Ironworkers operate from a safety deck that allows them to do part of the $100 million redecking of the Peace Bridge without fear of the swift, cold Niagara River below. (Derek Gee/Buffalo News)

The first things Rob Hetzell looked for while climbing the torn-up Peace Bridge late Tuesday night were the mid-span flags marking the U.S.-Canada boundary.

They fluttered only gently in the breeze. That was just fine with him.

“The temperature is not the issue so much as the wind,” Hetzell said around 11 p.m. “And it’s always so much windier up here.”

For the American Bridge Co. manager overseeing the three-year, $100 million project rebuilding the Peace Bridge deck, the light winds signaled a relatively easy night for his crews. Even at a crisp 42 degrees, at least on this night the approximately 100 ironworkers and laborers toiling on the international span would avoid the bone-chilling temperatures and penetrating winds often present on the winter job.

Mark Debo of Eden, who for 35 years has worked on high steel throughout New York State with Ironworkers Local 6, knows all too well about tough nights on the Peace Bridge.

It can be cold. It can snow. It can rain.

But it’s the wind. Always the wind.

“It’s a wind tunnel,” he said. “They say we’ve had a mild winter. But up there, the wind comes right through.”

Then there are the roiling waters of the Niagara River, at some points 100 feet below. The men on the bridge constantly test and retest each others’ safety harnesses. And while a temporary platform, built by SafeSpan Co. of Tonawanda, beneath the exposed skeleton provides a place to reach upward and catch debris, the river below can prove mesmerizing.

Workers like Jeremy French of Lake View have learned a few things over more than 20 years on the job with Laborers Local 210.

“You don’t look down,” he said. “You look forward.”