Winter season comes early, hits hard
Rachel Moten, posted Dec. 7, 2006
The wind howled, and inch after inch of snow hit the ground at about 4 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 30 in Columbia. Snow began to cover everything in sight.
MU classes were cancelled on Friday, Dec. 1 and students were limited to four dining halls. By Monday, Dec. 4, noises were made such as crunch, crunch, crunch, and slush, slush, slush as students trudged to classes.
Winter season had just hit, and this was MU’s third time in 33 years that a snowstorm hit that caused classes to be cancelled according Patrick Market, atmospheric meteorologist at MU’s Department of Soil, Environmental, and Atmospheric Science.
“I couldn’t believe it because with high school, classes never got cancelled, so it was amazing that an entire university was shut down,” said Michelle Clark, MU sophomore.
“I measured 15.5 inches,” said Market. “The last snowstorm of this magnitude was in January, 1995.”
Market said that Columbians were well-prepared if they paid attention to the forecasts. “Was the city prepared? I don’t know. The conditions of most roads on Friday through Sunday spoke for themselves,” said Market.
“I don’t think [Columbia] was really prepared,” said Willie Smith, one of the janitors for Johnston Residence Hall. “The plows were even stuck in the snow.”
Dean Patrick, custodian at Johnston Residence Hall, said, “They need to do a better job of cleaning the streets.”
On Monday, Dec. 4, MU freshmen Ryan Olson and Tyler Hoffman were selling hot chocolate outside for their final Freshman Interest Group project. The two were having trouble selling the hot chocolate because most people were too cold to stop and buy some.
“It’s like a frozen tundra out here,” said Olson. “Columbia was not prepared for this.”
“Not [for] something this big,” said Hoffman. “We don’t have enough machinery to clean up all of this. We have to have the ability to clean the roads and streets.”
Market said on Monday, “The current road situation in Columbia is not good.” Market added, “However, area forecasters TV, NWS, the University, etc. did a bang-up job warning the public of the impending storm, and should be lauded for being right. We may have been stranded, but we were safe and well supplied. A bad forecast would have the existing situation worse.”
Although Columbians were warned of the snowstorm, the city was still in bad shape. “Spread more cinders on secondary streets,” Market said.
“From what I can gather through the media and elsewhere, the city should acquire more trucks and drivers,” Market said. “This is an anomaly. In recent memory, most snowstorms have not been nearly this bad.”
Even though this winter season hit on Thursday night, Nov. 30, many students over the weekend still enjoyed the weather and the day off from school. Hoffman said he shoveled some driveways, slept and was extremely happy there were no classes.
“I was happy that classes were cancelled because I had a lot of homework to do since I wasn’t prepared,” Olson said. “I've lived in Columbia my whole life, and it’s never snowed this much before.”
