Thirty-eight inches of snow later -- and the first dreaded Monday of the semester cancelled -- Carmichael and Dewick-MacPhie Dining Halls were the only Medford campus facilities open after the blizzard that struck Eastern Massachusetts over the weekend.
When Carmichael Manager David Kelley heard news of the impending blizzard on Saturday, he and five other of the dining hall's staff members decided to spend the night in the cafeteria in order to be able to serve students brunch on Sunday morning.
According to a Dewick employee, at least one person did the same in the downhill eatery.
"We have to be here regardless of the weather -- this is our business," Kelley said.
According to Kelley, Monday was the third time in the over 22 years that he has been at Tufts that the University has cancelled classes and shut down most of its facilities due to a snowstorm.
The decision to shut down the Boston and Medford campuses was made by the Facilities Department.
"A couple more people wanted to sleep-over but we encouraged them to go home," Brian Woytowich, a Dewick student manager said. "We did not want people to sleep uncomfortably and later not be able to work on Sunday."
Kelley said Carmichael was running on third- and fourth-day rations to feed students and that delivery trucks had not been able to deliver yesterday morning due to the inclement weather.
"We're just starting to run out [of food] but the delivery companies have confirmed that they will be in [Tuesday] morning," he said.
According to figures kept by the dining halls' managers, 2,330 students ate Sunday brunch and 1,768 had dinner that night at one of the two eateries.
The numbers for Dewick were typical of weekend turnouts but Carmichael serviced approximately 300 more students for both Sunday brunch and dinner than was projected.
Monday's dining hall traffic was back to typical numbers for both the uphill and downhill dining halls.
Frozen pipes in both Dewick and Carmichael led to no hot water for most of Monday and students had to use plastic and paper silverware because the porcelain dishes and metal silverware could not be properly sanitized.
According to Mario Ciccariello, of Dewick's maintenance staff, a Tufts plumber had fixed two of the three frozen pipes by late yesterday afternoon. At press time, Carmichael still had no hot water, Kelley said.
Having such alternative silverware and keeping rations are essential, Kelley says, in order to deal with such unanticipated crises.
While the Boston and Medford campuses were shut down, the Grafton campus was open for classes as usual.
The weekend snowstorm, which originated in the Midwestern states, has been called one of the five heaviest blizzards to hit the Northeast in the past century.
Massachusetts was among the states hardest-hit by the blizzard. Gov. Mitt Romney has declared a "state of snow emergency" and has asked residents not to leave their homes and travel on icy roads unless absolutely necessary.
