Bone chilling time for those outside

Tuesday was the sort of day to stay inside — if you could get away with it.

The bone-chilling freeze kept most of metro Atlanta’s students at home, its homeless streaming to shelters and the highways running smoothly at rush-hour because many folks stayed home with their kids — or simply because, well, it was cold.

Tuesday’s 6-degree reading was record-breaking for a January 7, besting the date’s old record of 10. And it was the coldest morning in Atlanta since 1996. But, to keep things it perspective, it didn’t come close to the top 10 coldest days in Atlanta’s history, all which are zero or below. Coldest ever: Feb. 13, 1899, at 9 below.

Still, Tuesday was plenty cold for those who had to be outside suffering the early-morning sub-zero wind chills.

John Petruccelli, an electrical contractor, got to a construction job site in Dunwoody at 7 a.m. with apprentice Thomas Jablonski and waited for his comrades to show up. Most didn’t, he said, laughing. “They laid out.”

Petrucelli, a Boston native thick with layers of clothing who still misses snow, pointed at another construction site already framed in.

“We don’t have the luxury of those guys across the street where the windows and doors are already in,” he said.

Across the street, not all doors are in, however. Anthony Reed, an Atlanta native led a crew of four men unloading 200 doors from a semi.

“Gotta keep moving, man; gotta keep moving,” said Reed, who claimed to be wearing four pairs of pants. “If we can bear it, we can work. Besides, delivery was coming today one way or another.”

One of the workers there, a fellow from Guatemala named Eber, smiled broadly when asked about the weather. “I like it,” he said, clapping his hands together for warmth. Reed laughed, sure his co-worker was fibbing.

The cold was a boon to plumbers like Melvin Davis, owner of Davis Plumbing, whose phone “started ringing about 5:30 this morning.”

So far, he has been running all over, mostly fixing frozen or broken hose bibs in garages.

Higher temperatures will keep Davis and other plumbers busy. “When this stuff starts thawing out and really breaking, it will be hell. Right now, people don’t realize what they got because everything is freezing up. It is going to be crazy.”

Utility repair crews dealt with some cold-related woes.

Those who maybe had it roughest were water department crews, who repaired water main breaks. Cold is bad enough. Wet and cold can be almost unbearable.

On Central Avenue, small geysers sprouted through the sidewalk and street as a city of Atlanta crew spread sand and scooped up ice as passing cars splashed them with the stream of water headed south.

Georgia Power crews worked Tuesday afternoon to restore service to about 4,200 customers who were without electricity.

“A lot of the problems are coming from transformers, mechanical issues,” spokeswoman Carol Boatright said. “We certainly expect (service) will be restored before the end of the day.”

Natural gas customers in Lawrenceville had been without heat since the morning because unusually high demand took its toll on the city’s system, which serves customers in Gwinnett, Rockdale and Walton counties.

Crews with Lawrenceville’s gas department were working to restore pressure to homes, Mayor Judy Jordan Johnson said.

Metro fire departments did not have to fight many fires, but they still were busy.

“The only thing we’re running now is broken pipe,” said Lt. Dan Dupree, spokesman for Cobb Fire. “That is all we’re doing now but we’re very busy. Everybody calls 911. They don’t know who else to call.”

Sue Peterson, spokeswoman for Gwinnett County schools, summed up why most area schools canceled classes: “We don’t want children standing out in extremely cold temperatures like we are having now. That could be dangerous.”

“We certainly don’t want children or staff to show up at school and not have heat. We are checking our facilities, making sure that we do have heat and making sure our buses are set to run.”

Those staying inside burned a lot of natural gas to stay warm, making Monday the second highest daily gas usage seen since deregulation began back in 1998.

Atlanta Gas Light spokeswoman Kristie Benson said the system’s nearly 1.6 million customers on Monday used more than twice the average for a typical daily load in January. Tuesday’s usage totals could challenge the single-day record for the month, set in 2003.

Area hospitals reported few cases of frostbite or hypothermia.

Atlanta city buildings, including libraries, recreation centers and City Hall, were open Tuesday to those escaping the cold.

Several homeless shelters across metro Atlanta remained open Tuesday during the day so men, women and children would not have to brave the freezing weather.

“This is life-threatening weather,” said Protip Biswas, homelessness and community outreach vice president for the metro Atlanta United Way. “These are temperatures we haven’t seen in a long time.”

Most shelters around metro Atlanta were beyond normal capacity, but some people still chose to stay outdoors. Many homeless are torn between leaving their belongings and coming in out of the cold, said Denise Simpson, spokeswoman for Grady Health System.