At 3:30 p.m. Monday, Brian Grubbs clocked out and left the Ball State University North Grounds Building. The facilities group leader went home, threw snowballs with his two daughters and ate dinner with his family, as he might any other day in his four years at Ball State.
But after an early bedtime, Grubbs awoke at 1:30 a.m. Tuesday and made the 35-mile drive from his home to campus. He and about 30 other Ball State grounds crew employees punched the time clock at 3 a.m. Tuesday, and provided Ball State's first and only line of defense against the 13-plus inches of snow that accumulated throughout the day.
"It was fun for about 15 minutes, and then it was a pain in the ass," Grubbs said.
Grubbs was assigned to plow streets and parking lots on the Northeast part of campus. Fifteen hours after he began plowing, he said he wasn't sure he made much progress.
"If we didn't come in early this morning, it'd be a mess, but it's not looking much better right now," he said. "You just try to get all the drives opened up and do the best you can until the snow clears up."
Throughout the day, grounds crew workers plowed, shoveled and pushed back snow, only to see the roads pummeled again by the unrelenting blizzard that struck most of the Midwest.
"We've been pretty much everywhere on campus, and it all looks the same: like we've been playing in [the snow]," Mike Planton, associate director for Landscape and Environmental Management, said. "We've been plowing McKinley [Avenue] like twice an hour and it probably doesn't even look like we've been there."
Monday night, Planton and two supervisors asked grounds crew workers if they would work overtime to clear roads during the storm. Twenty-eight volunteered while two declined, Planton said.
The workers utilized all the equipment at their disposal - nine plows, six tractors and two skid-steer loaders - to keep roads safe and attempt to keep parking lots and sidewalks safe for faculty, staff and students.
Grubbs decided to work overtime partly because of the time-and-a-half pay he will receive for the extra hours worked, but also because maintaining campus during crises is what Ball State hired him to do, he said.
Workers met back up at the North Grounds Building every two-and-a-half hours throughout the day to relax and to get out of the snow and gusty winds. When the crew stopped working at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, poor road conditions kept many of the workers from returning home for the night, so Planton reserved rooms at the Lees Inn on Everbrook Lane and the L.A. Pittenger Student Center Hotel for the crew. He estimated about 20 of the crew members would use the rooms to catch up on sleep before going back to work at midnight Tuesday, giving them only five and a half hours off after a 15-hour day.
Though grounds crew employees said they maintained good morale for most of Tuesday, Plankton said he worried the crew will be able to maintain a high energy level for successive days.
"There's still an adrenaline rush that we're pushing," Planton said. "[Tuesday night], we're gonna have four to six hours of sleep. Then you start getting tired."
Planton said he expects today's workload to be similar to Tuesday's and is unsure how long he and his crew will have to keep working. He said the crew needs eight to 10 hours to clean up an average snowfall after it stops, but with an excessive amount of snow blanketing Muncie, the task will take longer.
"If we can't keep streets open, then the university has to make a decision," he said. "Our goal is to make sure you can get to class and work."
Though the crew was fatigued at the end of their Tuesday shift, Grubbs said he would reflect on the blizzard someday and laugh about it.
"I think with the Colts winning the Super Bowl and now the storm, we're going to have a baby boom," he said jokingly.
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