Blizzard of '96 hits home

Students delayed by storm and Doree Shafrir After spending five hours in the St. Louis airport, Engineering freshman Yazil Santoyo had almost given up hope. The East Coast's largest snowstorm of the decade -- which weathermen across the nation had affectionately dubbed the Blizzard of '96 -- had begun. "The Blizzard of '96 made it really hard for me to return to Penn from my home in Mexico," Santoyo explained. And Santoyo was not alone with his troubles. The thousands of Penn students returning to the snow-blanketed campus over the past week met train, bus and plane delays -- or simply couldn't leave their own driveways. College freshman Philip Kim encountered an unexpected detour on his trip back from New York. "The train was forced to stop in Trenton for three hours because of the weather," he said. "It was a real pain." And although they had been on campus since the beginning of January, members of winter sports teams found themselves inconvenienced by the storm as well. College freshman and swimmer Lauren Ballough said Coach Kathy Lawlor-Gilbert had to practically sacrifice her life to get a path cleared for all of the athletes practicing at Gimbel Gym. "I went out to Walnut Street to try to stop a snowplow to get them to clear the way to Gimbel," Lawlor-Gilbert explained. "At first, they told me that the gym wasn't the first priority." But when a second plow came down the street, the coach was forced to resort to more desperate measures. "I stood in the middle of Walnut and threw myself in front of the plow," Lawlor-Gilbert said. "Luckily, the driver was very nice, and took a half hour to clear the entrance." While most of the other streets around the University were clear by the middle of the week, this was little consolation for local businesses. Cosimos Pizza, located in the food court on 34th and Walnut streets, was dismayed by the low number of customers that visited the restaurant during the week of inclement weather conditions. Employee Mark Slater said the company not only lost money because of the storm -- it was also forced to lay off several people.