Minnesota: Deep freeze creating challenges for cemetery workers
Friday, March 7, 2014, 1:30 PM -
The bitter cold winter weather is taking a toll on cemetery workers, who are having a tough time digging graves through layers of frost.
Matt and his brother Andrew Goeden say that with the deep freeze they can get through a foot of frost within an hour with the jack-hammer but the more frost there is, the longer it takes.
"Four feet doesn't take four hours, it takes more like six hours," Goeden says.
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The boys have been forced to turn to power tools and power digging to get the job done.
Some parts of cemeteries make digging harder than others. Snow piles and strong wind, for example, can slow their efforts to a crawl.
Stone monuments draw the frost in as well.
Still, the Goeden brothers take their job of grave digging seriously and know that, despite the extra efforts this winter, what they do is appreciated.