University Closing Criteria:

Youngstown State University's criteria for whether or not it will open relies solely on if they can clean the walkways on the inside of campus. As the city is not their problem though.

On Tuesday it rained at 4:00 am and then the rain froze. The roads and the university were pretty bad until day break when the sun came out. But over all it was pretty nice out and pretty. They closed the University any how. Much to everyone's confusion. Many factors were given like the impending ice storm of death and destruction or the fact that the surrounding areas were a lot worse off.

Today (Wednesday) the University stayed open even though the ice storm had just hit only a few hours before the first classes were to start. I guess they could clean the walkways inside campus, huh? The ground was ice when my roommate and I went to sleep on Tuesday. I woke up I looked outside my window and someone drove sideways down my road only to straighten out when they hit Elm. When I got the guts to start my walking to school I fell about 6 times, on my ass, walking down my driveway. My little feets flailed as they tried to get traction on the pure, slightly wet, glass that seemed to cover the entirety of the landscape.

I cried a little bit after mastering my driveway. It had taken me five minutes to conquer this obstacle. And for as far as I could see (at least to the side of wick park) there was nothing but ice on every surface. On the road, on the sidewalk, on the grass.* I fell some more as I tried to make my way to the corner of Elm. By the time I had turned the corner I feared permanent damage in my tailbone. But at this point no one had seen me wipe out so I was thankful.

So as I walk I notice the sun had unfrozen most of the snow mounds and ice castles forming along Elm Street. This created gigantic pools of Youngstown mud water that soaked into my pants as I tried to tip toe out of it. But there was no other way to get around these brown hypothermic rivers than to forge them. So armed with my canvasy, rainbow DCs and my pants that just refused to not touch the ground I did this.

Walking back it was a bit warmer and mostly slushy and the ponds seemed to drain. It was exciting. I was hopeful. I left at 4:30 to go to class again though and as I went to cross at Dorian to Cafaro I did a wipe out at one of the busiest lights in my area. A truck had just stopped as my legs gave out from under me. They kicked up and I landed, unguarded, on my ass. My neck and spine hurt after that and still hasn't stopped hurting.

Here's the criteria I'm proposing if I can walk down the road to campus and fall 15+ times then you should probably close.



* - Not grass, snow mountains that had frozen all the way through.