TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) - You could run into a different world by early Wednesday morning where ice could damage your home and make driving more dangerous.
People up north where it gets cold and stays cold probably find it pretty amusing the way the way we react to the first freeze of the year but the fact of the matter is when it doesn't get cold all that often you really do need a little more preparation and a lot of that has to do with preparing the roads.
Because the bridges freeze first, the City of Tucson sent out de-icing crews by early Tuesday afternoon so they can finish coating 58 bridges before rush hour.
Applied to a dry road the magnesium chloride can keep ice from sticking for about ten days.
Michael Graham of Tucson Department of Transportation says, "It's environmentally safe. It's safe for vegetation, safe for groundwater and surface water as well. Craig And not corrosive to your car? Absolutely not."
Brisk temperatures are bringing brisk business to the Ace Hardware on Tanque Verde as worried homeowners buy items to keep their pipes from freezing.
Biff Johnson didn't wait for a freezing forecast to protect his pipes. He insulated them last week after a hard lesson last year.
"I went out in the morning and there were some geysers coming out of the side of my house where the hose bibs had split open from freezing.”
At Ace Hardware, Phil Warren has everything from insulated tubing to insulated socks to fit over large fixtures. He says any pipes coming out of the ground or out of your house probably need a winter coat.
"Sometimes people will have a hose bib running out to their swimming pool equipment that they might not been mindful of; something like that that they want to look for. Which brings up just leave your pool equipment running during the coldest part of the night as well so that you've got the water circulating."
So bundle up your pipes as well as yourself.
