Snowpocalypse 2011

Everyone loves a day of canceled classes.

During the snow day two years ago, no school was a cause of great celebration (so much celebration that after enough texts and phone calls, I gave up and got out of bed). Everyone loved that we didn’t have to go to our classes.

The next day wasn’t as much fun, since IU did a terrible job of plowing the sidewalks — they were okay enough for one person to walk on, but if you met someone going the other way, one of you was stepping off into a snow bank.

That’s the reason, after all, that classes get canceled — not because we desperately need a day off, but because it’s too difficult — or too dangerous — to get to class.

This year, we didn’t exactly get hit by the “snowpocalypse.” In fact, we barely got any snow. Mostly, it was just ice.

And that was worse.

I was one of those people on Facebook last Monday changing statuses to “I hope we get a snow day!” And I was really disappointed to find out the next morning that classes were still on and none of my professors had canceled individually.

But that was nothing to how mad I was when I stepped outside.

The sidewalks were completely covered with ice, especially in the residential area. I ended up walking in the grass as much as I could because the combination of natural clumsiness and knee problems was bound to lead to a wipeout.

On the walk to class, I started getting really pissed off. Fine, we didn’t have a bunch of snow, or even as much ice as Indianapolis, but we had a pretty solid layer. And a solid layer of ice covering the sidewalks, with either no salt or ineffective salt, is just broken bones waiting to happen.

I managed to make it to and from classes without serious mishap and was glad when my last two classes were canceled, first by the professors and then by IU. Finally! An evening free (well, free besides the massive amount of reading I had to do) and recognition from the school that conditions were getting dicey.

Of course, classes were back on little more than 24 hours later, and the sidewalks were no less icey.

I was even more pissed off as I walked to my evening class. Yes, the storm had stopped, but conditions were still dangerous. IU should have stayed closed the rest of the day and taken that time to clear the sidewalks to make it safe. Because by that time, the little bit of snow we’d gotten on the grass had frozen over, so there was no safe path.

Yeah, part of it was that I didn’t want to go to an evening class in the dark and the cold. But a large part of it was that I didn’t feel like twisting my knee or breaking my wrist or face-planting on ice. I did end up going (and there were no serious mishaps), but out of a 20-person class, only 12 people showed.

I’m not saying that we necessarily needed three days off, like Indy (but next time we get a storm like that, I’m unfriending all the Indy people and not answering my sisters’ texts, because I was pretty jealous). But we did need all of Tuesday and Wednesday off, not just because we’d rather not go to class, but because it was too dangerous.

If you’re going to have classes, make sure that students don’t have to get there via the ER.

I could talk about friends I have who ended up skipping classes on their own because they thought it was too dangerous to walk there. I could talk about how IU-Notify didn’t get calls and texts out to a lot of people until after they were already at their 2:30 classes — or sometimes not even until hours after classes were canceled. I could talk about the rumors (whether they’re true or not, I don’t know) that a lot of administrative people didn’t come in, and yet the school expected students to show up.

But everyone already knows this (except, maybe, the people who are in charge of canceling classes).

So IU, next time we get hit by ice, do everyone a favor and either cancel classes for longer periods of time until you get the ice cleared and the sidewalks safe or do a better job of clearing the sidewalks.


E-mail: hanns@indiana.edu