While students stayed inside, safe from the brewing blizzard, Matt Bailey arrived to work at 3 a.m. Jan. 31 before the snow hit he was preparing campus to be safe for student travel.
That weekend, East Lansing and other parts of Michigan were bombarded with nonstop snowfall, covering campus in a blanket of white and turning sidewalks into a slick ice rink.
Bailey is a supervisor in the Landscape Services department of the Infrastructure Planning and Facilities at MSU.
The department works to ensure student safety in dangerous snowy conditions that could inhibit their chances of safely making it to class or other important events.
Much like doctors, an emergency response team comprised of eight Infrastructure Planning and Facilities staff members are on call to come in at any given time to begin the cleanup process.
As soon as the snow threshold passes one and a half to two inches, staff members receive a voice message from Bailey or one of the other supervisors issued through an online service called Blackboard Connect.
The service allows them to send a mass message to the staff rather than calling them individually, and within 45 minutes they are all hands on deck, each member having proceeded to their designated snow removal route.
In extreme cases, such as the snowfall that MSU received two weekends ago, the call could come at an early hour.
“I came in Saturday morning at 3 a.m. because it was starting to snow, and I was just basically driving around campus and watching to see where the snow got really bad. ... I called in our salt trucks and they came in around 4 a.m. Saturday morning,” Bailey said.
In addition to the emergency response team, Infrastructure Planning and Facilities has a staff of about 60 who work to keep the campus in tip-top shape despite the inclement weather conditions.
In terms of how they go about tackling such a large campus, Bailey said that the team has a set of areas that they prioritize such as “the police department, fire department and the dorms where the kids are,” but that they aim to make the entire campus safe for everyone.
If there is ever a doubt as to whether or not their services are necessary, Bailey says that his team would rather be safe than sorry.
If there is even a chance of conditions becoming dangerous the team is ready to act.
“Every person on our staff has a given snow route that covers every road, every sidewalk, every parking, every loading dock on campus,” Bailey said. “So when I call a full push, everyone knows where they’re going, and it’s all safety-oriented. (The main priority is) making sure that the kids are safe.”
