The employees who brave the winter weather
When winter weather strikes, we hunker down, work from home and enjoy the frosty snow.
For some business affairs employees, quite the opposite is true. They leave their home, work in hard conditions and manage the ice.
Employees from Emergency Management, Facilities Management and Dining Services keep students, faculty and staff safe by maintaining the campus’ accessibility.
During an average winter, Charlotte accumulates about four inches of snowfall. That doesn’t mean that precipitation types and amounts don’t vary depending on the area. This year happened to be three weekends in a row of snow.
“Any weather system presents a challenge with the intersection of a forecast, actual conditions and what impacts occur,” said Kevin Martin, emergency preparedness coordinator in the Office of Emergency Management (OEM). “Charlotte presents difficulties due to rain freeze lines, resulting in rain along the southern borders and snow in the north.”
OEM prepares for all these situations even before the first snowflake. Protocols are already in place and ready to go, taking an all-hazards approach to threats and hazards, including winter weather. By creating institution-wide plans to help coordinate the efforts of other departments, the campus as a whole is prepared for dealing with the impacts from winter weather.
When winter weather strikes, the FM grounds crew works overtime. Their work zone is the entire University. They brave the weather and clean up icy roads and walkways, clearing campus for safe travel. Together, the Grounds and Maintenance Operations (MO) units, with assistance from the Automotive and Building Environmental Services and Recycling (BES&R) units, put in a significant amount of work across campus to focus on major walkways, building entrances and exits, and stairs. “Our staff are very dedicated to keeping folks safe across campus,” said Joey Cochran, grounds superintendent. “We have to work through the night or extended hours. There is a large amount of sidewalks and other hardscape areas that need clearing and treating, almost 15.5 acres worth. It takes some time to get the campus back to normal.”
This year, over 120 facilities management employees were involved in the inclement weather. MO and BES handle zone areas set up in the Inclement Weather Plan, while MO coordinates the zone clean-ups.
Like Emergency Management and Facilities Management, Dining Services always has an emergency plan ready to roll out. Partnerships with food and beverage vendors, hotels and even other institutions are vital aids to dining’s success based on the severity of the weather. Crown Commons and SoVi will always open first to serve resident students and essential staff.
All of this is a group effort, according to Jody Thompson, interim director of Auxiliary Services. The Auxiliary Services team ensures campus partners are updated with any dining services needs or changes, as well as working with Facilities Management to ensure dining areas are treated/plowed and safe for traffic, and HRL to let resident students know what locations will be open and when.
Staff in Parking and Transportation Service (PaTS) monitor lots and decks for hazardous ice and wintry mix conditions and create alternative transportation and parking plans. As road conditions improve, PaTS staff update the campus in real-time on Twitter as Academy Drivers resume normal transit operations. Drivers also transport mandatory employees to their worksites.
“Any emergency response on campus is an all-hands-on-deck effort,” said Thompson. “I always enjoy working with our campus partners to ensure that the campus community’s needs are met, even when winter weather decides to disrupt the first three weekends of 2022!”
Story by Jordan Estabrook