Joe Baton, left, and Austin Atlas clean a Mansfield sidewalk after a winter storm, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2015, in Mansfield, Conn. The storm buried the Boston area in more than 2 feet of snow and lashed it with howling winds that exceeded 70 mph. (AP Photo/The Hartford Courant, Mark Mirko)
Two Ole Miss students were among the 8 million residents of New York City who experienced severe winter weather earlier this week. Despite the mild outcome of one of the most anticipated blizzards in history, Winter Storm Juno made a large impact on their everyday lives.
Nancy Kartos and Connor McClain, senior accountancy majors participating in a co-op with KPMG in New York, said that even though the weather is not what they expected through the forecasts, they were still a part of a historic moment.
McClain said throughout the week leading up to the storm’s arrival they received updates through email and the media on the weather approaching the Northeast.
McClain said he could see the hype of the storm really worried those in New York because there was a run on banks and multiple grocery stores ran out of essentials like bread and water.
“I couldn’t even get money out of the ATM,” McClain said. “Everyone was kind of freaking out. I was trying to figure out what was the worst that could happen.”
Kartos said seeing how seriously others were taking the weather started to worry her.
According to Kartos, the entire office she was working in was completely empty by 1:30 p.m., and the rush for the supermarkets caused lines that went out the doors and hour long waits.
“Everyone was freaking out, which kind of led me to start freaking out,” Kartos said. “The entire supermarket was empty. Everything was gone. There was nothing there.”
McClain said in his experience in anticipation of the storm, he found things like the strict curfew and shutting down of all transit services to be very odd, especially for a large city. Although this made it difficult for McClain to commute to work from Queens to Manhattan, McClain believes it was a good idea to take extreme caution.
Even though the weather was not as severe in the area as everyone expected, McClain said, it was an exciting experience to see the city in a different way.
“It was cool getting to see parts of the city without any cars and to see the complete opposite of what it’s normally like,” McClain said.
Kartos said being from Alabama, she has not seen more than three inches of snow at once in her life and part of her wanted to stay inside to avoid everything, but she feels that if it had actually snowed as much as was predicted, she would have wanted to venture out into the city.
According to Kartos it was strange being in Manhattan and not having to deal with the busy night sounds that usually filled the streets.
“It was completely silent outside of my apartment,” Kartos said. “That was the weirdest thing, not hearing sirens or anything outside my window. Just complete silence.”
Both Kartos and McClain were a little disappointed there was not as much snow as was predicted, but they were happy to see people safe.
“It didn’t materialize into what they had hyped it up to be,” McClain said. “I only fell once.”
“I feel let down because it didn’t happen, but I think it’s better safe than sorry,” Kartos said.
