Winter Storm Blows Through Belmont

Trees split from winter weather on Belmont's campus. (Olivia Abernathy)

A powerful winter storm swept across Belmont’s campus Sunday, causing a fiasco of power outages, fire alarms, fallen trees and lines of students rushing to get food from the cafeteria.

“Everyone’s calling it the snow apocalypse, and it does feel like that,” said sophomore Ava Armstrong. 

Power initially went out at 11:18 a.m. as part of a larger outage that is still affecting over 200,000 people in Davidson County and parts of other counties served by the Nashville Electric Service. Buildings across Belmont’s campus saw power outages, with some outages still ongoing.  

Harrington Dining Hall is still without power and has limited options available. For students who aren’t stocked up on non-perishable foods, grab-and-go sandwiches will be prepared until close. 

“I feel bad for freshmen; we live in Commons, so we’re used to making most of our own meals. But for people who rely on the caf for all of their meals… students might not feel ready,” said senior Mary Ciarrocchi.

Students lined up around Harrington Dining Hall. (Matt Sinofsky)

The power outage isn’t the only issue Belmont is dealing with; fire alarms in Hewlett Hall and Kennedy Hall went off, though the cause of them is unclear. 

Kennedy Hall resident assistant Emily Ball directed the traffic of evacuating residents, who took the street to avoid a tree weighed down by ice blocking the sidewalk. 

“I don’t know the specifics around how or why it went off, but we’ve been having issues all day. We’ve had leaks; we’ve had power outages, so this is kind of the icing on the cake,” said Ball. 

Kennedy Hall residents evacuating. (Georgina America)

This year’s snow has brought a flurry of unprecedented events, though students and staff are doing what they can to weather the storm.  

The Nashville Electric Service website says this power outage could last days. This, paired with dangerous road conditions, could keep many off-campus businesses closed. 

Frozen sleet from Saturday and Sunday morning caused icy conditions that froze over roadways and parked cars, further inhibiting travel.

“I’m not planning on leaving campus... I am way too scared, so I’ll probably wait until it clears out a little bit more,” said senior Persabella Sirak. 

Frozen tree branch fallen onto a parked car. (Ava Burns)

There will be 80 lineworkers in Nashville tonight, with another 75 planned to arrive by 7 a.m. Sunday. 

All academic buildings will be closed and there will be no classes on Monday, with Belmont president Greg Jones and provost David Gregory declaring it an administrative day.

University Communications sent an email suggesting students stay inside, avoid trees and tree limbs, avoid elevators when possible and unplug sensitive electronics in the event of further outages and provided contacts for various student services.

This article was written by Georgina America with contributory reporting from Olivia Abernathy and Ava Burns

This article has been updated to include the announcement of Monday as an administrative day.