Snow lightly dusted American University’s campus on Monday, March 2, marking the third snowstorm Washington, D.C., saw since the start of the spring semester. The University shut its classroom doors three times, the longest closures in 10 years, according to a data analysis by The Eagle.
AU Alerts going back to 2014, the first year AU tweeted the alerts, showed that the campus has never been closed for snow longer than two consecutive weekdays. And on Feb. 23, classes started late due to more winter weather. The data showed that late starts and early closures were more common in the past — as many as seven in 2015 — and AU has opted to fully close campus more recently.
The compacted snow and ice that blanketed the District and much of the surrounding areas in late January was dubbed “snowcrete” because it was almost as hard as concrete. Many of the city’s roads, including Massachusetts Ave NW, were nearly impossible to traverse from Jan. 26 through Jan. 28.
The University, on the other hand, had no problem clearing campus on Monday, Jan. 26, the day after the “snowcrete” descended.
Marcus Zito, the University’s grounds operation manager, said the last time he remembers a snowfall of this magnitude was in 2016, calling it Snowzilla. Zito said the storm left 2 feet of snow for the team to clean up over an extended period of days.
The University was closed or started late for five days due to winter weather in 2016.
In this most recent snowfall a decade later, Zito led a team of around 40 facilities workers working around the clock to make campus safe and accessible for the community.
After spending the night on campus, Zito said workers typically get up around 4 a.m. to begin clearing the snow in multiple teams. Team members slept in dormitory space available in Clark Hall, as coordinated by the Housing and Residence Life.
Bundled in layers, the workers spent hours shoveling, plowing, salting and de-icing the routes on campus over the course of four days and three nights.
Despite the hard work, Zito said the team always takes breaks for meals provided by AU Dining.
“Obviously the safety of everyone is foremost and we just keep going until it’s at a point where we all feel that it’s safe to open the school back up,” Zito said.
For a big snowfall like the one that hit the city this winter, the facilities team also relies on outside help from contractors like Aramark, building maintenance and the AU Zero Waste Office.
Even weeks after the initial snowfall, the team continued to battle the aftermath of the storm by moving piles and working on melting the sheets of ice that froze on top of snow and sleet.
Weeks later, snow has melted and the grounds team its focus toward Campus Beautification Day. All community members were welcome to participate in the annual event to lay out mulch and plant flowers across the University’s campus on Tuesday, April 7.
This article was edited by Olive Redd, Payton Anderson and Walker Whalen. Copy editing done by Avery Grossman, Paige Caron, Mattie Lupo and Ava Stuzin. Fact-checking done by Andrew Kummeth and Luca Palma Poth.
