 "Photo: Michael Pickering")
While most students enjoyed the cancellation of late afternoon classes Tuesday because of the inclement weather, the days were not so relaxing for the grounds crew at Miami University.
Tony Withrow, a mechanic in the maintenance department of physical facilities at the Oxford campus, said that the downpour of snow made scheduling workers difficult.
"This is a complicated (process), you have to be here to believe it," Withrow said. "We've had guys who've been here for three days - I've gotten two hours of sleep in the last 48 hrs. We have people constantly calling and asking 'can you come pull us out (of the snow).' We're doing the best we can."
For the first time since January 1999, Miami University's Oxford campus closed down while classes were in session.
The early closure Feb. 13 and the late opening Feb. 14 are highly unusual for Miami's Oxford campus, according to Richard Little, director of university communications.
"I can't remember a time when we closed twice in one year," Little said.
The Oxford campus was closed at 4 p.m. Tuesday, while the Hamilton and Middletown branch campuses were closed for the whole day. Wednesday, the Oxford campus opened at 10 a.m. while the two branch campuses were closed.
Jan Toennisson, director of public affairs at the Middletown campus, said that while she couldn't remember the exact date of the last closure for the Middletown campus, she knew that the week's closures were out
of the ordinary.
"I've been here seven years and the only other time I can remember (closing down) is in December 2005, right before Christmas - everybody was on break and it was just the staff," Toennisson said. "I can't remember another time; it's very rare. A lot of times we'll delay (classes) for a couple
hours … then we hope that the roads will be more passable
by then."
Little, President David Hodge, Provost Jeffrey Herbst and Vice President of Finance Richard Norman meet with the two deans of the branch campuses to make decisions regarding school closures, according to Little.
The group takes into account the forecast for the upcoming hours, the current weather conditions and especially focuses on the ice conditions in southwest Ohio, according to Little.
"On Tuesday in the late afternoon the condition seemed to be getting worse," Little said. "We made the decision at about noon to close at 4 p.m. (Tuesday)."
The decision to extend the Oxford campus closure through 10 a.m. Wednesday was made Tuesday night at approximately 9:30 p.m., according to Little.
When Miami's campuses are closed, only emergency-designated staff members are required to work by the university. These positions, called weather emergency staff, are within the university police department; the Physical Facilities Department; Housing, Dining and Guest Services and the office of telecommunications. The individuals designated within these departments as weather emergency are paid double-time for hours worked during a school closure according to the Miami
University Policy and Information Manuel.
Little said that one of the most important departments during a school closure is Housing, Dining and Guest Services.
"One of our main concerns is the dining halls," Little said. "Students still have to eat even with the school's closed."
Hamilton and Middletown campus deans take into account the same weather conditions as the Oxford campus, but the deans of these campuses also take into account that their students are mainly commuters, adding in a higher level of travel concern according to Perry Richardson, campus communications officer at the Hamilton campus.
Daniel Hall, dean of the Hamilton campus and Kelly Cowan, dean of the Middletown campus meet - or discuss in the early morning - to decide whether the driving conditions are acceptable for their commuters and then also join in the meeting with Hodge, Herbst and Norman.
Both branch campuses were on an ineffective two-hour delay Tuesday, where classes before 10 a.m. were cancelled. But before classes began that morning, the decision was made to close both
campuses Wednesday.
"Invariably somebody is going to be en route to campus … we try to accommodate everyone and consider the faculty, staff and students," Richardson said. "The goal is keeping the campus open if at all possible, but obviously the safety of the students and people driving in their cars is the most important factor … if we think roads are too bad, (the campus is) going to shut down."
The city of Oxford felt the weather too, as Eric Keebler, manager of streets and maintenance for the city of Oxford, said that the city had 14 trucks plowing and salting streets for 36 hours straight, during Tuesday's and Wednesday's storms.
"We had people working around the clock … not to mention the time it took to prepare the trucks," Keebler said.
Keebler also said that he did not believe that the power outage Tuesday night was weather related.
He mentioned that while the power outage wasn't effected by the weather, that the outage did effect snow clearance for a short time, as a few trucks were pulled to put up temporary stop signs at all traffic light intersections at 4 a.m.
