Texas State, Floods and Classes Still in Session

By Allison Johnson
Blog Content Contributor 

Many Texas State students encountered rain on their way to class early Tuesday morning. Majority of us were aware of potential thunderstorms for this week’s forecast, but were shocked when we had water a quarter of a way up our legs as we left our classes. Around 11 a.m.,the weather took a turn from pouring rain and a potential flood warning to a hail storm warning and a tornado watch. At this point, classes should’ve been canceled.

Around noon, many of students who are off-campus residents anticipated going home after walking through a thunderstorm on campus. Every bus that was at the UAC stop was completely full, but they were not leaving. After a while, students began to realize Texas State bus drivers were in contact with Transportation services and were being told to suspend their routes. Therefore, students began getting off of the buses and spreading word that they were suspending services due to weather. The pavilion at the stop was jam-packed with students. Everyone waited there to stay dry, but also be in hopes of  being first on the next bus if the weather was to clear up.

Texas State finally canceled afternoon classes around 1:40 p.m., which is exactly what we needed by 11a.m. The weather reached a level of where it was extremely dangerous to travel; classes should’ve been canceled hours prior to almost 2pm. It doesn’t make sense to suspend transportation, but not cancel the remaining classes. Why would they wait nearly two hours? How do you expect us to get to class if transportation is suspended? Also, transportation was suspended because roads were flooded! So Texas State just expects for us to get a ride to class another way in the mean time? A student driving his or her own car around San Marcos in flooded weather conditions is just as dangerous as a bus driver driving in the same weather conditions.

Many students have recorded footage of people driving in the horrible conditions to get to class. I hope Texas State is more proactive in the future and does cancel classes much sooner if the weather is expected to be anything like Tuesday. It’s inconvenient to be stranded on campus for hours; It is best for students and faculty just to stay home in these cases.

You might be wondering why we just didn’t stay home… until they notify us classes are canceled, we have to put ourselves in danger due to strict attendance policies. Maybe some professors should take matters into their own hands and cancel classes, but they might’ve been waiting for Texas State to officially cancel as well.

There’s obviously more commuters than on-campus residents here at Texas State; just because most of do not live on campus that doesn’t mean we aren’t affected. Some dorms get filled with water. They unfortunately had to spend time mopping up water during this time. It’s beyond inconsiderate to make students go to class during bad weather days like this.

No one should be traveling in any way to get to class in hazardous weather.

Featured image by Asia Daggs