Oh the weather outside is frightful

A winter cold snap kept most travellers off the highways Monday night.
Pat's Towing Service of Chaplin wasn't very busy during the storm, said owner Pat Labossiere.
"They didn't recommend travel. People were listening."
Whiteout driving conditions blanketed the province.
Candy Doung of the Pense Food and Gas Bar east of Moose Jaw said few travellers were out in the storm.
"It wasn't busy. We closed early," she said. "Somebody had a car in the ditch and we tried to help them."
"(But there are) lots of cars in the ditch today."
RCMP investigated 25 traffic accidents province-wide on Monday, about average according to Sgt. Brad Kaeding.
A fender bender in Marquis and a three-vehicle collision, with no injuries, on a grid road near Belle Plaine were the only incidents in this region.
The storm, with wind chill around -60 C, gave hundreds of students in Prairie South School Division a second consecutive day off.
Most buses from the Prairie South School Division ran Monday. None ran Tuesday.
"We make the decision each morning," said education director Brenda Edwards, about whether to send out buses.
Division policy is to hold the buses back if the temperature is -40 C or the wind chill is -45.
Ecole Ducharme in Moose Jaw didn't run buses on Tuesday, either.
Some city parents kept students at home. Edwards said attendance varied with some schools at 80 per cent, some less than 79 per cent of usual.
The division will not close schools to avoid a situation where some students come to a closed school building, she said.
A cardboard boat building for students, to be held this week at the Kinsmen Sportsplex has been postponed until the spring.
The storm's impact on the city was minor, said public works manager Duane Grado.
Garbage collection has been halted until next week.
"The wind chill out there is getting pretty close to -60," he said.
"We've cleared out the far corners of snow drifts" and crews are clearing finger drifts around the city. "We didn't get much snow at all.
"Fortunately we had only one water main break. We usually get half a dozen in a cold spell like this," said Grado.
Crews will wait for warmer weather before repairing the main break, he said. "We shut the water off and try to get water to the homes."
The city has had several homeowners call with frozen water lines, usually near an uninsulated connection to the house, he said.

Ron Walter can be reached at 691-1264.