Freakishly frigid
Locals hunker down as polar vortex grips region
Gazette staff
JANESVILLE
For Walworth County native Joseph Thomas, Sunday was the wrong night, the coldest night, to find himself homeless. Minus 18 degrees.
After he’d had a falling out with the family of his f i a n c é , T h o m a s said he’d gotten a ride as far as Janesville. The sun was gone, the temperature was plummeting, and the wind was picking up.
Thomas began to walk, nowhere in particular. His ears began to get cold. Then his fingers. Then his whole body.
“It hurt,” Thomas said. “I’ve been homeless outside in the winter before, but this is the coldest I can remember.”
Thomas said he went to a Janesville hospital emergency room just to warm up. From there he called the police for help. A Janesville officer offered him a ride to a church that is housing GIFTS, Janesville’s homeless shelter for men.
At GIFTS, he got help, food—and most crucial—warmth.
With dangerous cold weather settling in and wind chill temps as low as minus 45 expected through this morning, GIFTS has temporarily expanded its hours of operations around the clock.
The shelter normally runs overnight and closes between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., although it has daytime social services at a downtown service center that run from 8:30 to noon on weekdays.
GIFTS got the go-ahead from Faith Community Church, which is housing the shelter this week, to keep the shelter’s doors open around the clock through today.
The church is allowing GIFTS to house it social services in the church temporarily, and volunteers are making extra meals and driving the homeless men to appointments or work.
GIFTS Executive Director Stephanie Burton said those measures are in place so none of the 25 homeless men at the shelter have to risk being in the brutal cold for the next few days.
“We didn’t even want people walking ten minutes to a bus stop. Not in this weather. It’s just too cold—it’s too dangerous,” she said.
Thomas said he’s been homeless other winters. He remembers once squatting in an abandoned house in Beloit for a few days to keep from freezing.
Monday afternoon, he sat in a chair in the church’s foyer lounge, filling out a resume form given to him by GIFTS social workers.
His fingertips were still red from exposure to the cold Sunday night.
“I don’t have no money, no food stamps,” Thomas said. “Right now, this is my best option.”
Warmth on the way
Monday’s high temperature in Janesville was a skinfreezing minus 12. A low of minus 18 was expected Monday night, the same as on Sunday night.
The National Weather Service is calling for a warming trend, with a high of 3 above zero today and a low tonight of minus 4.
Temperatures are expected to rise through Friday, when the weather service predicts a high of 32 with a chance of precipitation.
The Accu-Weather forecasting service is calling for 35 on Friday, which would be 53 degrees higher than Sunday night.
Speedy delivery
Janesville Postmaster Laura Coots and her two supervisors checked in on letter carriers Monday to make sure they were staying safe from the cold. They also dispensed coffee and hot chocolate
“Today was our big concern day,” Coots said after making the rounds Monday afternoon.
Visiting the carriers is standard procedure during cold snaps like this one, Coots said.
Experienced letter carriers know to dress in enough layers to protect themselves, with a wind-resistant outer shell, Coots said. The postal service provides chemical warmers that can be activated and placed in gloves or boots.
Coots noted it’s been a cold winter so far, but she said letter carriers have had no medical problems with the cold.
Coots said on days like this one, they try to get the carriers off the street before it gets dark and colder.
“If people are able to keep their sidewalks clear and paths clear, they can get their routes done quicker, and they’ll be able to get out of the cold sooner,” she said.
Furnace fritz
In the battle against Monday’s extreme cold, consider furnaces among the area’s biggest losers.
At 10 a.m. Monday as temperatures held at minus 17, Janesville company Al Beyers Cooling and Heating already had 15 calls in the basket for furnaces on the fritz.
“It is crazy today. We’re bundled to the max,” Al Beyers dispatcher Jaci McDonough said. “We’ve had at least 20 calls for no heat before nine o’clock this morning, and all four of our phones are lit up right now. I don’t expect it to let up.”
Every technician the company has, including the owners and crews that normally only handle new furnace installations, were on call Monday. McDonough said workers at the company had residential furnace calls all over the map, including Beloit, Janesville, Milton, Fort Atkinson, Lake Mills, Cambridge and Stoughton.
