It may not have been a storm worthy of the title “Snowmaggedon,” but the season’s first major snowfall was enough to shut down the campus yesterday and provided the first real test of the year for university cleanup crews.
In the first snow day of the semester, a major storm dumped about four inches of snow on College Park Wednesday night, causing rolling blackouts across the city that left thousands of students without electricity for hours.
But for Facilities Management workers, Wednesday’s precipitation was only a dusting compared to last year’s monstrous storm — infamously dubbed “Snowpocalypse” — that left the campus under more than 30 inches of snow and closed the university for five consecutive days.
“I believe we fared well,” Building and Landscape Services Director Harry Teabout said of his team’s recovery effort in an e-mail.
Teabout made the final decision to close the university yesterday so cleanup crews could remove the large amounts of snow from parking lots, streets, steps and sidewalks without interference, he said.
Facilities Management crews cleared paths of snow into early yesterday morning, according to Operations and Maintenance Director Jack Baker.
The university was officially closed by 6 a.m., but it took until late yesterday evening to clear most of the campus.
Michael Teruel, a Facilities Management employee tasked with preparing the campus for the storm and cleaning up afterward, worked outside from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. both Wednesday and yesterday.
“As we moved [the snow], it just piled back up,” he said. “It was almost a fruitless effort.”
Meanwhile, exploding transformers set multiple fires on College Avenue, and power outages spread from the south end of the campus to Hartwick Road and into Old Town. According to Pepco, a local electric service company, 180,000 homes in Prince George’s and surrounding counties were without electricity until 10 a.m. More than 1,000 power lines were brought down by the heavy snow.
Power was not restored to South Campus Commons until about 11 a.m. yesterday, and several residents had to be rescued from stalled elevators Wednesday night.
One of those students, senior government and politics major Taylor Cole, was trapped in a Commons 1 elevator for about a half hour before firefighters rescued her. Cole, who was without a cell phone, said she was riding the elevator to the fifth floor when it suddenly stopped and the lights went out — none of the emergency lights or buttons worked.
“It was the most failed emergency plan ever,” she said. “That was the worst part, that it was dark the whole time.”
Cole banged on the doors and yelled until a resident assistant heard her and called for help. Although she was eventually rescued, Cole said she will not ride the elevators any time soon.
“There was no reassurance as to when I would be freed,” she said. “It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life.”
For many students, though, yesterday’s snow day was a relished reprieve from the daily grind of classes.
As some students went sledding behind McKeldin Library, others played football on the McKeldin Mall or Frisbee at La Plata Beach.
“I’m from New England, so this isn’t a lot of snow for me,” said freshman psychology major Abby Kaye-Phillips. “But I’m just glad we got the day off.”
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