University cancels classes after snow blankets city

Torn between creation and war, freshman David Marcus couldn’t decide whether to build a snowman or just keep throwing snowballs at his friends. He got his answer in a text message. There was a snowball fight at Dunn Meadow.

So, he and his friends from Collins Living-Learning Center headed over.

“I might as well take advantage of the snow while it’s still around,” he said.

But, that snow, a miracle for many students, came at the worst possible time for the University, said IU Spokesman Larry MacIntyre. Despite the maintenance staff’s efficiency, the snow came in the morning, so crews didn’t have enough time to clear roads, he said.

At about 5:30 a.m.,Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer Terry Clapacs checked the campus and recommended to IU President Michael McRobbie and Provost Karen Hanson to close campus until noon.

At about 10 a.m. Clapacs recommended closing the campus all day after Monroe County declared a snow emergency.

Snow made it dangerous and illegal for residents to drive unless they had good reason.

There weren’t many crashes, but a lot of slide-offs Wednesday morning, said Indiana State Police Sgt. Curt Durnil.

About half of the student body lives outside the campus limits, Clapacs said, and MacIntyre added that many staff members live outside of the city limits and have to take county roads to work.

“We don’t want to put IU employees on county roads at this point,” MacIntyre said. “It’s primarily a safety thing.”

There was a half “snow day” in February 2007, MacIntyre said.

“We don’t like to close campus, but in this particular instance, we had to for safety reasons,” MacIntyre said.

An ice bed already rested beneath the inches-deep blanket of snow, he said.
Campus buses started running at noon Wednesday. Students were walking on campus despite the day off, said Perry Maull, operations manager for the IU Campus Bus Service.

“I’d rather have them on a bus than in the middle of Fee Lane,” he said.
The D and the X buses didn’t run Wednesday, but starting at noon, the rest of the routes ran a regular weekday schedule.

“To tell you the truth,” Maull said, “I don’t think much would have moved this morning.”