I've had 2 cold starting casualties. One was on my old Honda and I tore a cam seal and was pissing oil out of it. the other was a Neon and it was oil pushing past a cold gasket and spraying the exhaust. The Neon was good after just warming up and cleaning up the overspray, the Honda was a couple hundred in repairs.
I don't mess around when it's this cold. It sucks that yours got unplugged when you were at work.