Snow and ice removal vital to preventing campus injuries
Snow and ice at Central Michigan University can provide winter fun, but also causes poor conditions for navigating campus.
Almost 200 faculty and staff members reported an injury from 2012 to 2014 each year on campus because of a slip-and-fall accident.
The number of students injured in the same kinds of accidents is not recorded. The rehabilitation center is offered only for faculty and staff members at CMU, Griffin said.
Mount Pleasant Street Supervisor Bob Murphy employs 10 staff members to plow the city's 79 miles of streets.
Tag a spot on the map of CMU's campus below that you have noticed is slippery due to ice or snow.
He said they plow streets that go through campus, and stop at the boundary where campus begins. His staff tries to plow more populated areas first, and makes areas surrounding schools a priority, he said.
"It takes everyone we have to get the city taken care of," Murphy said.
He said he loves when students are in town, but it makes his job of clearing the streets more difficult because there are more people and cars to work around.
Both Lawrence and Murphy said they get occassional complaints about quality of snow and ice removal, but not frequently.
Lawrence said sometimes facilities management will plow on the edge of campus and the city will come through later and throw snow on crosswalk areas and sidewalks, specifically Preston Street around the curb area north of campus.
Facilities Management employs 15 grounds caretakers responsible for making 29 miles of sidewalk, 92 acres of parking lots and 4 and a half miles of roads accessible and safe throughout the spring semester.
Last year, the university spent $178,228 on snow removal, comprised of $90,740 in salt, $70,566 in labor and $16,922 in overtime labor, said Associate Vice President of Facilities Management Steve Lawrence.
Griffin said rehabilitation is offered to faculty and staff members at CMU who get injured because of weather-related accidents at the CHIP center.
Lawrence said sometimes all 15 grounds caretakers will work to prepare for incoming bad weather. Otherwise, most plowing and salting is completed at night.
"It varies a lot; no two storms that are completely the same," he said.
The salt order for CMU is placed in April every year. In his 12 years at CMU, Lawrence said they only came close to running out of salt once.
"We buy our salt in a big group of universities in the state of Michigan so we get a really good deal," he said.
Salt is ineffective in lower temperatures, Lawrence said. Snow melt systems have been put into newer buildings to help the slippery ice conditions.
The underground heating systems melt snow and ice at the entrance of buildings. A system of pipes and insulation under sidewalks use a heat exchanger from the building it close to. Not every snow melt system is up and running.
If funding isn’t adequate, only the portion of the system under the sidewalk is initially installed and the rest of the system is installed when additional funds become available, Lawrence said.
"We haven’t had as much snow this year, but I think (facilities managment) does as good of a job as they probably could," said Muskegon junior Amanda Olsen.
Olsen said her friend who lives in a north campus residence hall slipped and fell a few times last year walking on campus.
"They’re not the greatest with plowing the parking lots, but that’s off campus," she said. "I think it is pretty icy as far as the sidewalks, they don’t really take good care of that."
People who need to be especially cautious in inclement winter weather are students with disabilities, which includes about 700 students registered with Student Disability Services both online and on-campus.
“The hardest thing in the winter time is just being able to keep the critical path open so (students with disabilities) can get from building to building,” said Assistant Director of Student Disability Services Brenda Mather. “That’s always a challenge when the snow falls or when the ice is out.”
There is a list of students registered with Student Disabilities Services who need snow removed at their residence halls or by their on-campus apartments. These students are the first to get pathways from their residences plowed or salted, she said.
Mather said Facilities Management usually does a good job and works hard to make campus accessible.
CMU Police Officer Lt. Cameron Wassman said CMU is fortunate to have grounds workers who do a good job.
Wassman shared some advice to students during the winter months in terms of driving in snowy conditions.
"For parking, it's important to realize sometimes you aren't going to be able to see the lines (for a parking spot)," he said. "Take the extra step to not block a spot. Make sure you're (within the lines)."
In terms of campus conditions during the winter, Jennifer Kolar said there is always room for improvement.
"I’ve come close (to falling), you just have to walk really slow," said the Brighton sophomore. "I have to leave early in the winter (to get to class) but I think that’s normal."
She said more salt on campus sidewalks it might help a lot to keep pathways from being too slippery.
