When students returned home from Winter Break last year, many trees around the Ball State University campus were clothed in icicles. Fallen branches littered the ground. Some local residents were still in the dark.
This year, hardly a snowflake is on the ground.
But with chances of an ice storm never out of the question, the university and Muncie communities have taken steps to stay prepared.
"I'd say we're more prepared than we were last year, and even last year we were pretty well prepared," Kevin Kenyon, associate vice president of facilities planning and management, said before Winter Break.
The National Weather Service in December forecasted a higher-than-normal chance of having above-normal temperatures this winter, said John Kwiatkowski, science and operations officer for the National Weather Service in Indianapolis.
But David Arnold, a professor in Ball State's department of geography, said this winter would be colder than normal, base on the average temperature for the entire period of December through February.
And ice storms are always possible, especially in Indiana, he said.
"What people don't realize is that these types of ice storms should be extremely common in Indiana," Arnold said. "This is the perfect environment for an ice storm. The fact that we haven't had many of them over the last few decades made people believe they are rare, and they're not. That has led people into a false sense of reality."
RECOVERING FROM LAST YEAR
Since the Jan. 5, 2005 ice storm struck East Central Indiana and left tens of thousands without power, Ball State has been making progress cleaning up and restoring the campus.
"All we can really do is hope for the best-hope the trees are adequately pruned and hope that the weak wood has been removed," Kenyon said.
He said most of the trees that were bent over have straightened themselves up.
"You have to look really hard now to see any evidence of the ice storm," Kenyon said. "It's not that noticeable now."
Out of the more than 8,000 trees on campus, at least 1,000 were damaged last year, Kenyon said.
He said 256 trees had to be removed because they were destroyed.
Since then, about a half of the trees have been replaced, and the other half should be replaced in 2006, Kenyon said in December. Replacing every tree costs an average of $500, he said.
Besides costs such as tree replacement expenses, cleanup costs for the ice storm have reached $223,000, Kenyon said.
For the Muncie community, cleanup costs since last January have reached several million dollars, said Phyllis Amburn, deputy mayor.
"The ice storm was devastating for the entire city-Ball State included," Amburn said. "We've made very good progress-very expensive progress. But we are coming along."
Amburn said in December that the city was still trimming trees and picking up limbs. It has also planted new trees to replace the old ones-a process that will continue throughout the next several years, she said.
PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE
Emergency generators have been added in Ball State's facilities building to provide the ability to run the shops, run the communications center and charge radios and phones if an ice storm were to occur in the future, Kenyon said.
A lot of discussion has also taken place, and continues to take place, with Ball State's Crisis Management Team, Kenyon said. The team has met every two to three weeks for the past five years, said Randy Hyman, associate dean for student affairs.
Hyman said the team maintains regular contact with Arnold, who met with the team in November and provides frequent, regular weather reports and warnings.
Another major part of planning for a future ice storm involves how best to notify students if classes needed to be cancelled due to the weather, Kenyon said. Some students came back to campus after break last year not knowing anything had happened here, he said.
Key ways to get the word out to students in the future would be communicating via e-mail and using local media outlets to make announcements, he said. Hyman said the university would also make earlier and more efficient use of its Web-based resources.
He said the Crisis Management Team also met before break to engage in more extended discussion of some new options that would enhance the ability to communicate effectively with students, parents and other key university stakeholder groups including faculty, staff, Ball Memorial Hospital, the Delaware County Emergency Management director and his staff, Muncie City Police and Fire Department and the local Red Cross chapter.
This complex communication system would have telephone and cell phone potential, as well as Internet and computer-related communication, Hyman said.
Amburn said the Muncie community is also striving to stay prepared this year.
"The only preparation as far as an ice storm is concerned is to know that it's coming and making sure our trucks are mechanically sound and that everything is gassed up and ready to go," she said. "We hope to never see anything like what we saw last year."
And as winter conditions continue this year, Arnold said students should take steps to prepare themselves by equipping their vehicles with anti-freeze, making sure their tires are in good condition and checking their batteries.
As far as houses are concerned, residents should be careful about the heating devices they use, especially making sure their houses have proper ventilation when using kerosene heaters.
Amburn said having an emergency kit on hand is vital. The kit should include blankets, dry goods, canned foods, flashlights, water and batteries for radios, she said.
Hyman said staying abreast on the weather forecast is significant as well.
Overall, being mindful that an ice storm could occur in the future is essential.
"Some say it's going to be warmer than usual," Amburn said. "Some say it's going to be colder than usual. I don't know what to believe at this point, so I guess we'll have to be prepared for anything."
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