Just put the wipers up

Well, it looks like you got freezing rain... So yeah, you were screwed no matter what.

blowtorch it all

That's so much better than having them frozen onto the fucking windshield. Not that hard to remove the ice from the wipers and for the windshield you can always use a bronze blade (<-- which would kill the wipers if they were frozen to the windshield). Source: I live in northern Germany, that's like Minnesota with more rain in winter,

I don't think you're going anywhere anyways