After unseasonably warm weather last week, many Ohio State students were upset to find a thin layer of snow on the ground Tuesday morning.
While temperatures have been dropping since late last week, Monday night saw continued rain that turned into snow in the early Tuesday hours when the temperature dropped to the low 30s.
High wind continued Tuesday evening with wind remaining steady between 25 and 30 mph in Columbus.
Some students said they weren’t happy with the sudden change in weather.
“It sucks,” said Tyler Mack, a first-year in neuroscience. “It’s like 30 degrees right now in October. It’s not very ideal, especially with Halloween coming up. It’s not really the best weather.”
Others said the wind was worse than the drop in temperatures.
“It’s super cold. The wind especially, that’s the worst part. It wouldn’t be that bad if it was just cold,” said Ian Zoller, a first-year in allied medical professions. “The mixture of wind and cold is what’s making it hard to get to class.”
However, some students said it was important to remember that people on the East Coast are dealing with a lot worse.
“It’s miserable, but it’s nothing like what New Jersey and New York and everybody over there is going through,” said Kelli Mohr, a second-year in biomedical engineering.
Mohr said it’s important to “look at the big picture and what everybody else is going through.”
Superstorm Sandy was stripped of its hurricane status at about 8 p.m. Monday when it made landfall in the New Jersey area. Flooding, high winds and power outages have been prominent along the East Coast as Superstorm Sandy travels inland.
Around the time the superstorm made landfall Monday evening Lane Avenue Residence Hall lost power along with more than 6,600 AEP customers in Franklin County, including several in the University District area. However by 11:15 p.m. Monday that number had dropped to about 1,200.
Tuesday afternoon, about 320 customers were still without power in Franklin County, but that number had dropped to zero by 9 p.m.
Dave Isaacs, a Student Life spokesman, said he wasn’t aware of any other building on campus that had been affected because of the storm Monday evening.
The New York City transit system was shut down Sunday evening as a preventative measure to the storm’s arrival, and several tunnels under the East River were reported as flooded.
Several states across the Eastern Seaboard declared a state of emergency as the storm approached, and at least 39 total U.S. deaths have been reported in connection to the storm.
Hurricane Sandy passed through the Caribbean on its way to the Atlantic coastline killing about 70 people in its path before reaching the U.S.
Scott Swope, a 23-year-old from Reading, Pa., said during the high winds a 100-year-old tree crashed through the second story of his neighbor’s house.
“Everyone in the area slept in their basements to avoid the tree fall,” Swope said.
While Swope said falling trees were the biggest threat in his area, his family living on the coast of New Jersey has been dealing with worse.
“They’ve been on the receiving end of a lot of the devastation,” he said.
When the storm is over, Swope said he plans on going to the New Jersey shoreline and helping out with disaster relief.
President Barack Obama gave remarks on Hurricane Sandy at about 12:45 p.m. Monday after being briefed by federal emergency response teams, and advised people in the affected areas on the East Coast to follow instructions from their state officials.
“Please listen to what your state and local officials are saying,” he said. “When they tell you to evacuate, you need to evacuate. Do not delay. Don’t pause. Don’t question the instructions that are being given, because this is a serious storm and it could potentially have fatal consequences if people haven’t acted quickly.”
Obama canceled several campaign stops, including some in Ohio this week as a result of the storm.
Rain is expected to continue in Columbus Wednesday with a 60 percent chance of rain, 18 mph winds and an expected high of 43 degrees.
Ally Marotti and Pam Harasyn contributed to this article.
