Transcript: Snowpocalypse Story

“By the time I’d come back, a tree had fallen into Wilder.”

Leah: This isn’t a first year story but Snowpocalypse…

Hannah: Oh Snowpocalypse. So that was sophomore year during Halloween weekend, right?

Leah: Yeah, so we were in Wilder in the Golden Pear Kitchen having a cute little…

Hannah: We were baking pie.

Leah: Yeah, we were baking pie, carving jack-o-lanterns, we were making a gingerbread house…

Hannah: And it was a strange day because early in the day it had been really warm cause it was October. Then, by like early afternoon it had started snowing and then it started really snowing, like really really hard and all the leaves were still on the trees because it was October and it doesn’t really snow then. So all the leaves were on the trees and the snow was piling up, like feet of snow. Like at least a foot and a half, like it was a ton of snow out of nowhere. So we’re sitting in this kitchen cooking, having a good time, baking pies.

Leah: And didn’t you go out for a walk or something?

Hannah: We forgot an ingredient in my room. So I go to Creighton to get it and as I’m walking outside, I can hear trees collapsing all around me just because we’re right by a forest and it’s terrifying because the snow is coming down really hard, the trees are collapsing you can just hear branches breaking everywhere. I was gone for a few minutes, I come back and by the time I’d come back, a tree had fallen into Wilder. Like a huge tree that sits in front of Wilder, a huge branch had fallen onto the porch.

Leah: So then Hannah comes in and she’s like “Guys, a tree just fell onto the building!” And we were like, “What?” And we ran outside and the metal railing around the ramp had completely been crushed under the tree. So we went outside and we were like, “Woah!” and we were taking pictures and then all of our phones started blowing up with these emergency alerts and Mount Holyoke College was calling us and with these automated messages telling us to stay inside and not leave the building unless we had to. So then we all had to go home and like you said, we could hear all around us was like “Thud. Thud. Thud!” as these trees and branches were falling all around us.

Hannah: Oh and then the power went out.

Leah: Yeah, the power went out and it was out for like two days, right?

Hannah: Yeah, two days.

Leah: So everyone’s phone died eventually because we couldn’t recharge them. So we had to actually go look for each other to find each other!

Hannah: Yeah, it was a weird two days because the College closed. It was a Sunday and a Monday. So the College closes, and then all these students from Hampshire show up because they don’t have a place to stay so it was like this weird emergency situation where all these Hampshire students were staying on cots in the athletics building, in the gym.

Leah: Yeah and we went to go see and we were like, “Oh my God, it looks like a refugee camp in here.”

Hannah: Yeah, and if we wanted food, the only place they were serving food was Blanchard and we had to stand in a line and the line would wrap around all of Blanchard. And I just remember standing in that line, it was like all of us, they would send us by building and Saran was in my building so I was with like Saran and Mohini and other friends. And we’re standing in this line and this line is taking forever because it’s literally everyone in the entire school. And Saran and people, just because they’re musical and confident, somebody like starts making a beat and like Saran starts rapping about how hungry she is and like all these people join in. It was so funny. Yeah, as we waited to get our sandwiches.

Leah: It was so funny walking up to Blanchard and seeing this huge line. And it looked like people waiting for a soup kitchen or something.

Hannah: Yeah, it was very surreal.

Leah: So no one at the College was working except the dining hall staff. They all still had to come into work to feed us.

Hannah: Yeah, like every major event.

Leah: One thing I remember about Snowpocalypse, first year, was that because there were no electronics, people were hanging out with each other more than I had ever seen. People were just hanging out in the hallways, people were playing card games. I remember in the Delles, they somehow got permission from public safety to have an actual fire in the fireplace, which I had never seen before. And people in the dorm were actually hanging out together. And I remember thinking to myself, ‘Wow this must be what it was like before everyone had their own computers.’ It was really lovely. I think there was this really nice sense of community and people spent time together because they had nothing else to do, no one could do homework because everyone’s computers had died.

Hannah: Yeah, I remember that too. That was really nice.

July 14, 2014