Students seemed to have mixed feelings about whether Mayor Mitch Landrieu should have called for a shutdown of the city for last week’s snow days New Orleans resembled a ghost town on Tues. 28 and Wed. 29. Considering our lack of ability to stand freezing temperatures, the safest thing to do was stay off the roads. If you did happen to go for a drive, you likely recognized at least these two things: that the interstate was covered in a layer of ice and that there was no way New Orleans had the resources to address the ice.

Loyola students come from all different parts of the nation– and the world– where this kind of weather is a normal winter occurrence. Cities such as New York and Chicago are readily equipped to handle a storm much larger than what we experienced here. Subsequently, some have become confused why our city needed to shut down entirely- even including Popeyes and McDonalds.

Call us the sovereigns of drama, but we are glad to have had our local government recognize the risks of being ill prepared for a storm.

Atlanta received attention due to their lack of a similar “rather be safe than sorry” attitude. As a result, children were stuck on school busses and classrooms overnight and the roads resembled parking lots rather than freeways.

New Orleans is familiar with the devastation a storm can cause. While it was not a hurricane that we were facing this time, our humility in the face of nature has left New Orleans essentially unaffected. Our university, schools and roads were back to their normal functions by Thurs. 30. Meanwhile, Atlanta was stuck in the ice and road lock for several days following the storm.

Regardless of what other parts of the country face, our city was not equipped to deal with the sudden ice storm while simultaneously maintaining the full-function of a city.

We are glad to have taken the preemptive route in addressing the storm and we hope that it can be an example of how to face future threatening weather.

This editorial is the opinion of the editors.