As the afternoon started to fade into night around 4:30 p.m. on January 28, 2014, the Thomas Cooper Library was barren. The doors were locked, the sidewalks all but empty, the steps littered with small pellets — of salt, that is.
USC was hunkering down, and students celebrated a day without classes, awaiting the inches of snow and sleet that forecasters had been promising for days.
Campus and Columbia were all but shut down, ready for the Tuesday afternoon snowstorm that could have been. On Twitter, it was dubbed #snowmess.
If only the snow had come.
The National Weather Service expected 2 to 4 inches of snow and sleet to accumulate in Columbia on Tuesday evening, but as the day went on, the snow’s expected start was pushed back further into the night.
It wasn’t until around 9 p.m. that the snow began to fall, covering campus in a blanket of snow.
USC made a number of moves to get ready for the snowfall and ice.
Class was canceled for a second day, the Bull Street Garage was shut down and traffic patterns on Greene Street were altered to keep cars off the steep hill on Bull Street. Carolina Dining opted to keep managers and some employees on campus overnight, renting rooms at the Inn at USC and setting up cots in dining facilities, according to Michael Gwiazdowski, operations manager.
Sorority and fraternity members were directed to the Russell House ballroom to use their Greek Life meal plans.
“Bull Street [Garage] was closed, so we couldn’t even get to our cars to drive to Greek Village,” said Juliet Wilson, first-year broadcast journalism student and member of Delta Delta Delta sorority. “We didn’t want to walk in the rain.”
As the crowds trickled out of the ballroom, students were encouraged to grab a few pizzas and a tray of sandwiches on their way out.
Downstairs, Marble Slab workers scooped ice cream for anyone who wanted an extra chill, though there weren’t many.
“There’s no one here. Now is the time to go [to Marble Slab],” Carly Hildebrant said from behind the counter. Hildebrant had talked to her boss the night before, when it was decided that cookies and ice cream would be available for anyone stuck on campus.
Standing on the Horseshoe without a hat, scarf or gloves, Michael Kempner, a first-year biomedical engineering student, said he had decided to roam around campus after doing homework for most of the day.
“It’s pretty likely that I’ll get frostbite and die out here,” he said jokingly, “so I wrote up a will before I left.”
Danae Kunselman, a third-year pharmacy student, said she would have enjoyed a snowball fight, but as her dog, Kingsley, ran around Horseshoe’s the wet grass, she said her furry friend was probably more disappointed than she was, “whether he knows it or not.”
“He loves the snow, so I was hoping he would get to see it again,” Kunselman said.
After reports of a parking overflow at Publix Monday night that spilled from the main lot into the rest of the Vista, Tuesday evening saw ample parking, as well as bread, milk and eggs for the few shoppers who ventured through the sleet to stock up on the basics for the snow that hadn’t by then materialized.
Though Kunselman and Kingsley were disappointed with the lack of snow, both were keeping their hopes up for the rest of the week.
“Maybe tomorrow,” Kunselman said.