Despite the monster snowstorm that buried the nation's capital and much of the East Coast in several feet of snow last weekend, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, pointed out that only female senators toughed it out to make it into work on Tuesday.

"Something is genuinely different," noted the Alaska lawmaker while speaking on the Senate floor during Tuesday's brief morning session.

"As we convene this morning, you look around the chamber, the presiding officer is female. All of our parliamentarians are female. Our floor managers are female. All of our pages are female," she said addressing the few assembled legislators.

Murkowski, who was one of only a handful of lawmakers in the Capitol building in the aftermath of the weekend blizzard, praised her female colleagues for showing up to work following the deadly storm. The Republican senator also took on the task of handling the formalities of delaying Senate business until her colleagues were able to return to work.

Once she completed the parliamentary business, Murkowski noted that she and Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who served as the presiding officer, did not plan to lead an all-women session. Instead, she said the absence of men goes to show that women in Congress had the guts and resolve to brave the conditions in order to make it into work.

"Perhaps it speaks to the hardiness of women -- that put on your boots and put your hat on and get out and slog through the mess that's out there," she said.

Likewise, Collins released a statement on Wednesday commending herself and Murkowski.

"We are hardy, we know how to deal with snow, and we don't let a blizzard stop us from doing our jobs," she said, according to the Poland Press Herald.

In addition to bringing Washington, D.C. to a standstill with 22.4 inches of snow, last weekend's winter storm was also responsible for the deaths of 36 people across multiple states over the weekend.

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