropping the first set, Serena Williams got a double shot. She wins the next two steps. Fancy that. And all that mattered Chris Christie takes heat for being a Dallas Cowboys fan and hugging jerry jones. This is right after jones said lets get some hot wings. On cbs this morning 25th gets under way. The 2016 campaign gets under way. 2016 2016 [ bleep ]. [ laughter ] [ cheers and applause ] announcer this mornings eye opener is presented by toyota. Lets go places. Captioning funded by cbs welcome to cbs this morning. The first winter blast of the new year now threatens 80 million americans. Fastmoving snow is spreading through several states this morning. You can see how its coming down in minnesota. Several inches could fall from idaho to new york. The icy cold could be even more dangerous by the snow. By tomorrow morning, windchills will approach 50 below in some areas. Dean reynolds is in chicago where this winter storm is biting hard right now. Dean, good morning. Reporter good morning. Well, the good news in chicago is that the snow has stopped falling. The bad news is that it is a brisk 8 degrees above zero. As subzero temperatures took hold of chicago, so did the snow. Nearly 4 inches blanketing the city overnight. And causing hundreds of Flight Cancellations at midway and ohare airports. Its so cold here that Water Management crews were forced to deice fire hydrants. Even though its below zero 8 degrees, it aint too bad, man, as long as we keep moving. Reporter and rail workers were heating switches with open flames just to keep them from freezing solid. This looks like its on fire. Not that its being heated. I know theres no danger from those are flames but its like your gas grill. Reporter Meg Thomas Riley works for metro, the computer rail link that provides over 300,000 rides every day. Is there a risk of derailment if you dont do this . Yes, yes. If a switch does not engage properly, the train could derail. Reporter the relentless cold is also sweeping across much of the midwest. In iowa blinding snow caused this crash involving at least 20 cars. And shut down parts of the interstate 80. One car just sort of slid and just went to the side. And one hit the other. And it just became a domino effect. Reporter in wisconsin, windchills sent temperatures plunging near minus 35 degrees. Officials warned it would only take minutes for frostbite to set in. And in sioux falls, south dakota whiteout conditions forced dozens of schools to close early. They told us it was coming. We knew it was coming. Im glad they let us out of school early to get on the road and get home. Reporter now, those hoping for a thaw will just have to wait. Temperatures are expected to hover near the Single Digits for the next few days. Gayle. I feel for you, dean. Thank you very much. The blistering cold is moving east. Snow is falling in washington, d. C. Meteorologist Danielle Niles of our boston stage wbzz is tracking the winter blast. Good morning to you. Gayle, good morning to you. Were talking about temperatures to the midatlantic will continue to slide east offshore by later on today but may drop back from western virginia, Northern Virginia where it will drop off. 20 states under a windchill warning, advisory or watch overt next few days. Brutal windchills feeling currently 20 degrees below zero or great. And that chill is going to be spreading east. Forecast highsed to only in the Single Digits for portions of the midwest. Teens all the way back to the great lakes. High temperatures will be below zero that without the wind factored in. Its going to feel like 15 to 30 degrees below zeerro by the time we get to thursday and friday. A powerful rainstorm is blamed for flooding and mudslides that destroyed several homes in washington state. Our seattle affiliate cairo reports from falls city a hardhit area east of seattle. Reporter rising floodwaters and mudslides wreaked havoc across western washington monday and there may be more wicked weather to come. An entire hillside came crashing down on the coastal town monday washing away trees and knocks at least three homes off their foundation. I heard a big crack, and the trees come down. And they just cracked and boomed. And it went that way. Just done. Just gone. Reporter people were urged to quickly leave the area. Firefighters had to rescue a woman in her 80s and her dog. They were trapped after her home slid down the hill. You heard this rumbling and breaking and crashing and youre like what is going on. Reporter a weekend storm pounded western washington with rain triggering landslides and record flooding. The Snoqualmie River was one of hundreds to crest. A maze of roads swallowed by water and mud. And the nearby Snoqualmie Falls showed off the waters ferocity. Water also flooded the streets of aberdeen. This is back here where i live, and its cold. Reporter Business Owners struggled to keep the rising waters out of their stores with no help from passing vehicles. You got a lot of idiots going down causing waves going into extra businesses. People are not thinking. A lot of water down here. Reporter