College Closes Due to Storm

On Oct. 29, Vice President for Academic Affairs Timothy Spears sent out an email to the entire college community to announce that the College would close from 3 p.m. that day until 6 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 30, due to predicted inclement weather caused by Hurricane Sandy.

All classes, lectures, events, meetings and athletic practices were cancelled from 2:45 p.m. onward. Dining halls remained open, and would have run on generators if necessary, despite the conditions.

“Sustained winds of 30 to 36 mph, with gusts as high as 60 mph, will create unsafe conditions for all forms of outdoor activity,” wrote Spears in the email. “Students are urged to exercise extreme caution, and venture outdoors only when absolutely necessary.”

Earlier in the afternoon, Public Safety sent out an all-campus email to remind the college community of the proper procedure if the campus were to sustain a power outage of longer than 30 minutes. At that point, all card access controlled buildings lock, except for residence halls card readers, which continue to run on battery back-up.

On Tuesday at 6 a.m., normal college operations resumed.

The College was fortunate in that no damage was sustained during the storm. Barring a brief period of heavy rain and some wind, the storm barely hit the campus. On Tuesday, the day after the College’s warning, skies were blue. Some gusting winds were the only reminders of Hurricane Sandy’s passing.

Other states were not as fortunate. CNN reported that damage was sustained across the Northeast. At least 11 are dead, with two of those people being children. One was only eight years old.

Large sections of the Atlantic City boardwalk in New Jersey were destroyed, and images of a flooded downtown Manhattan are posted on all major online news sources.

The Red Cross told CNN that almost 11,000 people spent Monday night in 258 Red Cross-operated shelters across 16 states.