WESTFIELD – Friday morning’s snow was largely a surprise when about three inches of fell in about an hour between 5:30 and 6:30 a.m., causing traffic snarls which caused delay and confusion, particularly for schoolchildren and their parents.
Suzanne Scallion, the city’s superintendent of schools, said Friday afternoon that although in retrospect a school delay could have been useful, at her deadline to call for such a delay, the snow hadn’t even started to fall.
She said that the forecast called for a trace of snow to as much as an inch and, by the time the snow belied the forecast, it was too late to stop the process.
Scallion said that she has to make the call to delay the buses by 5:30 a.m. and pointed out that the city has a three-tier system so decisions have to be made sooner than in communities were all the school buses set out at the same time.
“At 5:45 the word from the DPW and the police was that the trucks were out and there were a few slippery spots” she said, so “at that point it looked like we were good to go.”
By the time the snow began to be a problem, she said, “I’m not going to call a delay when half of our kids are already in motion to the high school.”
She said that the snow caused delays for the buses but said there the delays were largely due to traffic snarls which slowed the school buses but said that the last bus to arrive with elementary school children, who are in the last wave of school bus traffic, was only 20 minutes late.
She said that most teachers got the school and only nine unexpected teacher absences were reported.
She acknowledged that many teachers were delayed but attributed the late arrivals to traffic problems caused by the snow.
“I believe there was an accident on the Mass Pike so some of our people were late,” she said.
In hindsight, she said, “we would have done well with a delay.”
“We take this very seriously and regret any anxiety that’s been created,” she said. “We’ll learn from this.”
She offered her apologies “for those who were concerned or made anxious for this.”
City police report that few accidents occurred during the storm and its aftermath and the one which involved a school bus was minor.
An emergency dispatcher reported that a 9:23 a.m. caller said that a school bus “grazed a vehicle and took the mirror off” on Southampton Road. There were four children on the bus but no injuries were reported.
