Snowy weather is not the norm for South Carolina, and having snow– especially a decent amount– two weekends in a row is basically unheard of. Yet that’s exactly the weather we had at the end of interim, with Wofford College needing to create a plan for the campus as to how the college will respond to the weather.
Keith Tyger, the resident director of culinary services in his 6th year here at Wofford, helped the emergency plan committee come up with a plan for what dining services would look like for students staying on campus despite the weather.
One of the first steps they take is letting all of the culinary staff know that they are in the same category as police, firefighters and paramedics for being essential employees, meaning they are allowed to be out driving on the roads even if they are closed, since students still need to be fed.
Staff then make sure to bulk up on non-perishable food and bottles of water, so if power is lost, they know they can at least provide students with sandwiches and such. Losing power is the main concern for culinary staff during big weather events.
“We also are lucky here that for the most part, the Richardson Arena is on an electric grid that really doesn’t lose power. Even during Helene it never lost power, so our go to plan if Burwell loses power is to utilize the food truck to cook things and the arena to serve out of,” Tyger said.
Wofford’s emergency plan committee helps make decisions such as hours of food service, what food services will be open, ect, so they can communicate to students what food service will look like during these events. The scale of what food will be served depends on what they think can be accomplished with the team that will come in to work during these storms.
When it comes to who is working during these events, the managers of the different food service options are almost always working during the storms, as well as some hourly staff who want to come in.
“It’s almost a typical day for us … I almost enjoy it more because I’m more of a day-to-day reports, office work type stuff, catering planning, things like that, more hands off stuff, and this gives me the chance to help cook for the day,” Tyger said.
The staff also love that they are able to get some more interaction with students during these events, because with classes being cancelled and not much else going on, students tend to hang out in Burwell for longer than they otherwise would.
Tyger considered the little things to be the hardest part of the large weather events, such as an icy ground when trying to take out the trash and the back kitchen being much colder than usual. As long as power isn’t lost though, the storms tend to be fairly manageable.
To prepare for the event that power in Burwell is lost, carts were set up the night before the storm incase power went out and they needed to move things to the food truck to cook and then serve out of Jerry Richardson Indoor Stadium, since both the truck and the stadium are not likely to be affected or lose power during the storm.
Even though power in Burwell was not lost during these snow storms, there were parallels for Tyger about the student response for staff during these events and after Hurricane Helene.
After Helene, students lended helping hands. Many of the football players helped move about 3,000 pounds of food from the indoor stadium back to Burwell once power came back. During these snow storms, students were patient with staff and thankful knowing that there were less staff than usual and it might take a little longer for food to come out.
The Wofford community rallied around each other for all of these events, with the culinary staff and grounds crew especially making sure that students were not only safe, but could continue to stay on campus. A big thank you to the culinary staff and grounds crew, and hopefully we won’t be hit with another large weather event for a long time.
