Sunday’s winter storm proved to be a major burden for many students, faculty, and employees traveling back to campus from Thanksgiving Break. On route to campus, returning students plowed through gruesome weather conditions. The dangerous conditions left wondering whether or not the administration would see the storm as sufficient to cancel classes. Students who had flown experienced major delays or cancelations to their flights. Claire Inzerillo ’21, shared her turbulent campus return with
The Spectator
and pleads for the Hamilton administration to take more precautions to avoid students having to face situations like hers.
Inzerillo returned to campus on Sunday, Dec. 1 — the first day of the winter storm — around 11:30 a.m. Knowing that Clinton would be battered by a huge snowstorm moving across the northeast that day, Inzerillo tried to plan ahead. She departed from Boston around 6:30 a.m. in order to beat the snowstorm. Though travel took slightly longer than expected, the drive was mostly dry and uneventful. Inzerillo was pretty much on track to get to campus at her anticipated arrival time, before the snowstorm began.
Inzerillo reports that it suddenly began to snow heavily shortly after she got off Exit 32 to Westmoreland, about 10 minutes away from campus.
“Driving my little sedan, I knew I had to get back quickly because my car does not fare well in the snow,” Inzerillo said. She had almost reached safety and had already passed the “Hamilton College” sign on her way up the Hill when her car spun out in the snow. She crossed the yellow line as another larger car came downhill. The larger car collided with the front end of Inzerillo’s sedan, sending her car spinning in the opposite direction.
“My airbags went off, and the front of my car was crushed like a soda can,” Inzerillo recalled. Luckily, both she and the other driver were not seriously injured. However, Inzerillo sustained a fractured nose and a concussion as well as a suddenly undrivable vehicle.
Inzerillo described the aftermath of the accident as “very chaotic,” explaining that the entire road was blocked off, with emergency responders and tow trucks surrounding the scene. Inzerillo added that multiple Hamilton College administrators emailed her to make sure she was okay. Though she did not sustain any life-threatening physical injuries, Inzerillo expressed her dismay with the aftereffects. She no longer has a car on campus and says that the Clinton towing company, through Clinton Auto, charged her over $1,000 to tow her car 1.1 miles. “[That] should be criminal,” Inzerillo said.
When asked about her thoughts on the College’s class-cancellation policy, Inzerillo said, “I would have felt much safer driving back to campus if the College had preemptively canceled classes on Monday.” She noted that considering Hamilton’s academic prestige, few students are willing to miss classes and will opt to travel in dangerous conditions over getting behind in school.
“The College should just bite the bullet and delay resuming classes until it is safe for students to travel,” Inzerillo said. “We are a 100% residential campus… [and] despite College Hill Road being a public road, and therefore the responsibility of the county, Hamilton should increase their efforts to keep the entire campus safe and passable. The hill was not pretreated with salt, despite the very well-known fact that a nor’easter was coming.” Inzerillo also reported that Kirkland Police called her after the accident and informed her that there had been another accident in the area, a fact that reinforces the dangerousness of the travel conditions that day.
Inzerillo is now using her experience as a plea for reform. “Being located in upstate New York, Hamilton should be very well aware of the dangers that come with driving/traveling in the snow,” she said. “Hamilton’s negligence in preparing for the treacherous conditions that awaited 1,800+ students on that Sunday is almost laughable.”
