The growing snow piles and lack of space to place the excessive amounts of snow caused problems for Colonia High School students who were attempting to get to school before the 7:50 final bell.
Colonia High School students have been going through increasing struggles to get into school on time for the first block bell. In fact, the time to get into school without being marked late was moved to 8:00 in the morning. The primary reason for this adjustment was the snow.
Overall, this year the snow accumulation was 50.7 inches. With this much snow, the piles are growing bigger and bigger and the places to place the piles are growing smaller and smaller .
On East Street the line to enter school repeatedly makes students late. The snow on the side of the street prevents the juniors, who are supposed to park off school property, from effectively pulling off from road. Due to this it gets increasingly harder to have a two way street, especially with cars entering and leaving the school. Doug Deter, a junior at Colonia High School, parks on East Street every morning. He explained that, “There is a very fine line between getting into school on time and being late; if you get on East Street at 7:30, you’ll be fine, 7:32 and you’re late.”
Coming to school from New Dover Rd is no different. The two narrow roads that are required to go through to enter the school are barley two lanes; now, with all of the snow the two lanes are almost impossible to maintain. The snow that covers the side of the street closest to the curb requires cars to drive on top of the snow, which most cars cannot do. Due to this, the two lane roads have become one. The line to get into school from New Dover which is usually quick has extended much farther. On top of all the snow that covers the sides of streets, Triana Powers, senior at Colonia High School, stated “the potholes that are all over the roads are deep and dangerous to all cars that go through them.” To go through the potholes cars have to go slower than normal in order to avoid blowing a tire. Swerving to avoid the potholes isn’t an option when the once two lane road is whittled down to one.
Parking in the senior parking lot is more difficult than usual as well. With the increasing snow piles, the plows push the snow into the senior parking lot and cover parking spots. As a result, seniors have to go to school earlier in order to gain one of the few spots in the senior parking lot. The kids who do not park in the senior lot have trouble parking on the curbs of the school because of the excess of snow that remains there after plowing.
Advice: If you don’t want to be late, get to school before 7:30 AM.
