After a 10-inch pounding of snow the day before finals, students may have been amazed that much of the winter wonderland was cleared from campus roads and sidewalks by Tuesday morning.

NIU grounds superintendent Tom Anderson said it took his crew two full days to move the snow, working while Monday’s finals were postponed.

“We started on midnight on Sunday and through the night on Sunday and all day Monday,” he said.

The crew started by cleaning out commuter lots, then worked on faculty and staff lots.

“We usually dump all the snow near Grant North and Anderson Hall, east of the parking lot,” Anderson said. “We don’t have any big trucks, so we put it there because it’s close by.”

During a normal winter season, 300 tons of salt are used to clean area streets and sidewalks, Anderson said. Trucks continuously plow so the Huskie buses can run. But during the enormous Dec. 11 snowfall, it was hard to keep everything open.

Students hardly noticed the next day.

“Compared to Chicago, the streets in DeKalb were really clean,” said Shannon Gatch, a junior elementary education major. “The sidewalks on campus were also clean, but the ones around the campus are icy.”

If snow adds up to 3 to 4 inches, the grounds crew needs 12 to 14 hours to move it.

“If the snow is light, it’s easier to pile it,” Anderson said.

Another plowing nightmare occurred in 1979 when a major snowstorm hit, Anderson recalled.

“It snowed on Thanksgiving Day,” he said. “We didn’t have as good of machinery as we do now.”

Twenty-five staff members today move snow for NIU. In a major storm, outside help and extra machinery are acquired from contractor Eliot and Wood.

Anderson said four one-ton trucks with plows and five tractors are used to move snow on the parking lots. To clear sidewalks, three pick-up trucks with plows and three small tractors are used. NIU streets and larger parking lots are tackled by two large dump trucks.

More than a month later, students said the aftermath of this winter’s storms continues.

“Some parts of the sidewalk are a little slippery, but not much,” said Brian Ulrich, a sophomore mechanical engineering major.