As Tilman Gandy waited for an RTD bus Tuesday morning in downtown Denver he ducked into an office building entryway trying to elude a frigid wind.
Gandy, wearing just a suit, with a tie and fedora hat, no overcoat, was woefully under dressed against the bitter, dangerous cold.
“I didn’t expect it to be this cold!” Gandy said.
He was, however, stealthily prepared.
“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” Gandy said with a sly smile. “I’m wearing long johns.”
In Denver Tuesday a cold weather record was set, breaking a mark that stood for nearly 100 years.
The high temperature in Denver struggled to reach 16 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. The previous lowest high temperature set in the city on Nov. 11 was 19 degrees back in 1916.
David Garcia worked a seven-hour split shift Tuesday, as he typically does, standing on the 16th Street Mall waving a sign to attract passersby to a nearby restaurant.
“It’s cold,” Garcia bellowed as he paced.
Garcia, and other people who work outdoors, will have to wait a bit before temperatures rise back above freezing.
Wednesday, more snow is likely in Denver and the high temperature is expected to be 6 degrees, the weather service reports, which would break another record.
The lowest high temperature in the city on Nov. 12 also was recorded in 1916, when the thermometer topped out at 9 degrees.
“There’s not going to be a huge break,” said Kari Bowen, a weather service meteorologist and spokeswoman.
The wind chill value Wednesday in Denver is expected to drop as low as minus-15 degrees.
On Tuesday, Antonio Dominguez and his four-man construction crew had the unenviable task of breaking concrete in a downtown alleyway to lay new cable pipe beneath the ground.
Dressed in a hoodie, with a vest over it, a woolen winter cap and sweat pants beneath his blue jeans, Dominguez declared he was ready for the deep freeze.
“You just have to keep moving,” Dominguez said. “You have to keep working. If you stop, you cool down.”
The workers kept a crew cab pickup truck, with the heater going, warming in the alley, a spot where they took quick breaks, refuge from the freeze. They drank hot coffee and hot chocolate throughout the day.
The workers’ equipment, however, didn’t hold up as well. A jack-hammer bit the dust in the freezing cold and a “missile,” used to bore a hole through the ground to lead way for new pipe, came up lame.
Around the corner from the alleyway construction, dozens of people streamed into Three Sisters cafe, just off 17th and Stout streets, to warm-up lunch with hot soup.
At about 12:30 p.m., 16 customers waited in line, circling around a vestibule. Close to 30 diners were already seated at tables.
“It’s a soup day,” said Ariana Libovits, as she readied eight different types of soups — made daily from scratch — to serve customers. “We’re going to be real busy.”
A worker delivering packages for UPS braved the cold in short pants. A bicycle messenger, 22-year-old Dillon Hair, a recent transplant from Georgia, wore warm, but light, clothing as he raced to do his work.
“It’s actually not that cold,” Hair said, unlocking his bike from a chain. Hair hurriedly stated that weather in Georgia is a “wet cold.”
Denver, he said, is “dry cold” and easier to manage.
“I was born to do this job,” Hair shouted as he raced off on the frozen pavement.
At the Sante Fe Cookie Co., below street level in the Republic Plaza Building, just off the 16th Street Mall and Tremont Place, proprietor Debbie Kuehn invited a visitor to stand in front of a warm, busy oven.
“It’s really nice to stand right here,” Kuehn said smiling.
A first time customer stopped into the shop, saying she smelled cookies up on the mall and followed the aroma.
“It smells warm,” Kuehn said. “That makes people feel good.”
