By Karla Fonseca
Staff Writer
The nor’easter that hit along the east coast on the weekend of Jan. 28 brought a slew of complications to the College community. The campus received at least five inches of snow, causing dangerous conditions for students residing on campus.
“Many [residential] TCNJ students like myself were not equipped for the snow,” said freshman undeclared major Gabrielle Smith. "I had some sneakers that snow sopped through pretty quickly.”
In spite of the lack of preparedness among students on campus, the College was quick to react to the snow.
“When I woke up, I was startled to hear some commotion outside, but it was only some people hard at work plowing the roads. I couldn't be upset, because I really appreciated the work they’d done,” Smith said.
Despite the immediate action from the College, students took issue with certain aspects of the cleaning process.
“I feel like the sidewalks and stuff were cleaned up,” freshman biomedical engineering major Iman Naqvi said. “They should have put more salt down. There’s a lot of ice everywhere. I did slip and fall. It was a patch of black ice and I didn’t see it.”
As a commuter student, Naqvi faced separate problems and experiences from those of residential students, especially with parking areas.
“A lot of the snow got piled into a decent amount of parking spots. It caused an issue for kids trying to get parking,” Naqvi said. “[Wednesday], it took me 30 minutes to find a parking spot. I ended up being late to class. [Thursday], it took me 25.”
The rush to get to class on time also caused some students to park hastily in an awkward fashion.
“Kids either are double parking or just aren't parking in a space because the space has snow in it or cars are sticking out because they can’t pull into the space completely,” Naqvi said.
Snow piling outside of Centennial Hall (Karla Fonseca / Staff Writer).
This difficulty presented by the snow seemed to be worsened by the current construction of the solar panels, resulting in more parking areas being occupied in addition to the snow.
“It’s causing everyone to move really slow in the parking lot and there’s just not a lot of single spots,” Naqvi added.
Last week, Naqvi’s car had gotten stuck in the snow in the parking lot, causing her to be unable to back out. It was then subsequently towed by the Campus Police.
“It only took five to ten minutes [until] they got somebody over to help me out,” she added.
While recognizing the assistance provided by the College, she was disappointed by the lack of incentive to resolve these kinds of issues before they happened.
“I just feel like my car probably shouldn’t have gotten stuck in the first place,” said Naqvi.
