The weather forecast suggests that we have turned the corner on the recent artic cold snap. Not a moment too soon, I can imagine for most.

The unusually cold temperatures the past week brought some of the clearest and sunniest days I can remember. I am not so sure that the clarity of the Olympic Mountains exists at any other time of the year. The low seasonal sun reflecting off of Mount Rainier also was a welcome sight before that view hibernates until later in the spring.

Growing up in Michigan I can say that I am used to the bone chilling cold. You can count on weeks on end where the temperature would not break single digits for the day time high. The one thing that can be said about the cold is at least you can dress for it. Sure, but if you call immobilizing yourself and looking like a gingerbread man dressing for the cold then some will argue whether it is worth it.

The obvious downside is that mechanical systems don’t like the cold. Cars particularly hate it; and I hate driving all bundled up. There is a Nobel Prize for Peace, Medicine, Physics, et al., but no prize for those who make our lives incrementally more tolerable, and for that I nominate whoever developed the electric seat warmer.

As some have found out, pipes hate the cold too. The ROA sent out an email stating a spat of pumps bursting around town. It appears the majority in Palisade Village. Even our own mayor could not escape the deluge of fire suppression water (oh, the irony).

There is also a deluge of insurance claims in the pipeline through out our region. Let’s face it, this is a once in a generation cold snap.

Al Gore was unavailable for comment.

One day: we can weather the storm. But a whole week? Well, there is bound to be collateral damage. I am fortunate because I am not exactly sure what I lost. I had no water issues but I did plant a couple hundred dollars of nursery plants around the patio last month. Some will come back, others won’t.

I have been fortunate here regarding my pipes but I was not so lucky when I lived in Detroit. When I was in college I rented a three bedroom lower flat in a shoddily constructed home built for the war effort. During World War II, whole neighborhoods sprang up to support the influx of workers who toiled in the local factories building the Aresenal for Democracy. My house was situated about equidistant between the Chrysler’s DeSoto factory and Mercury’s Lincoln plant.

The walls had little insulation. If the walls were insulated at all it would have balsam wool packed into brown paper batts and fastened between the studs. To say the house was an ice box in winter was an understatement. Often, my winter heating bill would be nearly twice the cost of my rent. The house had steam heat with cast iron radiators, which would clang and hiss when they came to life.

Character the place had by the bushel load. But, in spite of the luxury of warm towels after your shower in a claw-foot tub, I don’t think I could ever go back.

During one particular Christmas season the day time temperatures could not crack double digits. I was working at a General Motors engine plant in the far western suburbs past the airport. Because of the season, many chose to not to work the overtime. Being in college and in dire need of cash to finish, I gobbled up the available hours. I often worked double shifts in a factory that covered about a square mile.

It was Christmas morning and I was fast asleep. My shift ended at 11PM but I had to be back in the plant at 11AM. At about the same time that the area children were racing to their Christmas trees I was awaken by the shrill sound of my smoke detector squealing.

Don’t ever fear that you are a heavy sleeper or that you might not hear it going off. You will. You are subconsciously programmed to hear it.

First light was evident outside and I sprang up in bed. The first thing that struck me was the unusual smell in the air. The second, and more unnerving realization was how warm it was in my bedroom. In that cold you usually had several layers of sheets, blankets, duvets, comforters, and even a “throw” your grandma made. I began to ratchet up my worry when my foot touched the hardwood floor and it was eerily warm.

When I opened the bedroom door, I could only hear the alarm in my kitchen. A second smoked detector joined the chorus in the living room moments later. I opened the back door in the kitchen, which lead to the stairs to the upper unit and also the basement. I could not see either stairwell due the building miasma, so I slammed the door as if chased by a cartoon villain or monster.