During extreme cold, there’s always a spike in calls for furnace problems, McDonough said. People tend to take their furnace for granted as the quiet heartbeat of the household when it’s 20 degrees and sunny.
Put a minus sign in front of that temperature and add some serious wind chill, and people become super-tuned to every little furnace ping and murmur.
“We’ve gotten a lot of calls with people saying they hear funny sounds, whistles. Everybody is on high alert,” McDonough said.
Sometimes the problem is simple—an outside vent blocked with ice and snow, or a dead thermostat battery.
Older furnaces are more likely to completely break down under the strain of constant running, particularly as people turn up the heat to contend with the frigid cold.
“If a (furnace) heat exchanger is already on the verge of going out and you’ve got your heat set higher than normal in this cold—the length of time running … the furnace is running constantly. It’s not getting a break,” Mc-Donough said.
McDonough said crews from her company likely would put in 15 hours or more Monday to stay caught up on furnace calls.
“You can’t leave people hanging because it’s not just about people pipes freezing. It’s about people. This cold is really, really dangerous,” she said.
Cold cranking
Cars were as cranky as their owners Monday.
When they started, many sent their drivers a dizzying array of dashboard icons that often translated into low tire pressure or indicated problems with stability control systems.
Service manager Mark Erdman and his crew at Fagan Automotive in Janesville were fielding phone calls from car owners with both sorts of problems.
“Lots of the calls related to tire pressure,” Erdman said. “Tire pressure drops in severe cold, and usually a drop of 5 pounds per-square-inch will trigger that warning.
“It’s something you don’t want to ignore because it can present a safety issue, plus it affects fuel economy and is just hard on the tires.”
Erdman said the dealership also was getting calls about cars that wouldn’t start, most of which were the result of weak batteries.
Fagan, he said, doesn’t typically make service calls, but service advisors have been doing plenty of diagnostics over the phone.
Wurtz Service Center on Racine Street does make service calls, and tow truck drivers there were plenty busy.
“Most of it has been for no-starts,” said Paul Williams of Wurtz. “It’s also been for tire problems.
“For safety reasons, it’s often not reasonable to change a tire on the side of the road, so the vehicle needs to be towed somewhere else.”
Williams said most cars that won’t start are generally being towed to repair shops.
“Cars are a lot better than they used to be, but if you’ve got a low battery, they’re easier to flood, and once they’re flooded, they’re probably not going to start until the sparks plugs are cleaned and the gas is drained from the oil.
“If it’s not starting, it’s probably not going to start.”
The extreme cold also creates glare ice on roadways, a combination that often results in a call for a wrecker, Williams said.
“One thing people really need to realize is that they have to avoid cruise control in these winter conditions,” he said. “The road might look fine, but once you get on a hill with your cruise control on and hit glare ice, it’s all over ”
…
In a wet hole
It’s hard to think of a worst job on a below-zero day than crawling into a wet hole to fix broken water pipes.
At least workers in the hole are protected a bit from the harsh wind, said Dave Botts, Janesville’s utility director.
Water pipes break when temperatures swing, and the frequency so far this season has been “a little above normal” with the recent severe weather in December and early January, Botts said.
He counted about 20 water main breaks in December. Two more were reported Monday morning. Botts said the city could have even more as temperatures rise later this week.
Frozen pipes
Plumbers were scrambling to help residents and business owners worried about frozen pipes. Rick Terrill of Terrill Plumbing already had answered five frantic calls by early Monday afternoon. Pipes are more susceptible with the blustery winds because the drafts blow cold air over pipes. Restaurants have issues in this weather because their venting systems have fresh air intakes that bring in cold air. People don’t realize many bathroom vent fans let cold air in when not running, Terrill said. He figures it will only get worse at the end of the week with the predicted thaw. “A lot of pipes are frozen and broken right now that nobody realizes because they won’t show up until they thaw out,” he said. “You do your best to try to figure out where they (pipes) would be frozen and try to get heat to it,” Terrill said.
Sometimes, Terrill must open walls so warmer air can get to the pipes.
Terrill Monday afternoon was on his way to winterize a home for someone whose house is on the market.
Brent Steinke, service manager at Lloyd’s Plumbing and Heating, said the owners of five or six houses called him with frozen pipe issues Monday.
