But for the crews at ArcelorMittal’s Burns Harbor plant in Indiana, shutting down wasn’t an option, and plant personnel went to extreme lengths to ensure production continued. 

“Everyone was up to the challenge, finding different ways to keep the operation running, sometimes improvising to make material flow or equipment run,” said Tim Candiano, coke plant division manager, said in a blog post on the company's website.

"Repeatedly thawing pipes was the norm. Water lines kept breaking, but employees endured working around the leaks. Managers, operators and maintenance personnel all performed at high levels to keep the place from freezing up." 

In one case, plant personnel were forced to ascend 200 feet in the open air to repair a broken hydraulic clinder at the top of the facility’s D blast furnace. 

“Conditions were beyond severe,” said Mark Dutler, senior division manager for primary operations. “Just removing your gloves for even a minute was painful. Using a tag-team approach, iron producing MTMs and maintenance supervisors replaced the cylinder to get the furnace back up and running.”

John Mengel, vice president and general manager, said the Burns Harbor team pulled together in face of extremely fierce weather.

“The safe and quick-thinking teamwork exhibited by Burns Harbor light flat-rolled and plate employees, resulted in preventing the potential for major damage to the operations and products for our customers."

ArcelorMittal details more of the challenges the plant faced here.