When the dreaded Minnesotan mid-March blizzard strikes, students may wake up anxiously awaiting an email saying their classes have been cancelled or wondering if they have enough ramen to avoid walking through the snow to get to the cafeteria. However, for Assistant Director of Facilities for Grounds Corey Jonas and his team, it’s another story. For them, it means arriving at work at 4 a.m. and staying until 5 p.m. to make sure the campus roads and sidewalks are safe. 

The blizzard that hit campus on March 15 made work difficult for the grounds crew. 

“It was snowing about two or three inches an hour. It was tough to keep up with,” Jonas said in an interview with The Olaf Messenger. “[The snow] was heavy and wet, without a lot of traction to push it very far, and [at] about noon or one o’clock, the wind picked up so bad we couldn’t see anything on top of it.”

However, there was one upside to the timing of this weather event. “I really appreciated that [the storm] was on a Sunday where there weren’t a lot of students walking around,” Jonas said. “That’s always our biggest fear. When it’s a blinding snow like that, and there’s people out driving or moving around, we can’t see them.”

As long as the sidewalk isn’t icy, students and faculty likely won’t think about who cleared it. Facilities staff do a lot of work just for them to go unnoticed — still, Jonas and his team do everything they can to ensure their work gets done without interrupting the flow of campus life. 

When they aren’t clearing snow off of our 11 miles of sidewalks and four miles of roads, Jonas and his team are busy mowing grass, trimming trees, gardening, filling potholes, and transporting equipment for events. 

This doesn’t mean they don’t appreciate a thank you now and again. “It’s always nice to hear when some of the students walk by and say, ‘Thank you very much. It looks great.’ … it makes you feel better [when] someone actually notices you and what you’re doing,” Jonas said.