Day two — The campus is closed again today. Above is the quad, as seen from the cafeteria, which is functioning on full cylinders — breakfast, lunch and dinner. They were wiped out at dinner last night, but those people are unfazed. Whatever kudos they receive will hardly be enough.
Until late today no one could get on or off campus if they wanted to. Even making the turn to campus from the road, and vice versa, is a dangerous proposition. At this point you can do it carefully, but the concern would be the condition of the roads between here and where you are trying to go. In most cases, the answer is not good.
Some enterprising students were taking the two mile icy hike from here to the Target down the street, borrowing shopping carts and pushing them back to campus. I think they were doing this so they would have a story with which to annoy their future grandchildren.
I heard a student yesterday say he’s never had a snow day. He’s from California. A young lady was ecstatic yesterday that it snowed on her birthday. There’s an older gentleman, a really sweet guy, stuck here with a serious history of heart and blood pressure problems. He told me last night he had six aspirin. We also have a nursing school, a pharmacy school here, several nurses are on call and a lot of faculty and staff. He was still in fine spirits and in fine shape when I saw him this afternoon. He was about to go home.
A lot of people are still trying to get there. At Samford, the university, like many places, is on day two of housing people who just happened to be in the area. There is a huge Facebook group with the aim of the entire region trying to help stranded motorists. Some of the stories are disconcerting: seriously ill people without their medication, people without jackets, people with no gas and dead phones, people who hadn’t eaten in 12 or more hours, people walking home for miles and plenty of “Come get me!” pleas.
There are some truly scary stories. Five are dead and at least 23 injured in the region. There are bad car accidents, labor pains on the side of the road and missing people. More than 11,000 students had to spend the night in their schools — where teachers were troopers. People slept last night in drug stores and in the cars and in hotel lobbies, strangers and wherever they could get. One good samaritan disappeared for hours. They found him badly hurt, but alive, in a snowy ravine. Seems he is diabetic and they think he may have become disoriented, fell in and hurt himself. Now he’s in critical condition.
Clearly, this is serious. A fair amount of it is unavoidable, so there will be municipal finger pointing and audiences immediately and cruelly blamed the meteorologists. Quite a few people’s experiences would have at least been less uncomfortable if only they’d prepared for the eventuality. Suggesting this is somehow verboten, but more of us would do well to realize our own personal responsibility.
Happily, there are great stories of neighbors helping neighbors, and strangers helping strangers. We pat ourselves on the back when we hear those stories. Like this one, so far the best story of the year: Doctor walks six miles in snow to perform life-saving brain surgery. The simpler things — we can’t all be brain surgeons, the good spirited, good natured, decent, neighborly, lend a hand thing happens every time something bad happens, of course. We’re all better for it, of course. It probably happens faster with the current communication infrastructure. Like so many other things, social media has changed what we can do.
While everything in the metro is a mess, Samford has been fortunate. Hard work and good cheer have won the day. There will be a lot of pats on the back and thank yous to share. The people working here are incredible. I hope the students notice that, too.
We have power and food and hot water and heat and life is good. Everyone is a little more tired than they were yesterday, but there are plenty of smiles. It is a special place even on fine spring days, but give the people here a small obstacle and their quality shows even brighter.
Oh, you’re here for the pictures? Fair enough. Here are a few from last night, when the hills on campus were too icy to even walk on:
This is Hodges Chapel:
Here’s Frank Park Samford Hall, the administration building:
Across the way is the McWhorter School of Pharmacy:
The Harwell Goodwin Davis Library, and Centennial Walk:
The A. Hamilton Reid Chapel:
Those were last night, and these are from today. Here’s Reid Chapel again:
The frozen fountain in Ben Brown Plaza. I was standing on the ice to take this picture:
I was not standing on the ice to take that picture. But these students did:
There’s a great shot of a young lady earlier this month when the fountain was frozen solid, she gave it the perfect ice skater’s pose. I met her last night and she showed me the picture again. I’d already seen it online, declared the shot’s inherent awesomeness and she says “He’s got one better.” I’m thinking that’s not possible. Her friend pulls out his phone and he shows me a shot where they’d taken a park bench and put it on the fountain ice, and he’s sprawled out on the bench taking a nap. His shot might have been better. Sadly, and happily, the fountain isn’t freezing that much this time.
There have been at least two students and one professor skiing on the quad. Not that you need skis. But how often do you get the opportunity to do that? (The professor had her skis in her office, it seems.)
Part of the Crimson staff, brainstorming story ideas. Zach, on the left, is the editor-in-chief. Clayton, in the foreground is the sports editor. Megan is a Samford alumna and last year’s features editor for the Crimson. She works just down the street at Southern Living, now, and had to walk to campus because of Snowmageddon.
These guys are the unsung heroes on campus. He and his colleagues were working before noon on Tuesday and have scarcely stopped since then. They are why the sidewalks and the most of the campus roads are in pretty decent shape.
They won’t get enough credit for it, which is a shame. But when you hear people trying to explain to snowbound students
that campus is much better off than the city at large, they are why.
