Students eating in Dog Pound Deli in Douglas early afternoon Wednesday were optimistic about rescuing their cars from the post-blizzard tundra.

Elizabeth Howard, freshman nursing major, was looking forward to making a trip to Wal-mart, 2300 Sycamore Rd., with Jeremy Gapsevich, sophomore political science major.

“If we can get his car out,” Howard said.

Other students set their sights a little further.

Freshman mathematics major Taylor Brysiewicz planned to drive to Naperville for work.

Brysiewicz said he hoped he could get his car out of the Grant North parking lot.

“But I might pretend I can’t get my car out, even if I can,” Brysiewicz said.

Senior accounting major Christina Espinoza and freshman Spanish major Victor Estanislao waited in Dog Pound Deli for the parking lot of Espinoza’s apartment complex to be plowed.

The two planned to drive to Carol Stream to visit friends.

The hopeful Dog Pound Deli patrons might have been able to get their cars out; maybe not.

It all depended on the luck of the plow.

High winds during the blizzard Tuesday night and Wednesday morning left varying snow drifts across campus, which meant some cars were left relatively untouched and others nearly buried.

The thunderous roar of scraping snow, creaking of gears and beeping of plows in reverse could be heard across campus as snow plows of all sizes attempted to clear pathways for pedestrians and drivers.

Things didn’t look good at first for Derek Maple, senior industrial and systems engineering major, and John Becker, freshman chemistry major, to free Maple’s car from Lot J, northwest of Lincoln Hall.

The two were attempting to dig with one flimsy plastic shovel between them and Becker shivering in shorts, the snow reaching past his knees.

“I didn’t think it would be this bad,” Maple said, chopping at snow behind his Ford Taurus’ bumper with the shovel.

But the luck of the plow struck.

Within two minutes of beginning to shovel, a large Caterpillar machine pushed a path five feet wide of two solid feet of snow deep behind the car clear.

Maple and Becker still had to wait for several minutes near the entrance of Lot J as the Caterpillar cleared a path for them onto Lincoln Drive North, but liberating the car took less than 10 minutes.

Becker said there was more snow than he expected based on what he saw Tuesday night, but it was relatively easy to remove the car from its snowy prison.

“It would have been harder, but thanks to [the plow] it was much easier,” Maple said.

Maple and Becker were headed to Walmart, a voyage they said they were making because they had the day off.

Freshman education major Heather Hancock and two friends were also going shopping on their day off, something they said they wouldn’t have done had classes not been canceled.

Hancock and Jordan Rivera, freshman business marketing major, and Sela O’Neill, sophomore sociology major, used their heavy winter boots to kick snow out from around Hancock’s Chevy Malibu in Lot W behind Grant Towers.

Hancock said she didn’t expect getting her car out to be as difficult as it was.

“I thought I was going to have to clear my car off, not kick snow out of the way,” she said.

But it wasn’t long before the Caterpillar swung into the lot to the excitement of the three.

Rivera and O’Neill pushed the car from behind to get it over the little snow piles that remained after the plow had passed and cheered as Hancock drove to the exit of the lot.

Hancock and her friends were freed from Lot W in under 15 minutes.

Others were not so lucky.

Craig Seldal, delivery driver for Tom & Jerry’s, 215 W. Lincoln Highway, was delayed in delivering food when his truck became stuck in the snow outside of Lincoln Hall.

The amount of delivery requests had gone up during the storm, Seldal said, and one delivery driver wasn’t able to work because his car’s tires couldn’t handle the snow.

Seldal waited as a pick-up truck plow attempted to clear the round drive in front of the hall. It was lucky the plow happened to be near Lincoln when his truck became unmovable, he said.

“I hope this guy can get me out of here,” he said, because his deliveries were already delayed an hour because of the weather.

Seldal had been able to dig his truck out of snow drifts that morning to get to work; some driver couldn’t free their cars at all.

Junior English majors Wesley Rusick and Colleen Moore were unable to dig out Rusick’s car from Lot P next to Stevenson Towers.

“There was no way we were going to get through [the snow], and [my car] is an SUV with four-wheel drive,” Rusick said.

The two had more luck with Moore’s car in the partly cleared parking lot of 855 Regent Drive.

About ten of Moore’s neighbors at 855 Regent were planning ahead for parking, scraping and sculpting snow around the entry ways to their town homes with shovels, garbage can lids, buckets, and folding chairs.

Junior history major Kyle Neville said the crew was clearing out a vacant parking spot to save it for Neville’s roommate while he was at work.

Neville said his roommate moved his car at 8:30 a.m. by digging it out with a large Tupperware container.

Many students, like Neville’s roommate, had found success in freeing their cars with the help of creative snow-removal tools.

Freshman English major Amanda Johnson was left helpless to clear the snow around her red Mercury Cougar in Lot W without a shovel.

Johnson stood in front of her buried car, facing the fact that the luck of the plow was not on her side.

Though a path was cleared by a plow down the center of the parking lot aisle, enough snow was still in front of her car to trap it.

Johnson said she came to the lot because she was curious to see how badly her car was buried but had also wanted to run some errands.

“I’m not [going], not anymore,” she said.

Johnson turned to head back to the residence halls, her car’s fate sealed in snow.