Digging Into the Process of Snow Removal on Campus

Caelen McQuilkin ’24 Managing Features Editor

“Auxiliary Services has worked through the night to clear the campus walkways and roads.” When students open their inboxes during the winter, we’re often greeted by this phrase — a snowstorm hits, and we await the announcement about whether campus is clear enough to continue operations as normal.

The process that makes this possible takes place behind the scenes for students but occupies center stage for others in the college community. To learn more about it, The Student spoke with staff who work on snow removal at the college.

These staff work within the custodial and grounds departments, which together oversee snow removal. According to Supervisor of Landscape and Grounds Kenneth

Lauzier and Custodial Supervisor

Liz Pereira, the custodial department is responsible for clearing snow on walkways, staircases, and entrances to the dorms they clean and maintain, as well as the general surroundings of those buildings. Meanwhile, the grounds department oversees roads, parking lots, driveways, sidewalks, and “floating staircases,” or staircases that are not immediately attached to buildings.

Staff working in snow removal said that the preparation and work necessary to clear snow depends on the timing and severity of the storm, but consistently requires different types of labor. Essential staff on hourly wages also spoke on the labor that snow removal adds to their schedules and what this means for how they see their pay. And more broadly, staff shared stories about how snow removal work has shaped their understandings of the Amherst campus.

Before the Storm

According to Lauzier, the process of preparing for a snow storm typically begins about a week before it is predicted to hit. He described “constantly toggling back and forth every five minutes between every possible weather app” as soon as snow appears on the radar. No matter how large the snow storm is, custodial and grounds will anticipate some work to clear it. But to get more clarity on how much snow is expected, the college receives special briefings from the National Weather Service that include confidence ratings in their predictions for the storm. These updates come in every twelve hours for several days leading up to it, and help departments make decisions about what clearing the snow will entail.

Part of this planning process involves employee schedules. Custodial employees add snow removal to their typical schedules, which for most is Monday through Friday, from 6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The grounds department changes its hours more often in order to adjust to snow predictions, often working through the night.

“Most people wake up at seven, eight, nine o’clock in the morning. “But we’ve been here physically removing snow since midnight, or since 10 p.m. at night the day before,” Lauzier said. “Most people’s days are starting, but we’ve just ended two days worth of work.”

Before the storm, the departments also prep their equipment and “pretreat” walkways and stairs with salt. Having this preparation before snow falls is important, Lauzier said.

“What people don’t always see is the work that is done when it’s not snowing.”

Once the storm is closer or has begun, the Human Resources, Safety, and Auxiliary Services Departments assess and then make a recommendation to the senior advisor to the president and to the chief of campus operations about whether the college should call a snow day and officially close. According to Chief of Police John Carter, one of the many factors the college considers when deciding to close is “whether custodial and grounds are able to clear roadways, parking lots and walkways so that the community can move about the campus safely.” This constitutes the last part of the snow day decision-making process, as the departments usually

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