Elma Ademovic | Staff Illustrator

January’s early winter storm was deemed “the most challenging winter weather event during my tenure at WashU” by WashU Facilities Grounds Manager Chris Anderson — and St. Louis’ winter may just be getting started. Current trends indicate more extreme winter conditions in St. Louis in upcoming years and decades, which has been a cause of concern for some students and faculty who feel that while WashU is ready, St. Louis is not prepared to respond.

During January 5th and 6th’s storm, which featured a record-breaking amount of precipitation, Facilities established a number of preventative measures to help grapple with the impending weather.

“Facilities stage[d] large snow removal equipment on the perimeter of Francis Olympic Field. Bulk salt, for roads and fire lanes, is stored at North Campus, along with additional snow removal equipment,” Facilities representatives said. “Prior to a predicted weather event’s start, a Facilities contractor stage[d] workers at North Campus and on the Danforth Campus. Temperatures leading up to the start of precipitation inform[ed] pretreatment decision-making.”

Due to the heavy precipitation followed by freezing temperatures, Anderson noted that the early January storm posed a significant challenge for the Facilities team.

“The combination of heavy precipitation followed by extremely low temperatures prolonged our response and put great stress on our team. I’m proud of how [we rose] to the occasion to serve the WashU community,” Anderson said.

Each year, WashU’s Facilities outlines a budget which takes into account expected supplies and manpower needed based on previous years. When winter storms occur, Facilities, combined with WashU’s landscape contractor, Focal Pointe, is prepared to mitigate the effects of bad weather through a coordinated response with Emergency Management, WashU’s Police Department, and Parking & Transportation.

St. Louis City responded to the storm by clearing 450 linear miles of roads, establishing warming centers, and subsidizing heat and electrical bills for seniors, people with physical disabilities, and low-income families. St. Louis County also deployed 110 trucks for snow removal with teams working 12-hour shifts to clear the snow.

Despite these efforts, Lavina Grzymajlo, a sophomore at WashU, noticed the city’s lack of response to icy roads, and expressed concern for how the winter weather was handled.

“When we had that snowstorm and ice storm, there were so many streets that weren’t properly cleared and it was a safety concern for [commuters],” Grzymajlo said. “I think that’s definitely a concern for the future, if the city is able to care for the people when this happens.”

Assistant Professor Bronwen Konecky — from the department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences — anticipates that St. Louis will experience more temperature variability in the coming years. She said that storm fronts, like the one we saw earlier last month, are a result of rising temperatures changing the direction of the jet stream across the U.S.

“There’s some evidence that the jet stream can become more wavy, which allows more of these storms to penetrate further south in the U.S. So that’s how you can get these really big incursions of the cold, dry air mixing with that wet air in places like Texas or here in Missouri,” Konecky said.

This means that while winters will be warmer on average, extreme weather events — especially severe cold snaps — will become more frequent. Konecky said St. Louis is not ready for these changes.

“The city of St. Louis especially is really not well-prepared for snow extremes, really for snow events at all,” Konecky said. “The city and the county are [going to] need to work together to invest in more infrastructure and funding for basic winter road maintenance.”

Preparing for the future of St. Louis weather will also entail more specific climate change projections for Missouri and St. Louis, according to Konecky. In the past, climate change reports usually focused on the upper Midwest, leading to little information about climate change’s impacts on cities such as St. Louis. Konecky believes that if we can understand the local implications of climate change in St. Louis, we can better translate climate change concerns into policy and action.

“It is really time for us to have a seat at the table,” Konecky said.

Sophomore Owen Stegh shared his concern about the lack of action against global warming, and how he anticipates that it will affect students.

“I’m really nervous about global warming. I think that it’s fallen to the wayside in the minds of a lot of people recently, even though it’s very obvious. [In the] winter, [there are] not consistent temperatures and there’s a lot of change,” Stegh said. “For WashU, I’m worried that some of the good things about winter, like playing in the snow and having a holiday season with snow, will go away. That’ll decrease the quality of people’s experiences.”

Other students, like sophomore Megan Davis, don’t mind the changing temperatures as they provide  relief from the frigid cold.

“While it is a shock to the system to have such variable temperatures, I think I prefer it to just a really cold, freezing winter the whole time. It’s a break from the really cold winter we’ve been having,” Davis said.

Despite cold weather conditions, Executive Director of Habif Dr. Cheri LeBlanc said there were no changes in Habif visits pertaining to weather-induced medical conditions.

“We have seen our usual illnesses and injuries for this time of year,” LeBlanc said. “Facilities worked incredibly hard during the last storms to keep the campus sidewalks and roads as safe as possible.”

While WashU students were not significantly affected, St. Louis’ extreme cold this past month resulted in hazards for St. Louisans trying to keep warm and continue on with day-to-day life with 39-year-old Shirley Howard passing away from a car accident likely caused by Howard trying to avoid the icy sidewalks.

Heather Navarro, Director of the Midwest Climate Collective, said St. Louis community members were not prepared for this January’s cold conditions. To her, preparation involves establishing educational programs regarding cold weather safety, creating more heating areas, and weatherizing homes in St. Louis.

Historically, St. Louis City and County have largely overlooked these extreme cold weather conditions, deeming them as rare occurrences, according to Navarro, who hopes that the city will recognize that extreme weather is here to stay.

“Sometimes it feels like a fluke, a one-off, and we got through it, and now we need to get back to the other challenges that we are facing every day,” Navarro said. “What we need to be doing as a community is to recognize [that] this is a pattern. At a systemic level, we have not recognized the threat and the impact that [climate change] has [had] on our city yet.”

University City Public Works, Clayton Public Works, and St. Louis City Street Department declined to comment.