Peter Breen | The Observer With three days to go before the start of the spring semester, 21 Building Services staff members who volunteered for the newly created Snow Patrol team got out their shovels. More than six inches of new snow would blanket campus by the end of the day. The air temperature would drop to 9 degrees below zero before the weekend was out.
The “expedition” on Saturday lasted seven hours, according to Building Services senior director Christopher Hatfield.
“Battling three-foot drifts, the team shoveled their way through an icy ND landscape, ensuring that students and staff returned to clear entryways,” Hatfield wrote in a statement to The Observer.
When Snow Patrol’s mission was complete, Hatfield wrote, more than 600 entrances and exits from almost all buildings on campus had been cleared.
As students traveled back to campus after winter break, the temperature in South Bend reached a five-year low, according to the National Weather Service. The last time the city got this cold was in January 2019, when the mercury dropped to minus 20.
Campus remained open despite the weather conditions.
Tracy Skibins, who as senior director of emergency management is constantly monitoring for severe weather, wrote in an email that the decision to close campus involves consultation with internal and external partners, including meteorologists. Skibins wrote that any changes to normal campus operations are shared via ND Alert, email and social media.
On the morning of the first day of classes, the Office of the Registrar sent an email to students about issues with classrooms related to the cold. University spokesperson Sue Ryan wrote in a statement that at least three academic spaces were impacted by the weather.
“Considering the significant cold weather, the University has experienced minimal effects from broken water pipes this week and is operating under normal conditions,” Ryan wrote.
Notre Dame’s campus has 21 miles of roads, 92 acres of parking lots and 45 miles of sidewalks. Timothy Dyczko, a superintendent in Landscape Services, said in a statement that the University has 12 Bobcat Toolcat brooms to maintain the sidewalks when it snows. Landscape Services has 18 plow trucks of various sizes and a salt truck for the parking lots and roads.
Dyczko added that Notre Dame has a special, smaller broom for the areas near the Grotto and additional equipment for tight areas around dumpsters and alleyways.
“We also have two staff members that visit 41 specific areas of steps and bus shelters around campus after every snow event,” Dyczko wrote.
English professor Romana Huk taught a poetry seminar in DeBartolo Hall at 11 a.m. on the first day of classes. She said it was 54 degrees in the classroom building.
“I just apologized to my University seminar because I think that my voice was about an octave higher on Tuesday in class in the DeBartolo Hall because I was simply undone by the fact that we had no heat,” Huk said.
Aaron Dingler, a computer science and engineering professor who also taught a class in DeBartolo Hall Tuesday morning, said he was more fortunate than Huk.
“I taught in DeBart 102, which luckily doesn’t have any windows, so it was nice and warm,” he said.
Courtesy of Chris Hatfield Sophomore Caroline Fleming, who took a charter bus back to campus from Philadelphia, said she could see the weather worsening the closer the bus got to the Midwest. Fleming said deciding how to bundle up both for the “brutal” cold and for the possibility that she might get too hot once inside a building has been challenging during the first week of classes.
Eric Gordy, a sophomore from the Detroit area who is used to driving in the snow, said the roads were really bad on his return to campus. Freshman Faith White added that the roads in South Bend aren’t as plowed as they were in her hometown, Indianapolis.
Following some time at the beach on the swim team’s trip to Florida during break, graduate student Ellie Jew said she enjoys being back on campus and seeing her friends and classmates. Jew said she has always thought Notre Dame has done a good job of plowing the sidewalks and roads.
“Driving on campus and then walking around on campus has been pretty manageable,” Jew said. “It’s just cold.”
Peter Assaf, an off-campus senior, said the cold has made him less willing to walk outside to social events during syllabus week.
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