Snow Damage on Campus
To be honest, a lot of the damage I’ve been hearing about has been conveyed to me indirectly by friends who heard stories from other friends or from the RAs. Some of my friends and I were out last night walking around in the snow partly because we were curious about all of the supposed damage. They had plowed many of the main pathways so it wasn’t too dangerous, but you could see all of the broken limbs on the ground and caution tape that had been placed around areas where tree branches could potentially break off.
For example, an alarm in Chandler was going off when we went for dinner, and someone said that it was because one of the maintenance workers that was plowing around the building had been hit by a tree branch and was taken to the hospital earlier in the day. I wish I had more details, but everything has been hearsay and I feel like the University won’t reveal anything until after the emergency is over. I have a couple of pictures of the tree branches (I’m sorry for the poor quality), but feel free to post pictures of your own.
Here’s one outside of Seaco:
And here’s the one outside of Russell (which for those of you who didn’t read the last post was on lockdown after the tree had hit the building. At this point they had moved it, but the steps to the building were still roped off):
This is the new (improved!) view from Chris Moore’s dorm room:
6 responses so far
Great post! Thanks for the pictures. The university WON’T tell what they don’t have to, and I think that makes rumors worse…
On Saturday morning I woke up and took a look outside to see how much snow we had. It looked alot different from my window then ever before. The tree that had blocked most of the view out of my window had fallen. Fortunately my dorm is on a hill, because otherwise it may have come through my window when it fell. Due to this incident and many other incidents like this all around campus maybe UMW will be more careful and observant about trees near buildings that are potential hazards. I guess not all hazards are a bad thing though because the tree did not cause any damage and I now have a clear view out of my window!
Professor Gallagher: I could not post the picture on here but I will email it to you.
I live in Bushnell hall in the basement on the side that faces Marshall and right out my window there is a huge tree that fell it woke me up out of my sleep and everything (attempted to put the picture up but couldn’t ). The tree is still outside my window and seems like if had been a little taller it would have been inside my room not just outside my window.
Good lord, how frightening! You can email me pics like Chris did, I’ll add them to the main post. So interesting that we are now part of the event, not just reading about it. Like Julie’s earlier post, and Molly’s recent one, we perceive risk differently depending on experience. For some of you it may be the first time you are away from your parents’ home (and thus ‘responsible’ for yourselves) during an incident like this – preparation that they would have done you may not have been aware of and thus your sense of risk was diminished and has now been heightened.
Many of the trees we have on campus are ‘southern’ species, close to the northern end of their range. They are not adapted to this icy weather – it was the freezing rain and very wet snow that caused the weight and falling. Further north, such species would not grow and those that do grow are less likely to break or fall. There are several southern magnolias in my neighborhood that look dreadful, for example – limbs down all over! Their wood is brittle, their structure unable to ‘bend’ under snow. I don’t think we can ‘blame’ facilities for planting trees near buildings because this is such an unusual event.
[...] for the last four or five days here in Fredericskburg. Check out the recent posts about the snow damage on campus as well as how the latest storms have forced the Geography’s faculty to abandon Annex B in [...]
[...] for the last four or five days here in Fredericskburg. Check out the recent posts about the snow damage on campus as well as how the latest storms have forced the Geography’s faculty to abandon Annex B in fear [...]