Seton Hall University's campus, including the garden between Xaiver Hall and the caf, was covered in approximately four inches of snow this past weekend causing several damages.
As a result of the snow, the Farinella gate entrance to campus was closed on Saturday, Oct. 29 due to several fallen trees.
Pirate Alerts were sent throughout the storm warning students to take caution while walking on campus.
Several events on campus were cancelled including the men's playoff soccer game against UConn.
Intramural flag football games were also unable to be played on Saturday.
"All the playoff games for today were cancelled as a result of the snow," freshman Robert Clark of the ‘Mean Machine' team said.
The games have been rescheduled to take place this upcoming Sunday, Nov. 6, according to Clark.
Students planning to leave campus this past weekend were also forced to rearrange their plans.
Freshmen Rosybell Maria and Marinna McDermott both had planned to leave campus and were unable to due to the snow.
"I planned to go into the city on Sunday with some friends, but when we got to the train station we were informed the Morris & Essex Line wasn't running due to trees down on the tracks," McDermott said.
Maria experienced similar travel problems regarding the roads being too dangerous to drive on Saturday.
"We planned a family trip to Six Flags, to go to ‘Frightfest' on Saturday, but because of the snow we ended up rescheduling for Sunday," Maria said. "They didn't want to come all the way up here from Philly in the bad weather conditions."
Several students reacted with surprise to the early snowfall.
"For New Jersey, I thought that it was strange that it was snowing in October," McDermott said, "I'm from Minnesota and I expected it to start snowing a lot later here."
The on-campus garden was not completely prepared for the snow, but did not suffer many damages from the weekend's storm.
Normally, crops would be protected with "row covers", causing snow to slide off the covers and allowing plants to continue to grow, according to Wanda Knapik, president of My Local Garden.
"We removed tomato plants last week and put that part of the garden to rest," Knapik said.
This was done in preparation of the cold because these crops do not survive outdoors in winter weather.
According to Dr. Marian Glenn, professor of biology, not all of the crops left outdoors through the snow will survive.
"Lettuce and things sensitive to freezing will be history," Glenn said. "Good thing we picked those tomatoes!"
According to Knapik, they cannot access the damage until the snow is gone.
"Sometimes it's okay, sometimes it's not."
Classes using the garden this semester will not be impacted by the snow storm, according to Glenn, because the garden is used as an out of class, extra-credit, activity.
"Class doesn't depend on the garden," Glenn said.
Activities in the garden will also go on as planned, despite the snow.
On Wed. Nov. 2, Knapik, Glenn, and her class, planted hard neck garlic in the garden as they had originally planned to do.
According to Knapik and Glenn, they plan to continue using the garden, weather permitting, throughout the year; all students are welcome to take part in garden activities.
"We will still be in the garden," Knapik said.
Request for comment to Facilities & Engineering regarding tree removal was not returned by press time.
Erin Williams can be reached at erin.williams@student.shu.edu.
