Anatomy of a Penn Snowstorm

Flush-faced teenagers scramble for warmth in oversized coats covered with white snow. Freshmen leave their dorms at midnight to play, build snowmen and experience their first winter at Penn, with some participating in window-shattering snowball fights. Meanwhile, upperclassmen find themselves “cuffing,” or ditching this campus’ hookup culture for winter relationships in order to avoid being alone in the cold.

It’s snowstorm season once again and that means some Penn students are rejoicing while others are realizing they need better coats. Students are thinking about their new classes, rushing fraternities and sororities, gearing up for Valentine’s Day, applying to summer internships and desperately hoping for a snow day.

What’s not on students’ minds, however, is how to keep Penn running despite snowstorms. Behind the scenes, severe weather affects how Penn functions in every way.

Snowstorm Management

It’s Monday night. Weather forecasters are predicting almost a foot of snow in Philadelphia. To prepare, Facilities and Real Estate Services has mobilized a team of 50 housekeepers and 50 Urban Parks staffers to work around the clock to salt streets, plow snow and repair facilities damaged by the severe weather. Twenty mechanics have been called in to address building issues related to cold weather, such as heating and plumbing.

Before the sun even rises, FRES is getting its 25 snow blowers, five gators with plows and spreaders, five trucks with plows and salt spreaders, one tractor with a broom, several smaller machines with brooms and many, many shovels ready for work. Last year, FRES cleared approximately 8.2 million pounds of snow across 1.3 million square feet of walkways.

Due to the unanticipated light snow, the streets are cleared by 4:00 a.m. — well before Penn students and faculty wake up. By the time it’s over, this cleanup alone has cost the University at least $100,000.

“There is a financial cost associated with [snow removal]. It’s overtime for our staff, so you can take the number of employees times the number of hours, times their hourly rate,” Executive Director of Operations and Maintenance at FRES Ken Ogawa said. “But there are a lot of other costs — salt and fuel costs associated with running the equipment. If the University has to shut down for that day, there is lost revenue.”

Preparing for the storm

Snowstorm preparation begins long before students return from winter break. Starting in the fall, administrators watch the news, pay close attention to weather forecasts and order customized reports from weather services to help them anticipate weather conditions. When snowstorms hit, they are ready.

“Housekeepers clean up to ten feet from building perimeters. Urban Parks, which is the grounds staff, take care of all the walkways and then Business Services, the transportation office, actually takes care of the roadways and the parking lots. Public roads are actually done by the city of Philadelphia,” Ogawa said. “We hand off responsibility of various areas to our neighbors — whether it’s the University of Pennsylvania Health System, CHOP, retail merchants, the city or Drexel.”

However, the University’s first priority is to help students, he said.

“First, we focus on the residential and the dining facilities because people are living here, this is your home, and people need to be able to eat. That’s kind of critical before I get an office open,” Ogawa said. “After that, our focus is to make sure we have one ADA accessible entrance to every building. Then we go back and do the rest.”

Health & Crime

While FRES is ground zero for snowstorm responses, severe weather affects nearly every aspect of University life — from health levels on campus, to crime rates, to University finances, to the daily lives of Penn faculty, staff and students.

The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania sees more patients during the winter, primarily due to the high incidence of the flu, Senior Vice President for Public Affairs at Penn Medicine Susan Phillips said. Slipping on ice and other weather-related incidents drive increased patient visits during the winter months.

On a national level, empirical studies show that mortality rates are often higher during the winter months of December, January and February because patients are less likely to seek treatment for conditions in order to avoid the cold.

On the bright side, crime rates typically fall during periods of severe weather both at Penn and nationally — criminals do not want to be stuck out in the cold either. During the 2013-14 academic year, crime rates reached a low at Penn in December and January. On a national level, the National Bureau of Justice confirms that both violent and property crime rates tend to bottom out in the winter.

University Finances

Snowstorms can have staggering financial implications as well. Severe weather was the largest unexpected cost to the University during the 2013-14 academic year, according to the Annual Financial Report. “Expenses for the year were influenced by exceptionally high energy costs as a result of the severe winter weather,” Vice President for Finance and Treasurer Stephen Golding wrote in the report.

“We are doing a lot to invest in the infrastructure. We went out into the debt market and issued Century Bonds,” Golding said in an interview. “We know that by modernizing our buildings, our heating systems and our energy systems we can actually get energy savings, particularly during winter months.” Hundreds of millions of dollars have already been invested in these sustainability programs in order to reduce energy costs, Golding said.

“Another thing we’ve done from a financial perspective is something called hedging, which basically allows us to pre-purchase energy in the future at set prices so that we can kind of allay some of the risk of price volatility in the future. That hedging last January saved us $4 million dollars,” Golding said.

University Life

Winter storms affect University life in small ways as well. Some faculty members have to pick their children up when Philadelphia closes its public schools. Others stay in hotels near campus in order to avoid being late or absent from their lectures due to traffic and weather constraints.

Allied Barton security and Penn Police, for their part, stay outdoors and keep students safe, despite weather conditions. Penn’s Dining staff rush to provide for the unanticipated influx of students who go to dining halls to avoid the cold, Catering Manager at Falk Dining Hall Marti Bates said. Meanwhile, much of Penn’s staff has to clear snow from their own homes while working full time and worrying about the possibility that their roofs might cave in, complained a staffer in one of Penn’s dining halls.

While the University’s administrators work through the night from behind the scenes, Penn students get to rejoice and relax during snowstorms. Some take to Facebook and Twitter to procrastinate on work and pray for class cancelations or watch movies on Netflix. Others do more adventurous things, like ski off of the Benjamin Franklin statue in front of College Hall — as some students did last year — or build a web application to keep track of Penn snow day predictions as some did Monday night.

“Being in college, I’m going to like the snow because I don’t have to shovel like I did at home,” College freshman Jazmine Smith said.

Staff Reporter Jeffrey Careyva contributed reporting.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.