Junior Maria Emilia Quiroga was nearing the end of a snowy, hour-long drive from northwest Indiana to campus. She had just passed The Inn at Saint Mary’s when she was rear-ended. The driver had lost control in the icy weather, turning a quick trip into an odyssey.
Quiroga’s accident was one of several unfortunate stories among returning students that arose out of the potent winter storm that swept the Midwest over the Thanksgiving weekend.
The National Weather Service officially announced a Winter Storm and Lake Effect Event on Saturday. “Blowing and drifting snow were reported, with road conditions becoming treacherous,” the statement read. The storm blanketed most of the northwest United States in at least an inch of snow or sleet.
Nine inches of snow accumulated throughout the day in South Bend. It was the eighth-highest daily total for the city in the month of November since records began in 1893. Fort Wayne experienced its third highest total for the same metric with 5.6 inches. On Sunday, another three inches fell, sinking campus a foot deep in heavy snow.
The storm exacerbated strained flight schedules as airlines continue to recover from a months-long government shutdown. Widespread cancellations and delays arose in major airports across the Midwest, especially in Chicago.
On Saturday, over 1,450 flights were canceled between O’Hare and Midway airports. Midway was even forced to issue a ground stop for three hours after an aircraft became engulfed by the snow on the runway. On Sunday, Chicago airports accounted for half of all cancellations and 80% of all delays registered across U.S. airspace.
One flight that never took off was intended for the cheerleading squad, who were attempting to return from the football team’s win over Stanford. Initially slated to remain in California until Tuesday, the team managed to secure a flight to Detroit and then bused back, arriving around 2 a.m. Monday.
South Bend International wasn’t spared either, with over half of weekend flights into the airport cancelled. Students driving back to South Bend faced a similar challenge navigating the conditions.
“The roads started getting really slippery, and we couldn’t really see anything. The car started spinning, and we almost went into the ditch on the side of the highway,” sophomore Emery Minnich said of the Indiana Turnpike. While Minnich avoided a ditch, she counted seven cars in her final hour of travel that weren’t so lucky.
Junior Kanella Katsikas, driving from Kansas City, said conditions were normal through Missouri and Illinois.
“Once I hit the Indiana border, roads were horrible, super icy, adding an hour to my Waze travel time,” she said. Katsikas listed off multiple friends who couldn’t make it back in time for class on Monday. The latest didn’t return until Tuesday afternoon.
Despite all of the troubles returning to campus, the University chose not to cancel classes. Notre Dame maintains a sparse record of cancellations over the past half century, choosing to close down only under extreme circumstances.
The last time the University cancelled class was Feb. 2, 2022 ahead of a two-day blizzard. In the 21st century, one snow day was recorded in 2000, 2011 and 2014, and one three-day stretch was registered in 2019. That tallies to just one full week of days off against streaks of on-time classes that stretch over a decade.
