Workers battle elements during winter construction
By Suzanne Werre, BHG News Service
Normally, the little hand warmers the construction workers stick inside their gloves do a pretty good job of keeping their hands warm, but Monday when the weather forecast was for a high temperature to be below zero, those little rectangles must have been deemed not quite enough by the work crew as the Repnow-Mees Addition in Underwood was unusually quiet. No hammers pounding, no power tools humming away, no shouting of measurements from the guys on the roof to the guys down on the ground. Monday was just too cold to work outside. And that’s saying a lot for this crew that has been working tirelessly through this year’s North Dakota winter to put up some new houses in the addition in south Underwood. “We’ve got a great crew,” said Jeff Kneebusch of Precis Development, Inc., who is in charge of several construction projects throughout the county, including some in Repnow-Mees in Underwood. “These are tough guys.” And he expects to see the crew out at the site every work day, unless the wind chill gets down to 25 below or so, he laughed (which it was on Monday). Pretty soon things will get a little bit easier on the crew as they’re almost finished with the shells of two houses, so they’ll be able to move indoors pretty soon. He’s pretty pleased that things have been moving on so quickly, despite the occasional shut-down due to weather.
