Taking into account a driving ban in the Town of Amherst, hundreds of thousands of residents across the region still without power and cleanup from downed trees continuing both on and off campus, UB officials announced in a release Sunday evening that the university will remain closed on Monday.
The fourth straight day closed, "essential health, safety, and facilities staff are expected to report as scheduled," according to the release. Campus shuttle bus services will be running and the Undergraduate Library (Capen Library) will be open for use.
No decision has been made yet on whether or not the school will reopen on Tuesday.
"Amherst is one of the hardest-hit areas," said Dennis Black, vice president for Student Affairs. Closing the university "gives the community a chance to clean up and restore power... obviously they need to keep as many people off the road as possible."
The driving ban as well as states of emergency and other travel advisories throughout the region have been in effect since late Thursday night when an unseasonably early snowstorm hit Buffalo and its northern suburbs. Heavy snow caused extensive damage to trees and power lines in the area, leaving many residents without power.
The university's North Campus maintained power throughout the storm, except for the Commons, which was dark from Thursday evening to Sunday early morning.
South Campus, according to UB Chief of Police Gerald Schoenle, was without primary power Thursday night. Emergency electricity was supplemented with a generator brought online Saturday, and the campus was restored to full power just after midnight on Sunday morning.
Power outages also affected the strip of hotels adjacent to North Campus, leaving students housed there due to overbooking of UB's dorms in the dark. Plans to evacuate the hotel residents to Ellicott lounges were almost executed Friday, but power was restored just before they were scheduled to go into effect.
"The power came back on for them after we had made arrangement to bring them back to campus," Black said. "They stayed in the hotels throughout the weekend."
Friday morning, on-campus students were alerted of the school closing by campus cable channel two, the university's emergency alert station. In the dorms, Resident Advisers also made signs that were posted by mid-morning.
However, the university's hotline for closings and scheduling information - (716) 645-NEWS - and the school's Web site were not updated. When called, the line indicated that the university was open until the message was changed Friday evening.
Black had no official response directly regarding the delay in updating the information hotline or to criticism that the university could have better notified the student body.
"It's too early to do retrospect, we're still scrambling in respect to keeping operations going," Black said. "It's too early to look back because we're not done yet."
Sunday evening, an e-mail was sent to campus residents notifying them of the closure on Monday. Buffalo.edu and (716) 645-NEWS were also updated.
University officials are hopeful that UB will be fully reopened on Tuesday, but say that the decision ultimately comes down to conditions in surrounding Amherst.
"We're working with the town and the power authority, they know it's our desire to resume full operations on Tuesday," Black said.
According to Sunday's release, scheduling updates will be made available via buffalo.edu, WBFO-FM 88.7 and UB's information hotline at (716) 645-NEWS.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
