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By ANNE KAROLYI; Times Leader Staff Writer
Monday, December 27, 1993 Page: 3A QUICK WORDS: WINTER WEATHER
WILKES-BARRE — Robert Fletcher didn’t have to go outside to know how low
the mercury dipped Monday.
The director of corporate services at AAA’s Valley Automobile Club spent
the day fielding calls from hundreds of motorists stranded by dead batteries.
“We can’t get a line out,” Fletcher said. “We have calls coming in faster
than our phones can take them.”
After a high of 15 degrees Monday at the Wilkes-Barre Scranton
International Airport, it should warm up to the low 20s today, said Mike Graf,
a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Avoca.
The slight warm-up follows a low Monday of 1 degree below zero recorded at
5:30 a.m., just two degrees warmer than the record low for Dec. 26, set in
1914, Graf said. Temperatures Monday night were expected to come in between 0
and 5 below, according to the weather service.
In Kingston, the cold took its toll on a homeless man discovered outside
the Sheldon Spring factory on Northampton Street, police said. Employee John
Adams discovered Edward Lowman outside the building at 9:26 a.m. Monday,
police said.
Lowman, who spent the night in the bitter cold, could no longer walk. Adams
brought him inside and called police. Medics rushed Lowman to Nesbitt Memorial
Hospital, where he was in serious condition in the intensive care unit Monday.
For many, the frosty weather sparked some problems as pipes froze and
heaters konked out. At Petroski Plumbing in Nanticoke, Debbie Petroski
dispatched repairmen to customers left without heat.
When temperatures drop, heating systems work harder. If any parts are old
and weak, they usually break under the strain, Petroski said.
“They call up panicking, and then you have to calm everybody down and
assure them we’ll be out soon to fix it,” she said. “It’s business. We’re not
complaining.”
Nobody was complaining at Montage Mountain in Lackawanna County. About
2,000 skiers hit the slopes despite the nippy weather, said Hank Montz,
director of marketing.
Chairlift operators and ski patrols worked shorter shifts, so they could
warm up inside the lodge more often, but skiers weren’t complaining, Montz
said.
“Spirits get uplifted around here. This cold weather’s great. It’s cold,
but the snow is such a sparkling, bright white, it’s wonderful,” he said.
“It (cold weather) isn’t a problem if you prepare for it. You just dress in
layers and watch for the exposed skin.”
Dressing in light layers and wearing hats and gloves — even for short
trips outside — is essential to ward off the cold.
The recent temperatures are a lower than normal but not unusual,
meteorologist Graf said.
“It’s wintertime. It’s supposed to be cold.”