BATON ROUGE — This week in WBRZ, a big chill swept over the capital region in 1989. 

The week of Dec. 21 set a record for the coldest week in Baton Rouge as residents prepared for Christmas. 

The low temperatures that week? Twenty-seven degrees on Dec. 21, 13 degrees on Dec. 22, eight degrees on Dec. 23 and down to 10 degrees on Christmas Eve. 

With wind chill, the temperature felt like minus 14 degrees!

As a result, bridges closed, shelters opened and pipes froze.

While Baton Rouge missed out on snow, LaPlace and parts of New Orleans were in a Winter Wonderland. 

But with temperatures staying so low for so long, problems arose, namely hypothermia and the closure of I-10 between LaPlace and Kenner. This meant that the only way into the Big Easy was via Airline Highway.

Watch more WBRZ history here: