Amherst has many things to be thankful for: the Halloween-weekend Nor’easter affected a limited area, and the response took place immediately. Even though Facilities and our staff got Amherst back on track, we must admit: Amherst got lucky.
This was supposed to be your typical intro-to-column article. You know, the ones where the author talks for 1,000 words without saying anything, trying to express his general thoughts about general topics?
Of course, the article was also supposed to be submitted on time, rather than 13 hours past due. I’m a former Managing Editor at The Student so I should be more considerate.
The Nor’easter that swept through the Pioneer Valley left each of the Five Colleges without power over the weekend, with Hampshire College electing to evacuate their student body on Sunday after being unable to restore power until early yesterday morning. The Five College community proved as strong as ever, as one third of the Hampshire students looking to get off campus were taken in by Mount Holyoke.
During the snowstorm and resulting upheaval, Hampshire relied heavily on residential life interns to help facilitate the evacuation of the campus.
Students living in the Marsh, Tyler and Plimpton dormitoriess on the Hill were forced to evacuate their dormitories on Sunday evening, due to the crippling snowstorm that cut off power in several buildings across campus on Saturday night and left the dormitories without light or heat.
After dodging a bullet two months ago when Hurricane Irene blew by leaving the College relatively unscathed, Amherst bit a bullet over the weekend, as an October Nor’easter pummeled the campus with record amounts of snow.
