While winter storm Hercules pummeled the Northeast late last week, students returning to Hanover found their trips extended due to weather-related cancellations and delays. Boston Logan International Airport, a transit hub commonly used by students traveling to Hanover, was one of the airports most severely affected by the storm.
All airlines cancelled flights out of Boston by 8:30 p.m. Thursday. Airport operations resumed on Friday, but many flights remained cancelled throughout the weekend.
Other impacted airports included Newark Liberty International Airport, LaGuardia Airport, Philadelphia International Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport, other transit hubs that students use en route to campus. By noon on Friday, 2,200 flights had been cancelled across the U.S., according to flight tracking service FlightAware.com.
Xinyue Guo ’14 had planned to fly from Shanghai to Boston via Chicago. After the storm delayed her flight out of Shanghai by 12 hours, however, she arrived at Chicago O’Hare International airport to learn that the second leg of her trip had been cancelled, adding an additional seven hours to her scheduled layover.
Jake Gaba ’16 took a different approach when he found out Friday night that his Saturday morning flight had been cancelled. Gaba and his mother drove from their home in Dallas to Hanover, a trip that totaled around 36 hours. The two left on Saturday morning and arrived close to midnight on Sunday.
“We haven’t spent the night anywhere, and we have only taken one 30-minute nap somewhere in Virginia,” Gaba said. “For sure it’s been worth it. This will be something we’ll never forget.”
Manchester-Boston Regional Airport, the largest airport in New Hampshire, also made cancellations due to the storm. Ten flights to Manchester were cancelled on Friday, and seven were cancelled on Sunday, according to FlightAware.com.
The National Weather Service issued a blizzard warning for multiple regions in the Northeast on Thursday that extended through Friday morning. Over two feet of snow fell in the Boston area, while Hanover received between six and eight inches. Other parts of New Hampshire received between seven and 13 inches.
The Dartmouth Coach, a bus service that connects both Boston and New York to the Upper Valley, cancelled two Northbound trips from Boston due to the storm.
Elizabeth Fairless ’15, who rescheduled her Boston-bound flight from Friday to Sunday, said she had expected to encounter difficulties during her trip back to Hanover.
“I guess I’m not that surprised, because winter storms aren’t that uncommon,” Fairless said.
Facilities, Operations and Management teams plowed and sanded College walkways, streets, parking lots and building entrances until 7 p.m. on Thursday, and began again at 4 a.m. on Friday. Everything was cleared by 8:30 a.m. that same day. The Dartmouth Skiway closed on Friday as a safety precaution.
Although the storm deposited less snow in the Upper Valley than in the Boston area, temperatures dropped to minus 23 on Friday night, making it one of the coldest nights of the season so far.