To avoid frozen pipes, Steinke suggested residents turn on faucets periodically or allow a small stream of water to run. People should keep cabinet doors open under sinks, especially if it’s a sink on an outside wall. Stop outside drafts that might move cold air across the pipes because it doesn’t take much of a draft to cause freezing, Steinke said.
Also, residents should make sure the outside hoses are not connected to the house.
Mostly, problems show up in older homes where pipes sometimes were installed inside exterior walls. Frozen pipes in homes built in the last 20 years usually are the result of a draft or a hole, he said.
If pipes freeze, residents can use heat guns or hair driers to melt ice in plastic pipes but should make sure the heat doesn’t melt the pipes. Plumbers can use thawing machines, but they can be used only on copper or steel pipes. Never use an open flame to warm a pipe, Steinke said.
If a pipe is frozen, chances are it will burst when the water thaws, he said.
Streets cleaned
Janesville crews hit city streets Saturday in a race against the clock to mop up the best they could after Saturday’s snow but before the big freeze, said John Whitcomb, operations director.
Crews worked from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
“We wanted to make sure that our arterial and collector street systems were going to be snow free and then would dry enough before the very cold,” Whitcomb said.
“We got lucky,” Whitcomb said. “I don’t think it got as cold as quick as the forecast. We’re in pretty good shape.”
The new automated garbage collection trucks are running all right in the lower temps, although workers did have a few equipment issues Monday morning, Whitcomb said.
The trucks started fine, but condensation is generally a bigger problem for diesel fuel when vehicles move from higher to lower temps.
No cold injuries
A Mercy Hospital and Trauma Center spokeswoman said one patient was treated last week in the emergency department for hypothermia, but no weather-related cases were reported Monday.
No cold-related cases were reported at St. Mary’s Janesville Hospital, a spokeswoman said.
False alarms
Janesville police responded to an unusual number of burglar alarms late Sunday night into early Monday morning that appeared to be weather related, Lt. Terry Sheridan said.
“It must have something to do with the cold and any little shift that could disrupt the alarm fields between the doors and windows causing them to go off,” he said.
Police responded to all eight calls—some at the same location more than once—“because we never know the cause,” Sheridan said.
Child care
While many parents took to local Facebook pages to express relief about school being canceled, several area parents questioned why day care centers also closed. In one local mothers group, parents expressed frustration about having to work even though their day cares closed, while others said no child should be exposed to the outdoors for any amount of time.
Heather Jenkins, owner of Alternative Childcare on Janesville’s west side, received a flood of calls and emails late Sunday from parents trying to make arrangements after the Janesville School District canceled school for Monday. Jenkins runs a drop-in, hour-by-hour day care center, and advertised her business on Facebook on Sunday for parents in a pinch.
“I know a lot of parents are kind of frustrated because a lot of schools closed Friday and Janesville didn’t close until Sunday,” she said, which resulted in the Sunday night calls.
She had eight kids Monday and had to turn down quite a few more. She expects to be just as busy today because it’s harder for parents to take off two days rather than one, she said.
Cold pets
By mid-morning Monday, the Rock County Humane Society had not responded to any calls of pets in distress.
Executive Director Brett Frazier said most people take good care of their pets and the majority of past calls during cold weather have come from people concerned about outdoors animals. Because the humane society doesn’t conduct cruelty investigations, it encourages people to call local law enforcement to check out those problems.
People who suspect “something is not quite right” with an animal can call the humane society at 608-752-5622, Frazier said.
“We take overnight drop-offs from the city of Janesville and city of Beloit police and that’s where the majority of our strays come from,” he said.
“Between the police and humane society we’ve got the capacity to help any animal in distress and put it into a safe situation,” Frazier said.
Cold day to dig
Cemetery workers dig graves all winter, but the city of Janesville’s Oakhill Cemetery lucked out by not needing any sites dug during this bitter cold, said Kathy Greenwell at the cemetery’s office.
The cemetery had two burials last week and one is pending for likely later this week, she said.
The frost was 4 to 8 inches deep last week, she said, with the snow providing a blanket to help protect the ground from freezing deeply.
Workers need a two-day notice in winter to dig a grave, she said. They use a jackhammer or sometimes propane heaters to help get through the frost, she said.Labels: Weather
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