Bevin: Kentucky schools closing for wind chill is a sign we're 'soft'

Gov. Matt Bevin prodded Kentucky school districts to toughen up in the face of dangerously frigid winds that are blowing through the region.

Speaking on 840 WHAS radio Tuesday, host Terry Meiners reminded Bevin that he would be up late tonight with his children because of classes being canceled on Wednesday.

"Now we cancel school for cold, I mean — " Bevin said.

"It's deep freeze; this is serious business," Meiners responded.

"Come on, now," Bevin said. "There's no ice going with it or any snow. What happens to America. We're getting soft, Terry, we're getting soft."

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The Kentucky Education Association, which has jousted with Bevin over pension reform, didn't take kindly to the governor's comment.

The teachers union tweeted: "We will always support decisions made for the health & safety of Kentucky's children. Always."

Jessica Dueñas, a teacher at the W.E.B. Du Bois Academy in Louisville, did not react warmly to the governor's comments.

She said via Twitter that she should like to see Bevin, "prove how 'hard' he is by standing outside for 30 minutes tomorrow morning as if he were waiting for a bus with less than adequate clothing, like many of (Kentucky's students) would have been due to their lack of resources."

Tiffany Dunn, another Louisville teacher who is a self-described conservative and co-founder of "Save Our Schools KY" the public education advocacy group, said Bevin's "elitist comments don't shock me anymore, but they're still appalling."

"I’m thankful for our school systems taking student safety so seriously," she said. "We have to remember the safety of every child — not just those who have the means to dress warmly in this type of weather."

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Arctic air from the polar vortex has gripped the country, causing several school districts in the Louisville area — including Jefferson County Public Schools and Catholic schools — to be closed Wednesday as temperatures are expected to dip to a low of 5 degrees.

With the wind chill on Wednesday morning, forecasters say that it could feel as cold as minus 10 or 20 degrees in parts of Louisville.

Meteorologists have said when the polar vortex plunges into the U.S., it will be warmer in parts of the Arctic than in places like Chicago and Minneapolis. Some cities are seeing their lowest temperatures in more than two decades.

The subzero wind chills and single-digit temperatures set to hit Louisville have the potential to make it one of the coldest days on record, according to the National Weather Service. The weather service is advising residents to drip faucets to prevent pipes from freezing, limit their exposure outside and wear extra layers.

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Bevin admitted during the interview that it is better for school districts to take the side of caution, but he told 840 WHAS that he is increasingly troubled by how the country reacts to adversity.

"I'm being only slightly facetious," he said, "but it does concern me a little bit that in America on this and any number of other fronts, we're sending messages to our young people that if life is hard you can curl up in the fetal position — somewhere in a warm place — and wait till it stops being hard, and that just isn't reality, it just isn't."

But that didn't stop Bevin's political rivals on both sides of the aisle from also pouncing on his interview comments.

Democrat Adam Edelen, who is running for governor, said he wished "there were better words to describe the things our governor says than 'dumb and mean.' But there aren’t."

Republican state. Rep. Robert Goforth, who is running against Bevin in the GOP primary, also slammed the remarks on Twitter. He said the comments were "Easy for a guy to say who went to the (Gould Academy) - a $60k/yr prep school. I’m with KY's kids!"

Political strategist Doug Stafford, who serves as a senior adviser to U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, also mocked the governor's comments.

"Oh hush," Stafford, a Republican, tweeted. "It will be 0 degrees with 20-30mph winds in places in KY tomorrow. Kids have to sit on bus stops and or walk a mile or more in that. No one wants to hear your old man stories about walking uphill both ways in that when you were a kid."

You can listen to Bevin's full interview here.

Reporter Thomas Novelly contributed to this story. Reporter Phillip M. Bailey can be reached at 502-582-4475 or pbailey@courierjournal.com. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/philb.