By Brett Schlossberg and Greta Sletteland
As a winter storm was marked on the calendar for Friday, Jan. 10th, Governor Brian Kemp called off schools in Dekalb County, Decatur, and Atlanta, including Woodward Academy. While this was not Georgia’s biggest snowstorm, the state prepared for the heavy snowfall by salting roads and declaring a prudent state of emergency. Atlanta’s experience resulted from Winter Storm Cora that hit the south and east of the United States. That day, more than 1,200 flights were canceled in and out of the Hartsfield Jackson International Airport. However, for those who could stay closer to home, snow day offered a pleasant experience, with many people skiing on the streets and sledding in Piedmont Park.
Sadie Westlund ‘25 did not anticipate it to snow due to Georgia’s sparse history with snow days. However, she was delighted when it did and spent the day off partaking in her favorite snow activities and memories.
“I didn’t expect it to snow that much, so it made me extremely happy,” Sadie said. “I used to go sledding a lot when I was younger, and it snowed. Then this year, I had snowball fights with my brother, and we also built a snowman.”
Natalie Waters ‘25 also believed it would not snow until Woodward Academy announced its closing for the snow day on Thursday afternoon. She recalled her memories of snow in her neighborhood.
“I was delighted,” Natalie said. “Mr. Ehrensperger said that it wasn’t gonna snow, so I didn’t have hope, but then it did. Yeah, [my favorite snow memory] was sledding.”
When Dr. Stuart Gulley mulls over potentially canceling school, he consults many different people and resources, but ultimately, the final decision is his as president of the school.
“Had [Governor Kemp] not made that declaration, then the decision becomes one that I have to make in consultation with my administrative team here, weighing all the information that we know from news sources and the conditions of the road, and I am typically on a text chain with 8 other heads of schools around the Atlanta area,” Dr. Gulley said.
Dr. Gulley has often stayed up until 3 or 4 in the morning communicating with other administrators or checking weather reports to figure out how best to proceed when the weather is unclear. The school sometimes checks in with physics and astronomy teacher Mr. Thomas Ehrensperger, who has developed a website that attempts to predict the weather.
“All these dots are people all over the world.” Mr. Ehrensperger said. “It’s about 1100 of ’em that use my software. Most of ’em are just like hobbyists. A few of ’em are meteorologists that use it anyway, so it’s sort of a weather model that does some things on its own. It has a lot of its own native abilities, but it also imports, ingests, and uses data from the big models that everybody looks at.”
Most of us who lived in metro Atlanta in 2014 remember Snowmageddon. Maybe you got stuck inside from the snow monsoon. According to Dr. Gulley, most Woodward buses didn’t get to their stops until 7 or 8 at night. However, Snowmageddon increased safety precautions.
“One thing is that our buses at the time were not equipped with porta-potties or emergency food provisions,” Dr. Gulley said. “So, the students who were on those buses that day had no access to a place to go to the bathroom or any food available to them. So we now have that on every one of our buses.”
