OcSnowberfest 2011 a.k.a. the Fall ClusterF***

Trust one of the most memorable (read: crazy) occurrences on the Amherst Campus to knock me out of my blog-stupor.

The back-story: It's Halloween weekend. There is to be Marsh Haunted Haus, a party on the Hill (called Hilloween, no less) and much goings on this weekend. I was hoping for it to be fairly uneventful, having arrived Saturday morning after an extremely exhausting (but super fun) gig at Wellesley College out East. It turned out to be everything but.

After taking a much needed nap starting at 2 on Saturday afternoon, I proceed to wake up two hours later, and there's snow covering the campus.

In October.

By comparison, we received our first major snow last year close to Christmas.

Not only was there a fairly thick layer of snow across campus, there was a warning out to all of Massachusetts (and Southern New England) to prepare for an impending snow storm.


And so occurred the storm that Irene should have been.

Everything is so much less fun when you're sick, which I happened to be this entire time.

Not having the energy to go out or do much beyond read in my room, I return to King early in the evening and begin laundry at around 9. The storm has very much begun by this point, and every now and then I see blue lightning flash through the sky. Very cool.

Important: Because of weather concerns, by this point Hilloween had been moved to Davis down in the socials. This is relevant, I promise you.

A little after 11, I move down to change over my laundry and to do another load. Upon my return to my room my reading/goofing around continues.

Fifteen minutes later, and the lights go out. For real, permanently.

Oh, that's nice.

One hour, many text messages, and a few realizations later, turns out that much of Western Mass, Western CT, New York and New Jersey have lost power. Great.

I continue to be on the phone trying to acquire info/check up on people I know. My RC buddy makes it back in one piece after traversing campus, including the social quad.

About the party in Davis? Well, while King and a lot of the buildings on the central campus had emergency power lighting the hallways and the access points, the socials had none of those. So all the would-be party goers found themselves in absolute darkness. Sucks for them.

Sunday morning, and the power is still out. Word going around that it could be a few days before it's fully restored.

Amazingly, the dining hall remains open and functional. With the only building with power on the campus, it quickly become a refugee camp, with the whole campus clamoring for outlet space to plug in their laptops and phone chargers.

Kudos to Dining Services. And facilities.

RC meeting at 1 o'clock informs us that a decision regarding the campus will be made by 6:30.

At 5:30, power is returned to the central buildings on the campus. Ones on the periphery? Too bad apparently.

At 6:30, the admins and RC's reconvene and we are officially informed that there will be no classes on Monday. And so, for the first time since 1972, Amherst officially does not have classes on a regular working day. Incredible. But with 8 buildings on the periphery of campus with absolutely no heating or electricity, a sizeable chunk of the student body are made refugees and made to live with friends or in Lewis-Sebring.


So the worst has been averted, now only to clear up the massive amount of debris all over campus. Woot woot!!