several major rivers in western washington will remain at or above flood stage throughout the rest of today. Creating props even more problems reporting 30 miles east of seattle, henry rosoff cbs this morning. A massive man hunt is under way after the shooting of two more nypd Police Officers. Both are expected to survivor. This coming with police on high alert officer two earlier in brooklyn. Michelle, good morning. Reporter good morning, the police are canvassing the streets of the bronx in search of the two suspects involved in the shooting that took place around 10 30 last night. Now just hours before this violent attack the Police Commissioner and the mayor stood together touting recordlow crime rate. This Surveillance Video showed the moment the officers came up against the suspects gunfire. Gunfire reporter the plain clothes officers were just finishing their shift when they got a robbery call monday night. They came under fire when they saw two men near a chinese Food Restaurant who fit the description. As they approached the individual, one male was outside. One went inside. They approached the male outside. When the male inside began firing at the officers. Through the doorway. Reporter two worse hit. One shot in the arm. The other in the back. They were rushed to the hospital where mayor bill de blasio spoke overnight. Thank god these officers are doing well. And will recover. Reporter its been a tense two weeks for the police and the mayor after the double murder of two nypd officers in brooklyn. Some members of the force turned their backs on mayor de blasio at two public memorial services. Earlier on monday he called the gesture unfair. Youre disrespectful to the families who have lost their loved one. And i cant understand why anyone would do such a thing in the context like that. Reporter at the same event, the citys mayor and Police Commissioner announced recordlow crime numbers. Last week alone, there were half the amount of arrests made compared to the same week last year. Weve had a lot of things that have been impacting on activity levels. But even with that decreased activity that the overall numbers have continued to decline. Reporter they point to the mayor as the reason for the work slowdown, resulting in fewer summons. And gayle, there is a Group Offering of a 10,000 reward for any information lead to get arrests of these suspects. It could be the start of another tough day on wall street this morning. Dow futures point to a lower open. That is just good news for millions of american drivers. Crude oil prices tumbled below 50 a barrel yesterday. That is the first time that has happened in more than five years. That sent a scare through the is stock market. The dow fell more than 330 points thats about 2 . Investors are worried about the instability of the oil markets because theres no telling when the price drop will end. Family and friends are grieving the loss this had morning of two young skiers who were hoping to join the u. S. Ski team. Ronnie berlack and bryce astle died monday zmeegtskiing in the alps. Chris clarissa ward. Both promising young skiers of joining the u. S. Team and of one day skiing in the olympics. Hi. My name is bryce astle. Im an alpine ski racer out of sandy, utah. And im 19 years old. Reporter astle had had started crowd funding three months ago to raise money with his training. Berlack, from New Hampshire attended vermont burk Mountain Academy where his father say ski coach. Tom kelly say spokesman for the u. S. Ski team. These were great young men. They were great role models to others coming up through the system. And most of all they were passionate about what they did. They loved to ski race and they loved to ski. Reporter astle and berlack were part of a group of six skiers descending the alps when the avalanche struck. The rest of the four survived. Rescuers received an alert 10 00 yesterday morning that two skiers had been buried in an avalanche in soelden. An Emergency Team was dispatched to the site. There were two Emergency Physicians with a helicopter a spokesman said. They tried everything unfortunately, without success. An avalanche warning had been declared in the area after days of heavy snowfall and mild temperatures. Neither of the young skiers was wearing emergency gear. The u. S. Ski team is in zagreb croatia today. They head a meeting and all of the team will be wearing black arm bands to commemorate them. A julyry trial begins for dzhokhar tsarnaev. 