As the flakes began to fall, students across the Midwest crossed their fingers in the hopes that the forecasted winter storm, Saturn, would persuade school officials to cancel classes. Prayers were answered as DePaul students received a flurry of notifications via cell phone and e-mail at 11 a.m. Tuesday, March 5, that classes and events after 1 p.m. were canceled.
Storm forecasters predicted an accumulation of 7-10 inches in northeastern Illinois and winds up to 15-25 mph. Hundreds of schools across Illinois closed for the day.
A large group of snow-covered students laughed as they entered the student center, and when asked about the snow day, erupted into a fit of cheers. One of them, Jefferson Covey, a senior, said he woke up to the DePaul Emergency Alert on his cell phone, and thought, “Okay, time for a snowball fight.”
Rumors of a campus-wide snowball battle circled through the student center, so freshmen Kambria Pavich and Hannah Bender ran home to put on their snow gear. “Because we’re still five-year olds at heart,” Pavich admitted.
According to Pavich and Bender, DePaul Emergency Alert adequately alerted them of the cancelations via texts, phone calls, and multiple e-mails, which led to more tweets, texts, phone calls, and Facebook messages from their friends.
Commuter students like freshman Michael Marciszewski may have appreciated the alert before making the trip downtown. “(An earlier alert) would have helped me. I could have stayed home.”
Freshman David Iannalfo agrees. “I think DePaul did an alright job with notifying everybody… If they had sent an e-mail out by like, 6 a.m. or something I think that would have been better.”
Despite being downtown for work that day, law student Nick Blake was annoyed with the late cancellation. “My class got canceled 20 minutes before I got to school… I would have appreciated (an earlier cancellation).”
Covey, on the other hand, was fine with the timing of DePaul’s announcement. “I feel like DePaul is pretty smart about these things,” said Covey. “I can only remember this is the second time a snow day has happened in my history of being at DePaul… (They realized) that a lot of snow is going to be falling and it would probably be difficult for people to get home.”
The day off is an appreciated break for some, but for others, missed classes only adds additional stress to finals. “I’m missing one three-hour class this week, and I missed it last week too because my teacher was sick,” said Iannalfo. “I’m glad that I don’t have my three-hour class today, but now I’m six hours behind… the final’s either gonna be shortened by a lot or we’re going to have to cram in a lot of stuff these next two weeks.”
Bender was thankful that she was able to attend her morning classes. “Especially with finals coming up so soon, I think it’s important to go to class as long as you can.”
It’s not very often that DePaul closes its doors due to bad weather. “Snowmageddon” broke that trend in February 2011 when classes were canceled at DePaul for the first time since 1983.
The Huffington post said Tuesday’s storm is the worst winter storm since the “blizzaster” of 2011. More than 1,100 flights were canceled Tuesday at Chicago airports and 284 snowplows deployed to tackle snowed-in streets.
However, the 7-10 inches of snow last Tuesday can’t quite compare with the total 20.2 inches that fell in February 2011, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Coincidentally, “Snowmageddon” closed DePaul’s doors in 2011 on a Tuesday at the beginning of February, and this year’s “Saturn” shut down the university on a Tuesday at the beginning of March.
Classes resumed the next day thanks to DePaul staff that spent hours plowing, shoveling, and laying down salt.