IU gets 1st 'snow day' since 1996

It was like campus, buildings and all, had been scooped up Wednesday by some invisible force and deposited in a nearly-deserted winter landscape. \nGone were the familiar throngs of students, scurrying across campus. Whole minutes ticked by, without a single person passing in front of Ballantine Hall. \nThe sounds were most foreign, though. After the Student Building's clock chimes ceased, announcing a quarter to 10 in the morning, the only sounds that could be heard in the Old Crescent were the rattle of tree branches heavy with ice, as a gentle but frigid wind blew through them and the crunch of snow as students, always by themselves, carefully plodded across the treacherous sidewalks. \nFor the first time in more than 10 years, the IU administration closed campus Wednesday, after heavy winter weather caused states of emergency in several surrounding counties, IU spokesman Larry MacIntyre said.\nAll classes before noon were canceled and noncritical employees were told not to report to work until midday.\nAfter monitoring weather conditions for several hours, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Terry Clapacs made the decision after 5 a.m. Wednesday, MacIntyre said. Clapacs did not want to endanger IU's large population of employees who commute to campus from adjacent counties, he said.\nIU President Adam Herbert, who would typically make the call to close campus, was at a business meeting in Florida and was slated to come back into town Wednesday evening, MacIntyre said.\nMacIntyre notified local media about the closings, including the Indianapolis television stations, he said.\nDespite this, dozens of students, ignorant of the news, trekked to campus only to turn back and return home, presumably to bed.\nSophomore Taylor Stauffer responded with a cry of exasperation when she learned her 10:15 a.m. A100 Accounting class was canceled after walking all the way to the Kelley School of Business from her home near Third Street and Woodlawn Avenue. \nHer traveling companion, sophomore Duncan Hewett, who walked from Third Street and Indiana Avenue, was not pleased about the prospect of having to walk all the way back home.\n"That was the coldest walk I've ever done," he said.\nBoth Stauffer and Hewett resolved to return to bed.\nAssociate instructor and English graduate student Susan Davis, who was catching up on work in Ballantine Hall on Wednesday morning, remarked that aside from the frigid temperatures, the partly-sunny sky made for a beautiful morning.\nIU Police Department Capt. Jerry Minger said officers responded to only a handful of car crashes as a result of icy weather. Most drivers, he said, had prepared themselves for the inclement weather and drove cautiously.\nThe IU campus has only closed four previous times in the past 100 years as result of winter weather, according to documents at the IU Archives. \nMost recently, officials called off classes in March 1996 after 10 inches of wet, heavy snow battered the campus.\nStudents seemed to take the delay in stride, though. By 3 p.m., the campus was brimming with students again.\nBy most reports, the campus came to a grinding halt with little complication, though in the Read Center dining room, the menu was a casualty due to the delay.\nSharon Barnes, a cook in the dining room, looked down at a tray of halved hard-boiled eggs in the salad bar.\n"We didn't have the help to make deviled eggs," she said. "So they're just eggs"