I'd like to start this post with a bit more of the timeline stuff, because it's especially interesting and pertinent to what's going on...
3:38 PM Monday:
The Winter Storm Warning gets updated a little over two hours before it's scheduled to go into effect, upping the accumulation totals to 6-10 inches.
4:50 PM Monday:
Wichita and Derby public schools close for tomorrow. Derby, if you're unaware, is south of the city; it's where the south campus is for the university.
5:10 PM Monday:
The university closes down for tomorrow. According to my former Playwriting professor, this is the first time in the 15 years she's worked at the university that they've closed down ahead of the storm. I immediately begin putting my contingency plans into effect for my classes tomorrow that I won't get to teach by going to Blackboard and sending out messages to my students.
6PM Monday:
We officially enter the Winter Storm Warning.
6:30 PM Monday:
I finally finish all of that student stuff mentioned above.
As soon as the university shut down, a ton of other school districts and colleges shut down as well. Kansas State shut down before 7PM, and even businesses/factories/etc are already closing down for tomorrow. The closings list on local news websites has hundreds of them listed. This state, seemingly, has lost its damn mind when it comes to coming snow. This isn't even a huge storm. It's a significant one, yes, and I'd even go as far as to say it's a big one, but it's not huge. Huge was last year, the week after Valentine's Day, when we had what amounted to three big snowstorms back to back during the latter half of February, each one close to (or more than) a foot. I don't think people panicked this much even then. Maybe they remember those storms and are bracing for the worst this time around, I don't know. It's not exactly the kind of storm that should elicit full-on panic mode. Half-on panic mode I can get behind.
Anyway.
No news today about my paycheck stuff, though the entirety of that is now on hold at least until Wednesday with the university closure tomorrow. I'll be lucky if I can even get out of my driveway to go teach my students Wednesday night on West campus -- if they don't close down on Wednesday, too. I don't know if they will or not, but with the way people are acting and with the sheer swiftness the university elicited in shutting down for tomorrow, anything's possible I suppose. I guess it really hinges on if we do get close to a foot of snow in the next 24-36 hours or so, as some media outlets are predicting.
At this point I've basically stopped paying attention to the weather forecasts. They don't matter one way or the other to me at this point, since campus is already closed tomorrow and I won't have to leave the house again for almost another 48 hours -- and that's only if they're not closed again on Wednesday and I can actually get out to teach my 210 class that night. I sent them an email a little while ago telling them as much. It's not like I own a snowplow, and while the interstate will more than likely be clear, that's only about half of my actual drive to West campus when I teach over there. I still have to get through Newton's residential areas and streets without getting stuck in a ditch, and then once I get off the interstate, West campus is about ten miles out in the country on long, straight-stretch roads with fields on either side of me, and I don't know if those roads will necessarily be treated or passable even by Wednesday night. I could get 3/4 of the way to campus Wednesday evening and then get stuck somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. It'll be dark before I even leave the house, so both ways it'll not be that pleasant if I can even make it there and back. And that's if the car makes it out of the driveway in the first place. So, who knows. It's certainly not going to get warm enough to melt anything, so whatever isn't clear will be snowpack and hard, thick ice. It's not going to be fun.
Can it be spring yet? No, seriously. Like, ten days ago it was almost 70 degrees outside. Can we get back to that sometime soon, please?
No comments:
Post a Comment