Ice Halts City, Campus Life: Roofs Bear the Brunt

Though walkways have been cleared and igloos demolished, the large volume of lingering snow has continued to cause headaches this week on campus and throughout the Middletown area.

According to Physical Plant Director Cliff Ashton, buildings at 318 High St., 287 High St., as well as the Neighborhood Preschool buildings at 20 Lawn Ave. and 115 High St., were closed on Friday as a precautionary measure, after University staff members expressed concerns about the structural integrity of the buildings. In addition, a garage structure located behind 240 Court St. collapsed under the weight of heavy snow.

“Buildings were closed as a precaution if there was evidence of physical changes, reports of unusual noises, or engineering assessment that warranted additional investigation by structural engineers that we hired to assist in campus wide reviews,” Ashton said.

Ashton said that the situation arose after the recent period of warm temperatures, which followed two severe snowstorms that occurred within one week of each other. The increase in temperature caused snow that had melted during the day to refreeze at night, resulting in dense ice on rooftops.

According to Neighborhood Preschool Director Karyn Bidwell, the staff discovered cracks in the second floor of the Lawn Avenue site and evacuated students and staff. Consequently, the High Street site was checked, cracks were also discovered, and students were evacuated from that site as well.

“I can tell you from my experience that those cracks had been there previously, but were [now] a bit bigger; they were being very careful,” she said. “They monitored them for a few days and when they didn’t seem to get progressively worse, they removed some snow and we are fully re-opened as of Tuesday.”

Bidwell added that the evacuation was an added headache on top of the three days of school closings due to the actual storms, but emphasized that the snow removal process has served as a bonding experience.

“The Wesleyan soccer team came and shoveled out one of our playgrounds so that the kids could go out and play, and the kids are having a great time out there now,” she said.

Ashton said that all of the buildings that had been closed were re-opened by Tuesday.

Public Safety Director Dave Meyer noted that his staff has been working hard to respond to the concerns of the student body, including those who live in woodframe houses.

“A few people start hearing creaking in old buildings,” Meyer said. “Even though they’ve heard creaking in the building for years.They get a little nervous and call us and we go over with Physical Plant. They bring in some structural engineers and check out the building.”

Students and staff were also forced to cope with the closure of the Freeman Athletic Center, which, with the exception of the pool and lobby, was closed on Saturday afternoon due to concerns that the weight of the snow and ice on flat portions of the roof would “exceed design specifications for the structure,” according to Ashton.

Ashton emphasized that Freeman was closed purely as a precautionary measure, and that there was no evidence that the building was in danger of collapse. According to Freeman’s website, all facilities have been re-opened as of Wednesday.

Women’s hockey team member Sydney Morgan ’14, said that her team’s Monday practice was cancelled. She added that her team had been scheduled to play Holy Cross on Sunday, but that the game was rescheduled for Wednesday, following Freeman’s closure.

According to Morgan, on the day of Freeman’s closure, the team was given brief access to the building in order to remove their belongings.

“They gave us a 20-minute window to rush in, get our stuff, and then move it before our [away] game that day,” she said.

Morgan noted that practices had resumed by Tuesday, and that she did not anticipate any major effects on the team’s performance from the closure.

In addition to the problems on campus, the Oddfellows Playhouse in Middletown was forced to close following flooding on the second and the third floors of the Playhouse’s Washington St. building, according to Producing Artistic Director Jeffrey Allen.

To cope with the closure, rehearsals have been relocated to First Church on Court St. The repair work, according to Allen, has been going slowly due to the high volume of other necessary repairs in the area. Allen said that the company’s next scheduled performance was “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” on March 10 through 12, and that he expected that the theater would be fully operational by then.

However, the Playhouse is also facing the loss of “36 years worth of costumes and props that are essentially irreplaceable,” according to Allen, following the collapse of 505 Main St., a building that housed the Playhouse’s costume and prop collection. There has been an outpouring of support following the collapse, Allen said.

“We’re so humbled by and thankful for the broad community response already,” Allen said. “We’ve received offers from multiple area theaters, including Wesleyan, offering the use of costumes and material to get us through the rest of this season, which is extraordinarily generous and helpful, and we’re so thankful. We’re confident that with all of this support and good will we will be able to continue doing the work we do at the highest possible level.”