Editor,
I received an email from the University at 5:15 a.m. on Friday alerting me that campus was to have a two-hour weather delay and that classes would start at 10 a.m. I then received a second email at 9:35 a.m. that school was to be canceled for the whole day on Friday, just enough time to prepare for a 10 a.m. exam, drive all the way to school on icy dangerous roads, only to discover that school was canceled when I got there.
This decision should have been made hours earlier and students should have been informed of it immediately. School should have been canceled first thing in the morning at 5 a.m., given the amount of snow and ice that had accumulated on the roads and Albuquerque’s poor snow removal system. UNM’s management really dropped the ball here and allowed a portion of their students to actually drive to school in hazardous conditions, only to have to drive home immediately after discovering the cancellation.
I like the two-hour delay system. It does work sometimes, especially under the warm New Mexican sun. But when the forecast calls for overcast the next morning, accompanied with temperatures under freezing and more precipitation, why was a two-hour delay called? This was a hazardous call by the University, and hopefully they will learn from this.
While snow continued to fall Friday morning, countless students lined up for the bus at South lot, countless cars lined up on the interstate highways. I could do nothing but think about the confusion and damage caused by this two-hour delay decision. I wonder how many students crashed their cars on the way to school in this untimely decision to make classes carry on in the midst of a record-breaking storm in Albuquerque.
Sincerely,
Austin Short
UNM student
