By Tom Spencer, Staff Writer
Feb. 9 marked the fourth day of curtailed operations for UNH during the 2015 spring semester, and the community was moving at a slow crawl.
As of Monday night, drifts of snow were knee deep on either side of campus walkways. At the edges of parking lots, the snow from plows was piled nearly 10 feet high.
As of 6:45p.m., a light snow was still falling. Two people were struggling to park a Scion XD with Florida license plates in E Lot. The wheels were spinning on the fluffy snow covering the driveway.
“[The car has] culture shock,” said Nikki Farnell, the owner of the vehicle. “I’m from Florida. I’m done.”
Ian Kochevar, Hubbard Hall’s resident hall director, was helping Farnell dig snow out from around the car’s tires.
“Snow doesn’t change [Hubbard’s routine] much,” Kochevar said. “We have people in the study lounge. We had some people playing snow football or going skiing.”
Other cars had white caps on top of their roofs and snow halfway up their tires.
On Mill Road and Main Street, businesses coped with the weather.
Dave Ovelka, the closing manager at the Durham Market Place, reported that there were not many customers that day, but “enough to keep things going.”
This was different from Juno, the Nor’easter that blanketed the East Coast with snow in late January, and caused a mad rush to stock up on goods at the Durham Market Place, according to Ovelka.
At Rite Aid, Kenzie Langton, shift manager, reported a trend similar to the one Ovelka experienced. According to Langton, there was a rush to stock up on water and batteries that resulted in a line of 40 people during Juno. However, Monday was quiet up until 3:00p.m., when business picked up a little.
This snowstorm was also quieter for McGregor EMS, as far as EMT Alyssa Cappetta could tell. Cappetta said she and her colleagues had received “fewer calls than you might think.”
“It’s because no one wants to leave their dorm room or house,” Capetta, a senior UNH student, said.
One business always experiences a spike in customers during the poor weather, reported Robert Chester, the manager of the Domino’s Pizza in the Mill Road Plaza.
Chester, who has experienced New England weather before, knows how to prepare.
“Bad weather makes us staff up,” Chester said. Chester said he often drove employees to work himself in his Audi during bad conditions because the vehicle is “good in the snow.”
“Ideally we would have a fleet of jeeps, but this is not a perfect world,” Chester said.
Today Chester reported he had given only one employee a ride.
“The important thing in a situation like this is communication,” Chester said. “If we don’t order food ahead and have drivers ready, we have a problem.”
The snow did not slow down customers of Wildcat Fitness. There were about a dozen students working out on the weight machines and practicing yoga on the floor mats.
“We’re busy enough during snowstorms, but we’re always busy at night,” David Ragazzo, a Wildcat Fitness customer service representative, said.
Cars passed regularly on Main Street, along with snowplows flashing yellow lights, and clearing the roads. The plows left drifts of snow that buried two bicycles outside The Knot, which had remained open during the weather.
The snow could not keep students out of the Durham House of Pizza, Breaking New Grounds, or Libby’s Bar and Grill.
Outside these establishments, people bundled in winter coats and ski caps shoveled driveways, brushed the snow off of car roofs, all working to keep life moving through the harsh weather.
Operations may have been curtailed on Monday, but that didn’t stop business as usual.
