The cold crept into town Friday morning like poison moving up the stem of a flower, slowly overtaking it until the petals snapped off, fell to the ground and shattered.

Frozen metal bodies lay dead in driveways and on streets, victims of an insidious chill that reached 27 degrees below zero.

Enter Dr. Frankenstein, with jumper cables.

Tow-truck drivers delivered hundreds of electric transfusions Friday in Bismarck-Mandan, clamping the red and black jaws of life onto many, many batteries. How many were there, about?

"At least a million," said Sheila Berg, of Berg's Towing. "We've been very, very, very busy. It was the first real busy day of this year."

Carlyn Wentz, of Kirkwood Tesoro, said Friday was the busiest for the wreckers this new year. Halfway into her day, she'd had 30 calls for jump starts or tows.

"We've been swamped," Wentz said Friday afternoon. "I have two drivers out on two calls each right now, and have two more people here right now who need help."

At the same time, Ace Towing's eight drivers had dealt with more than 50 calls from around the area, dispatcher Kathy Maas said.

Maas said much of the work was on big trucks. Many semi tractor-trailers had to be towed someplace where they could thaw. Or worse.

Les Heid, service manager at Trucks of Bismarck Inc., said his and other stations that service trucks were backed up Friday.

"It's plain, old Mother Nature raising havoc with trucks," Heid said. "We've been calling other dealers in town, trying to get customers in, and everyone is in the same boat. Right now there are a lot of cold weather-related problems in fuel and air systems."

Berg said they've tried to make room in their shop for trucks to sit and thaw. In the meantime, all sorts of passenger vehicles are coming in, too.

"There's been a lot of tows because the cars are froze up so bad it takes more than a jump start," Berg said.

Today might be just as busy.

The National Weather Service predicted the low early this morning to be 27 below and the high today to be 13 below. Tonight's low should reach about 26 below.

The high on Sunday is expected to be 5 below, with a low of 15 below. Things should get to the right side of zero briefly Monday, with a high of 5. The low will be about 1 below.

(Reach Tony Spilde at 250-8260 or tspilde@ndonline.com.)

Cold blamed for outage

Cold weather was blamed for a power outage that affected parts of Bismarck and northwest Burleigh County early Friday morning.

Doug Mork, member services director with Capital Electric Cooperative Inc., said the cold weather caused a wire splice to snap at about 6:30 a.m. Friday in a rural area east of Baldwin.

"When it gets 20 to 30 below with a little wind, that's when your weaknesses show," Mork said.

Mork said the power was back on by about 9 a.m. He didn't immediately know how many customers lost power.

Friday's outage was Capital Electric's only major problem with power lines so far during this cold snap, Mork said.