Heroism amid the deep freeze

Mother Nature has socked the Mahoning Valley this month with relentless fury. Bone-chilling subzero temps and high-rising snow piles are shattering records left and right with no end in sight.

The dark side of the deep freeze across the U.S. unfolds in reports of elderly people dying inside unheated homes and about dogs and cats left outside in the brutal elements that invite hypothermia, frostbite and death.

In those two scenarios, caring neighbors can come to the rescue by checking up on older and disabled neighbors and by contacting humane or law enforcement agencies to report cold-hearted abuse against our four-legged friends. In so doing, the horrors of Old Man Winter can be transformed into heroics.