1200 potential jurors will fill out a questionnaire and it could take weeks to seat a jury. Federal prosecutors are looking for jurors willing to impose the Death Penalty if tsarnaev is convicted. Indonesia Officials Say they are fighting time and the weather searching for victims of the airasia flight 8501. Investigators now have a new theory this morning that may explain exactly what happened when the plane crashed. Jeff pegues is in washington watching the recovery effort. Good morning. Reporter good morning, the weather is dragging the airbus eastward. And the shift has shifted in that direction. A number of ships including two from the u. S. Navy continue to comb the java sea using sonar to locate the planes wreckage. So far crews have identified several large objects on the seafloor. Government Officials Say weather was a triggering factor in the december 28th crash. They believe the plane through through cloud clusters with satellite images showing temperatures at 121 degrees below zero. A report from indonesias Meteorological Agency translated to english says the most probable weather phenomenon is the icing that it can cause engine damage due to the cooling air. Investigators believe that is just one of the possibilities that occurred based on the analysis of the data. The worst thunderstorms in the world are in this region. Reporter kyle bailey is an aviation analyst. You have lightning, updrafts downdrafts, you have hail ice. Reporter air france went down in the Atlantic Ocean with 228 people on board. Investigators recovered the black boxes two years later. They discovered the pilot lost control after it caused the air speed to malfunction. Theres a lot of similarities between that crash and this crash. My gut feeling is once the black boxes are found within a week or several weeks, well have a very good idea of what actually happened to the airplane. Indonesian authorities are hoping an expanded search area will help them locate the planes black box which is in the tail section of the plane. It contains the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder. And it is essential to nailing down exactly what happened to the doomed flight. Charles. Jeff thanks. The winters flu season is getting worse and still has far to go. The cdc said 43 states have watch flu cases. The illness is blamed for the deaths of at least 22 children. Whats going on . This is essentially the perfect storm of a flu season. A few things happened. Number one, flu season is starting to peak early. Way earlier than we usually see it. It started in the south. It hit the midwest. And now its moving up to the northeast. And really not surprisingly its taking hold of the schools. Giving it to a lot of our kids. The a couple things thats happening, the strain thats circulating is called h3n2. It causing more severe illness and death, generally. And unfortunately, our flu vaccine this season is not perfectly matched to it. So its with all of these things in tandem and were seeing more deaths earlier. Do you need more flu vaccine . Well you know some children actually under the age of 8, its recommended they get two shots, two vaccinations rather than one. Only if its their first shot . Only if its their first shot. Actually there are some children who have gotten a shot before that would require a second. Your pediatrician will help you sort that out but its against the h1n1 strain which you might remember we called the bird flu or avian flu. And that takes two shots. We keep hearing reports that the flu shot is not effective this year . What do we need to do . Exactly. The flu vaccine isnt as effective, but its still quite effective, if that makes any sense. You should still get it . You should still get it. Other train sstrains we might see circulating later. And it also does provide cross protection against the strain thats circulating now. We also have to Pay Attention to basic things. Contact precautions. Your kids are sick keep them at home. Make sure youre watching your hands. Cough into your elbow as opposed to your hands. If you have any symptoms of the flu, high fever, body aches, get to the doctor soon because antivirals can help that. When is the flu season over . Unfortunately, i know, i wish i had better news since were sitting at the beginning of the january, it can go all the way through april. But we usually see it fall off by end of the february. Youre worried its getting worse because everyone is getting back to work and school . Thats a big issue. In fact, some of the schools in the south closed early ahead of winter break because they were seeing so much flu. They just wanted kids to get home, get better before they came back. We may start to see a second peak, more activity as kids get together and start to spread the flu again. Holly, thanks. And 7 19 ahead on cbs this morning will the nfl return announcer this National Weather report sponsored by new Colgate Enamel Health toothpaste. A wealthy banker gunned down. The murder suspect, his son. Investigators this morning are trying find out a possible motive for a shooting that has shocked many here in new york. The news is back here on cbs this morning. Stay tuned for your local news. Announcer this portion of cbs this morning sponsored by walmart, where youll find low prices on everything you need for a fresh start this new year. And that really puts a smile on my face. Thousands of items on rollback and clearance in store and online. If you want it go out and get it major ok fitness class heres our new trainer ensure active heart health. Heart im going to focus on the heart. I minimize my sodium and fat. Gotta keep it lean and mean. Pear uhoh. 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