Ice, ice baby: OSU gives snow day the cold shoulder
Published: Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Updated: Tuesday, February 1, 2011 21:02
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Students across campus Tuesday slipped and tumbled their way to classes they thought should have been canceled.
"I slipped on ice today, and my boyfriend, and my roommate (did too)," said Tania Sherry, a first-year graduate student in rural sociology. "It took a long time to scrape ice off of my car. My professor was very supportive, but it would be better if OSU canceled classes overall."
After Facilities Operations and Development workers and Transportation and Parking maintenance workers spent most of the day removing ice, Ohio State's Columbus campus canceled Tuesday's evening classes.
OSU followed other Ohio universities that issued class cancellations.
Kent State University, the University of Dayton and Denison University canceled all Tuesday classes, and Miami University canceled classes after 2 p.m.
OSU main campus' move also followed OSU's Marion, Newark and Delaware campuses, which were closed Tuesday.
"I live close to my classes. But, for the commuters who live far away, I feel bad. I had trouble today on 16th (Avenue) with ice," said Dina Hocevar, a third-year in strategic communications.
Students and professors alike had trouble with the icy conditions.
"After two painful falls I went back inside to check the weather and realized that things were not going to change substantially in the next couple of hours," said Rebecca Wanzo, a professor in the English and women's studies departments, in an e-mail. "I e-mailed my students and contacted my department to tell them that my class was cancelled."
As of Tuesday evening, about 45 people were admitted to the OSU Medical Center Tuesday for injuries related to slipping and falling from ice, said Eileen Scahill, medical center spokeswoman.
FOD works with Transportation and Parking and the university to decide whether a school cancellation should be considered.
"The ice started pretty much in the commuting hour," said Sarah Blouch, director of traffic, parking and transportation. "Our question is ‘can we make the campus safe?' The roads are great, we just don't get that volume in parking lots."
FOD crews began working at 3 a.m. in preparation for ice, said Peter Calamari, assistant director of FOD.
Transportation and Parking members began at 5 a.m., Blouch said.
The two departments focus on specific areas they need to cover first when it comes to preparing for snow or ice removal.
"We work hard to provide a high level of service to the entire campus but focus initially on the medical center, 24-hour operations like Blankenship Hall, Vet Hospital, residential halls and then campus kitchen loading docks and high usage campus facilities like RPAC and the Union," Calamari said in an e-mail.
"Handicap entrances are a high priority," said Jon Clark, building and maintenance supervisor.
The unusual amount of ice with no snow caused some problems for FOD workers.
"Ice is the worst," said Timothy Murray, FOD groundskeeper. "It's everywhere, so we really have to prioritize slopes. We need more workers too; it's a big campus."
A lack of salt posed another obstacle.
"The problem is we don't normally do a lot of salting, so we don't have the equipment. We only have one truck with a saltbox," Blouch said. "There's usually not a need, but this was an unusual glaze of ice."
With more than 23,000 surface parking spaces, the Transportation and Parking Department is bringing in three contracted companies for ice removal early Wednesday morning.
Contracted companies for salting and snow and ice removal are commonplace and FOD allows the contractors the flexibility of managing their own workers, Clark said.
"With additional ice accumulation possible, there could be some hazardous walking and driving conditions in the morning," said Andrew Snyder, Meteorologist for National Weather Service.
Katie Huston, Rick Schanz, Ally Marotti and Emily Spencer contributed to this story.
35 comments
Yes, companies actually do give days off when it is unsafe. On Tuesday, many bussinesses were closed in downtown columbus. The sidewalks downtown were actually much than they were in areas around OSU, where many students live. Not only did companies close for the day, public schools across Franklin county did as well. Its great that you're such a trooper but its silly to think that because the mighty Rex can do it, we all should risk it.
Nobody said anything about snow or the temperature. Those are nothing compared to walking on solid sheets of ice. And spare me this "BACK IN MY DAY!" stuff. It's not our fault society used to lack the sense the dangers of walking on thick sheets of ice. And also, common sense has virtually nothing to do with this. But please, come back to campus and show me how to do it. I'm sure you'll be just as fine about it now, right?
The difference is most people don't walk to their jobs. A lot of students walk to campus. Virtually all of the sidewalks east of High Street are pure ice. I couldn't walk a half block without losing my balance and almost falling several times. Now if you consider that whining, I challenge you to walk a mile or so to and from campus multiple times on these sidewalks and see how you fare.
Not to mention I heard there was a news story where the just had a montage of OSU students slipping on ice around campus. Things like this make OSU look worse than it already does.
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