The process of assessing inclement weather requires a team to take everyone’s safety into account and follow a series of steps before informing the community to brace themselves for bad weather.
“If we see there’s going to be inclement weather, then we start a more detailed search and use a number of different resources,” said Longwood Chief of Police Robert Beach.
Emergency Management Coordinator Lucy Carter Smith manages many of those resources, such as their subscription with Weather Sentry.
“We pay a certain contractor to send us accurate information,” said Smith. Her office can email them to receive Longwood-specific weather updates at any time. “My role is to provide the data to the university leadership and the weather team,” she explained.
The weather team includes members of Facilities Management and Grounds Management, Beach, Smith, and Communications and Media Relations Director Matthew McWilliams. Event planners are also encouraged to participate in the meetings.
The team makes a recommendation to administrators, which tends to vary depending on the nature of the weather. Common examples are ice and snow which, according to Beach, can be an “either/or” situation for Longwood.
Despite new techniques and solutions for ice on campus, it still poses some risks to sidewalks and roads.
“Young people sometimes like to kind of test their own abilities to be able to deal with such things, and it’s interesting to see some of the pride falls people have,” said Beach.
Although there are numerous snow day traditions at Longwood, an infamous tradition that tends to show up every year on the first snow day is a couch burning, which puts a strain on the local fire department as well as the campus police.
“In the first burning, we damaged a fire truck, and there’s a lot of things that were done there that really takes the community back and puts a bad reputation on the campus as a whole,” said Beach. The police departments in Longwood and Farmville jointly encourage students to have fun in a responsible way that does not involve property damage.
The couch burning often leads to heated debates among the weather team as to how soon they should announce school closings. Some argue waiting is better in case the weather changes, while others prefer to give advanced notice to allow everyone to make necessary preparations.
“It’s one of those battles we fight every time we have to make a decision like that,” said Beach.
Regardless of what the weather holds, Beach said people will continue to complain.
“There are going to be those that are calling and complaining that we should have closed the place sooner, and then there are going to be others that complain ‘Why did you close it? I’ve come from New England, and I travel in all this snow, and this is ridiculous,’ so I kind of chuckle at all of those,” said Beach.
The weather so far this semester has stayed at a rather fluctuating state these past few weeks, and it is yet to be known whether or not any inclement weather will be hitting the university anytime soon.
