Students may have gotten Tuesday off, but hundreds of UNM employees were shoveling sidewalks, clearing roads and preparing UNM’s buildings to withstand icy winds and bone-chilling temperatures.
Mary Vosevich, UNM’s Physical Plant Department director, said all 400 PPD employees are expected to come to work, regardless of the snow.
“We need to make sure that buildings stay up and running, and that they’re functioning,” she said. “All the grounds and landscaping folks are out there shoveling, laying ice-melt out, plowing — whatever the needs may be.”
She said some employees will stay the night in several buildings to prevent pipes freezing or bursting because of low temperatures. The precautions are necessary because UNM is not designed for freezing temperatures, PPD employee Tommy Tafoya said.
“We’re preparing for the cold temperatures because our systems are not designed for this zero-degree weather,” Tafoya said.
“These programs have the capability to send out emergency pages, so in the middle of the night if we have an emergency, the manager’s pager will go off, and he’ll call in the right person to get it fixed.”
Employees at PPD, the Health Sciences Center and UNM Police Department are not exempt from the snow day because they are essential to University operations.
“We’re just used to it,” Tafoya said. “I’ve been here 13 years with the University, and we know we’re expected to be in and get the sidewalks cleared, make sure the buildings have heat. … You don’t notice. You don’t see us.”
Workers were seen trying to secure a tarp over exposed scaffolding during cold winds at Castetter Hall.
Who makes a snow day a snow day?
The campus chief of police ultimately determines if there will be a snow day, UNM spokeswoman Carolyn Gonzales said. She said UNM and Albuquerque Public Schools try to come to a consensus about weather cancellations and delays, but that is not always possible.
“APS’ policy is driven by whether or not the buses can get out, and usually that’s not the same situation with UNM,” she said.
On inclement days, APS sends road scouts as early as 2 a.m. to test city roads’ drivability, the East Mountains and on I-40, according to the district.
APS then consults with city, county and state road departments to determine if conditions will change. It needs to make its decision by 5:30 a.m. in order to prepare buses. UNM follows with its decision soon after.
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Snow and harsh conditions are expected throughout the night, but Gonzales said the University closing for a second straight day is rare.
“Our schedule is such that we don’t want to close school unnecessarily,” she said. “We try to be conscious in balancing out the need to make sure students and faculty are in class, with the safety of people on the streets.”
