Students sled down Locust, build igloos

Thanks to Philadelphia’s snowiest winter in history, students had two days off to sleep, study and sled.

The snow days on Wednesday and Thursday were the first back-to-back University closings since 1994. Before Wednesday, the most recent snow-related University closings were in February 2003 and January 2000.

Philadelphia was hit with almost 16 inches of snow this week. In addition to last weekend’s snowfall, Philadelphia’s total snow fall for the season total amounted to 70.3 inches, according to the Associated Press.

Previously, the city’s whitest winter was that of 1995-6, when 65.5 inches of snow fell.

The University announced both Wednesday’s and Thursday’s cancellations the night prior instead of waiting until the early morning.

“We wanted to be well coordinated with the city,” Executive Vice President Craig Carnaroli wrote in a statement. “In addition we looked at the actions of other regional college and universities and most importantly the forecast and felt the safest approach for the majority of the Penn community was to communicate early.”

Most other colleges in the Mid-Atlantic region, including nearby St. Joseph’s University, Temple University, Villanova University and Bryn Mawr College, were also shut down for both days.

Columbia University did not close until 3 p.m. on Wednesday and Princeton University, was closed on Wednesday but not Thursday.

Some Penn students spent the days off catching up on homework, while others engaged in snowball fights or constructed igloos.

“We got wasted and went sledding and then did some hard-core snow-ball fighting outside the high rises,” said a College sophomore, who preferred to remain anonymous.

A group of students constructed a snowball over five feet in diameter in the Quad on Wednesday.

“First I thought it was a fire hazard, and then I remembered it was made of snow, so, like, snow counteracts fire,” College sophomore John O’Malley said about the snowball.

College senior Kerry Scottland also enjoyed the weather.

“I just went out with a friend of mine … we put on our bathing suits and tried, unsuccessfully, to sled down the Locust Walk Bridge,” she said.

On Thursday, Penn President Amy Gutmann hosted a “blizzard celebration” in 1920s Commons.

“Penn is responsible for the maintenance of over 1.3 million square ft of walkways and the campus parking lots,” Vice President of Facilities and Real Estate Services Anne Papageorge wrote in a statement.

Facilities has 25 snow blowers, five gators with plows and spreaders, and five trucks with plows and salt spreaders at its disposal, according to Papageorge.

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