Had a meeting canceled this morning. Samford closed at 11 a.m. Everything else closed simultaneously. And then the snow descended. And people panicked, because it is white.
Here’s the real problem with snow in the South. It isn’t that we’re Southern. The snow doesn’t send us into a tizzy. It stuns us. And the snow, which is more wet than anything, then quickly turns into ice. And then the in-tizzification begins.
So people are stranded all over and that’s dangerous and unfortunate and miserable. Can’t wait to see who we blame this time.
The road that runs across the front of Samford’s campus is a high-traffick artery. That road is gridlocked, so we brought a lot of people up from their cars into the relative comfort of the university. The athletics department is loaning space and towels. Mattresses came from somewhere. Every shower is being put to use. If you didn’t get out between 11 and 11:05 odds are that you were stuck on the road for a long time. A colleague wrote that she normally has a 15 minute commute, but it turned into four hours and 15 minutes today. And she was on the fortunate side.
It is the ice. See? It is always the humidity.
Campus is holding up nicely. The facilities staff and the grounds crew have worked tirelessly. They were blowing snow and spreading for ice even as it came down. They didn’t stop until late in the night. We have power — and that’s the biggest, understated victory of this storm, the power outages everywhere seem to be comparatively minor — and we have food and everything is peachy keen.
The place is usually full of good spirits, perhaps even more so today.
Here’s a video I made:
More from the wasteland tomorrow.
