Homes are without heat, water pipes are busted, and the volunteer fire department has been kept busy over the last couple of days as our area gets pulverized by bone crunching below mid-20s temperatures.

On New Year’s Day, the Schroon Lake volunteer fire department used an ice ready fire truck to attend to a propane gas fire in a fishing shanty at the north end of the lake.

Meanwhile the freezing temperatures caused many residents on the town water system to experiences delays and no service in certain parts of Schroon yesterday.

And local plumbers have been kept busy, using a triage system of helping folks without heat, then moving onto those with burst pipe issues. Many folks woke up to -24 temperatures on New Year’s morning. On Tuesday the thermometer read -18° in many parts of greater Schroon.

Late Monday some of the issues with the town water system were resolved at the Charley Hill pump house, where both pumps were damaged. Dave Clark and his crew were able to get one pump back on line so the tank on the Horseshoe Pond Road would have water, according to the town board’s Roger Friedman.