Still groggy, I called 9-1-1 from the wall phone in the kitchen and over the din of the smoke detectors wavering. I was pretty calm but the dispatcher was animated when she said I should get out of the house immediately. I slipped on some boots and grabbed a jacket and headed outside. My backpack filled with books was by the front door and I grabbed that too. I stood alone in the single digit coolness beneath the emerging blue sky. With my backpack slung over my shoulder I looked like I was waiting for the bus. I thought to myself, “This sucks”, but that is also what would run through my head whenever I had to wait for a bus, and now, a firetruck.

Within a couple of minutes the first fire rig showed up. If the sirens didn’t wake up the neighbors, then the idle of a Detroit Diesel engine did. A few minutes later there were a couple more trucks; and my neighbor, who always parked in front of the fire hydrant came out to roll down the windows of his car once he realized he was boxed in. He had already lost his side windows once during a fire a couple years prior when parked in the same spot and the fire crew cleared the way with a breaker bar.

My street was no stranger to fire. The block I lived on lost 4 houses and 3 garages to arson during the years I lived on Chopin Street. The crew was inside for a while but no hoses were being drawn. By now a small crowd gathered in the street. A couple minutes later one of the lieutenants came out and gave me the news.

The boiler to the upstairs tenant furnace blew a relief valve. All the steam from their closed system filled the basement and hall. The boiler kept filling and generating more steam until it felt like a Turkish bath. The smell was what is referred to as funk, as in funky, rusty, boiler water. The Detroit Fire Department shut off the furnace and turned off the power at the breaker so no more water could be boiled out.

The most memorable thing from the call was as the crew was packing up to leave; a young fireman came up to me and said, “This is a pretty nice neighborhood. What are the rents around here?” “Nice”, in Detroit, is a relative thing. In fact, in the 1970s there was a city slogan coined that simply implored you to “Say nice things about Detroit.” My favorite response was “I was robbed but at least I wasn’t killed.” In any case, the DFD had a residency requirement and the newbie needed a place to stay, or at least serve as a mail drop.

The cause of the blown valve was traced to my idiot neighbors leaving an exterior door open in frigid weather while they were spending the holiday in Mexico. Their furnace was constantly trying to heat an unheatable flat.

By the time the commotion was over I had to get ready for work for another 12 hour shift. The weather was unchanged and it went from day to night and bitter all the way.

When I returned home my house was completely dark and I soon would discover it was also very cold. Once inside, no light switch was working. No power at all. The fire department, in their haste, shut off my breaker too.

I headed to the basement but the backdoor would not budge. I applied shoulder and gave the door a shot when it broke free to the crunching sound of breaking ice. The hall and stairwell glistened; all the steam had condensed then froze in the now heatless and powerless house.

Merry Flippin’ Christmas.

A flashlight reflected off of some surfaces while others wore a sheen of white. It looked like a salt mine. The floor, however, had a thick layer of solid ice. This made the stairs unmanageable and they had to be negotiated while sitting; first to the landing, then onto the basement. Once in the basement I was able to glide, mimicking the motion of a skater, to the control panel where I returned power to my flat. I turned on a single overhead bulb by its chain and the site was oddly breathtaking: A crystal palace in the basement. Everything was covered in ice; even the shirts hanging from the clothes line were starched stiff, frozen like cardboard cut outs. Icicles clung to everything. Touching the walls would release ice in large, Depression glass like sheets, sending them crashing to the encased concrete floor.

I restarted my furnace and then it took me about fifteen minutes to make my way slowly back up the stairs. There was no hope that I would have heat by morning.

The real miracle through that whole event is that my pipes never froze. Perhaps it was the layer of ice that formed over them that acted as an insulator. After that horrendous cold, and lack of heat, it makes you wonder how DuPont had so many burst pipes.

I doubt we have heard the last of the pipe burst mayhem. The evenings will remain cold, and areas where little light travels will be the last to warm. The city provided a link to generic and otherwise useless cold weather advice. You can try whatever remedy you have heard but nothing beats insulation.

This will just go down as another December weather event. And in case you forgot what happened fifty-one weeks ago…