Tulsa Workers Try To Stay Warm While Working In Record Cold

Record cold temperatures prompted some school districts to call off classes Tuesday.

The actual temperature in Tulsa early Monday morning reached two below zero.

That's a record, beating the old record of zero that had stood since 1912.

There wasn't a warm spot outside to be found Monday so the people who had to be out there were making the best of it.

The mail carriers were out on their rounds with plenty of layers on but that only goes so far.

Janet Gerner, a USPS Carrier, said, " We prepare by getting lots of layers of clothes and bringing all of our winter gear and I already had to put on my second set of gloves because my fingers were already getting numb after just 20 minutes out here."

The people who keep the water flowing for the City of Tulsa say working on line breaks in the cold isn't as bad as you might think.

It's a little warmer down in the hole, enough to make steam come out, and they pump out most of it and try to stay dry.

The City hasn't had an unusual number of line breaks so far, but that's expected to change after the hard freeze starts to thaw.

Derrick Crawford, with City of Tulsa, said, "We just stay busy and stay with it as much as we can, get busy so we can get back in the warm.

It was cold enough Monday morning to freeze over parts of the Arkansas River.

And that cold wind was more than enough to keep most people inside, who didn't have to be outside.

Outside the BOK Center, construction workers were on a tight deadline to break down Winterfest, so they were taking down the tree and dismantling everything else.

Henry Watson, Construction Worker, "Do a little bit at a time, go in and get warm, come back out and get with it."

PSO said they only had a few outages and while a few might be related to the cold it wasn't anything extraordinary.