Pictured above is the back of Stuart House in Pineknoll.
As the wind and rain raged outside, Jaeho Lee ’24 was hunkered down in his dorm, preparing to go to his sport, before the ceiling exploded above him. Lee is one of three students in Stuart House who were displaced following a severe storm that swept across Andover on Friday, September 8.
Extreme winds and rain hit Andover and neighboring towns, leading to numerous fallen trees and damaged power lines across campus. A campus-wide shelter-in-place was enforced for over two and a half hours, starting at 2:50 p.m. and lasting until 5:34 p.m.
“I peeked out and then peeked back in and then the ceiling just exploded. Everything in a meter radius was just covered with plaster dust. I thought the lightning had struck the building, I didn’t even know that it was a tree. I just saw a hole and water was leaking through it so I emptied all my stuff from [a] bucket and then put the bucket there so that it wouldn’t leak through the floor,” said Lee when describing the situation.
As a result of the storm, Andover lost power across a majority of buildings, which led to outages of internet service and BlueCard access to dorms and academic buildings. Furthermore, due to the continued power loss in The Snyder Center, the ACT scheduled for September 9 was canceled.
Throughout the time of the incident, streams of communication were maintained via text channels and Outlook by Dr. Susan Esty, Dean of Students and Residential Life, who advised House Counselors and Day Student Advisors to check in with their accounted students.
“Even as this storm passes, we are still assessing the safety of our campus, and there is potential for another storm to come through our area this afternoon/evening. Please shelter in a safe place until further notice. All activities, including athletics, are canceled. With trees and power lines down, Campus Safety and the [Office of Physical Plant] need to assess damage and potential risks across campus,” wrote Esty in the first of four emails sent to students.
Campus Safety, along with several emergency vehicles, unlocked doors to dormitories and worked to mitigate damage on school grounds. Fallen trees blocked access to roads and buildings, such as Graves Hall and Stuart House.
Later in the afternoon, orders to stay indoors were briefly lifted, allowing students to have dinner in Paresky Commons before face-to-face sign-in, which was shifted to 7:00 p.m. rather than the usual 10:00 p.m. Day Students were also strongly encouraged to leave campus by 7:00 p.m. In one of Esty’s emails, students were reminded to comply with all school rules and to refrain from ordering food deliveries to “protect the safety of the broader community.”
Skyler Siegfried ’25, who found shelter in the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library (OWHL), highlighted how the sudden appearance of the storm seemed to catch some faculty off guard. Siegfried also expressed his appreciation for the prompt communication from the academy.
“It might have been helpful if the faculty were a bit more centralized in the first couple moments, so I didn’t think there was too much of a group response to keep people in the building at first, I saw people coming in and out. But I think the initial text and the emails were really rapid and I really appreciated those,” said Siegfried.
Kit Leckerling, Dean of West Quad North Cluster, reflected on the unexpected speed and severity of the storm. Connecting the storm with other climate-related disasters, Leckerling hopes that it can serve as a reminder of Andover’s role in addressing climate change.
“We didn’t have much warning from forecasts in terms of how powerful the storm ended up being. I was focused on making sure that the students knew to get inside a building as quickly as possible, even if it wasn’t their dorm. I am so grateful that no one in our community was hurt and that the [Office of Physical Plant] team was so prompt and thorough in addressing all the hazards that the storm created,” said Leckerling.
Leckerling continued, “After a summer in which we so often heard about and experienced the worsening effects of climate change, I hope that the storm and extreme heat during the opening of school will inspire us to increase our focus on sustainability and climate justice, as individuals and as a community. [Andover] has made great strides in sustainability in the last decade…and there is much more we can do. I hope we will all revisit our Climate Action Plan and approach this work as an essential part of building a healthy and inclusive community and fulfilling our responsibility toward the global community and natural world.”
