Low Temps Preparations

GOLDEN TRIANGLE, Miss. (WCBI) – As temps drop to the low twenties and teens, there are some important things to remember when it comes to staying warm.

The cold weather affects many things and causes some serious issues when it comes to warming both your home and your car.

Some of those issues deal with icy windshields and electricity overload.

When the temps drop, so do the temps of our windshields.

Doctor Glass technician, Josh Smith, says our windshields are always colder than the temperature outside.

He says if your windshield doesn’t have a crack or chip in it, then the cold shouldn’t be an issue, but if it does, there are some important things to think about.

“It just really depends. If you’ve got like a crack, or a chip, or something, is really your only worry. I mean, yeah, you can pour water on it, or anything like that, just as long as it’s not cracked anywhere. Like I said, the change in the temperature is what actually runs out of preexisting crack.”

If your windshield looks like this and you decide to pour hot water on it, then those cracks will grow and give you more problems than just an icy windshield.

The same thing will happen if you heat your car too fast, so it’s best to use this traditional tool.

“One time, I didn’t have an ice scraper with me and I wasn’t thinking and I had a little, a replacement mirror in the side door of my van. I tried to scrape it and I got scratches all over my windshield. So yeah, use an actual ice scraper, something plastic you know, something that won’t scratch it up,” says Smith.

Unlike our cars, our homes provide our escape from the cold, but if our homes aren’t heated properly, then it can be dangerous.

“For people this time of year, especially in older homes, will have power strips and they want space heaters, and they have electronic devices and it just, they start overloading outlets and start causing issues,” says West Point Fire Chief Ken Wilbourne.

That overload will cause your power strip to do this and possibly cause a house fire.

“How hot do you think this got?” Asks WCBI.

“Several hundred degrees.” Replies Wilbourne.

Wilbourne says power strips are not designed for space heaters, but it’s a common mistake people make every winter.

“This time of year, we’ll see a lot of people, they’ll, the power cords for their space heaters with it being this cold, they don’t like it, the heater is not as close to whatever they want it to be, so they’ll, the cord is not long enough, so they’ll plug it into another cord, so they’ll plug it into another cord, or they’ll take two power strips and plug two power strips together, and it’s called daisy chaining.”

Wilbourne says space heaters should only be plugged into wall outlets.

He also advises people not to use their oven as a heater.