Busted Boiler Leaves OKC Apartment Residents In The Cold

No heat all weekend in the Aberdeen condos near downtown Oklahoma City. Residents have to cope with the cold, as their boiler stopped working Saturday morning.

Some say they are doing all they can to stay warm by simply wearing more layers or using their stove. Lugging heavy bags of logs is Linda Atchley's fix for the cold.

"We decided to buy firewood to start a fire and make some soup and snuggle up by it," said Atchley, who's lived at the Aberdeen for 11 years.

On Saturday, a plumbing pipe broke in the boiler leaving the historic seven-story building in the Heritage Hills neighborhood in the cold.

"I said, ‘Wait a minute there's no heat. Let's build a fire.' That's pretty much all you can do," she said.

But one-year Aberdeen resident Andrea McBee's building doesn't have fireplaces, so after braving the cold for a day, she's leaving and staying with a friend.

"I was typing on my laptop and my fingers were too cold, and I didn't really want to get gloves on inside, so I thought I'll just go somewhere else," McBee said.

Aberdeen management told residents on its Facebook page:

"The plumbing pipe break in the boiler has flooded some of the condos, so we have had to completely shut down the system. We are sorry we had to shut it down, but we had to, so it would not cause any damage to the units."

"It should be up and running soon, I hope," Atchley said. "If not, I guess it's going to cost me another $24 to warm my home."

The Aberdeen has a recording on its 24-hour emergency line telling residents that maintenance has been working to fix the issue. They apologize for the inconvenience, and hope to have the heat back on in the building sometime on Monday.