Jan. 16—While frigid temperatures kept most people indoors Monday, Mike Kerr was out plowing snow at Fort Gibson’s Cedar Inn motel.

“We’ve been out since 5:20 this morning at properties we have around town,” said Kerr, who does maintenance at the motel.

Snow plow drivers were among the few people willing to brave Monday’s polar blast. According to accuweather.com, temperatures remained in the single digits Monday.

“If this was in the 30s and we had some snowfall, the activity would be a little different,” said City of Muskogee Emergency Management Director Tyler Evans. “When I was out driving around this morning, it was 3 degrees and bitterly cold. I don’t think much of our Oklahoma people enjoy the single digit temps.”

Evans said the cold blast “obviously impacted travel for everybody.”

“I’ve seen crews out, trucks plowing,” Evans said. “I’ve seen ODOT out there with their plows, sand trucks as well. The city continues to treat the arterial streets and sand those as needed, as well as stay on top of priority areas, including bridges and the viaduct or main thoroughfares.”

Police departments in Muskogee, Wagoner and Checotah had no weather-related problems to report Monday. Neither did Fort Gibson Police Chief Rob Frazier.

“Maybe you’ll see them tomorrow, I don’t know if it warms up any,” Frazier said. “Everybody’s doing good, taking their time, staying in.”

Evans said the lack of snow or other moisture Monday helped crews keep roads clear.

Temperatures are not expected to be above freezing until Wednesday, according to accuweather.com. Another sub-freezing cold snap is anticipated Friday.

However, Evans said he tries not to forecast too far ahead.

“I try to tell our folks here that we really start getting our accurate predictions about 48 hours in advance,” he said. “I try not to look too far out because it just changes so wildly. For this storm, worst case scenario, they were predicting eight inches, then we were supposed to get five and a half inches then as we got closer to the event that happened yesterday, we were down to two to three inches.”