Last week’s snowstorm on the night of April 3 and the morning of April 4 did not come without consequence.
For the grounds department, it meant a setback in progress for spring cleaning and getting the campus ready for the new season.
Supervisor for Grounds Joe Britton said the team started to get the campus ready for spring early as the weather was not following normal New Hampshire winter standards. However, because of the snow last week and the snow over spring break, it set back any plans they had briefly.
He said because of the snow, they now have to work around piles of snow, however, he said that it is nice that the grass is starting to grow back a bit already.
“We usually do a campus sweep in the spring on spring break week. We weren’t able to this year because we had snow and then this one, Britton said. “So that set us back a little bit.”
Britton said for the most recent storm, the team was out at 4 a.m. to begin plowing and clearing the campus. He noted they did not use salt because it was above-freezing temperatures outside. Using salt harms wildlife and plants and costs money he said.
However, the combination of rain and snow made it difficult to remove because of how dense and heavy the snow was, he said. Without the rain, Britton said he could imagine the area would have gotten over a foot of snow.
Additionally, several on-campus events and sports games were canceled because of the snowstorm.
According to KSC Owl Alert system notifications, curtailed operations have been called three times so far during the spring semester – the most recent on April 4, the whole day. Spring Semester 2023 consisted of four curtailed operations – one of which was for the whole day and another started at 6 p.m.
James Beeby, provost and vice president for academic affairs said the frequent calling of curtained operations should have minimal impact on learning. Although it can be a disruption, it does not necessarily mean classes are completely canceled because of web conferencing software like Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Nor has the amount of curtailed operations called affected credit hours.
Tim Bruns can be contacted at
tbruns@kscequinox.com
