Temps drop to teens in city
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on January 19, 2016 1:46 PM
Goldsboro experienced a cold snap of an 18-degree low this morning, but the temperature is expected to slowly climb higher in the coming days.
This morning is the coldest it has been all winter, with previous winter lows in December and early January dipping down between 25 and 30 degrees Fahrenheit.
Despite the bitter cold, roads are not expected to affected due to the lack of precipitation accompanying the low temperatures.
But it is best to be prepared for when the winter weather does arrive, said Public Works Director Jose Martinez.
"One of the things I recommend people go ahead and do is go to Lowe's or Home Depot and get some ice melt, because once inclement weather does hit that stuff gets gone," Martinez said. "That's something I do myself and spread it on my driveway, because I don't want my wife and kids slipping and falling in the morning because the driveway is frozen."
While roads have not been affected by the cold weather, one pipe in the city did require maintenance Monday night.
"We actually had 15 hours of overtime yesterday because of a pipe freezing," Martinez said.
A large pipe along Virginia Street and Oak Street had several joints freeze and required public works staff members to make multiple trips to the location to fix the pipe.
Martinez also recommended sealing off any crawl spaces to prevent the cold weather from having an adverse affect on a house's pipes.
"One of the things you can do is if you have a crawl space, seal it off," Martinez said. "You want to seal it off in the winter and reopen it in the summer to allow airflow in the warmer months."
Freezing pipes can be costly to fix.
The American Red Cross suggests insulating pipes using a pipe sleeve or installing UL-listed heat tape.
Other ways to keep pipes from freezing are by closing off garage doors to keep heat and opening kitchen cabinet doors to allow areas where plumbing is behind the cabinets to be warmed.
As temperatures drop throughout the winter, it is also wise to allow some water to continuously flow through pipes to prevent them from freezing.
Keeping outside faucets at a slow trickle is recommended by the American Red Cross.
"If it's getting really, really cold, like if it's lower than 20 degrees, or if you are leaving your house for an extended period of time, you can have your top most sink dripping water to keep water flowing through your pipes," Martinez said.
Throughout the rest of the week, temperatures are expected to rise to a high of 51 degrees on Friday and a low of 29 degrees on Saturday.