ECC recently closed all campus locations from Friday, January 12, 2024 through Tuesday, January 16, 2024 citing weather conditions. According to the National Weather Service, Elgin and its surrounding areas experienced temperatures below zero with windchill nearing – 40 °F. 

In the case of campus closures, notifications are sent through ECC’s Rave Alert System, posted on the elgin.edu home page and updated at WGN’s Emergency Closing Center. 

ECC’s Emergency Management department is composed of Senior Director of Emergency Management Emily Kies and Emergency Management Administrator Stephen Stassen. 

They utilize both internal and external factors in situations of hazardous weather conditions to prepare a recommendation of school closure on behalf of the Campus Emergency Operations Center. This resolution is then presented to the President’s Cabinet, a group of advisors to President Dr. David Sam, before receiving his final seal of approval.

Internal factors include being able to address the weather conditions with adequate amounts of salt, manpower, and work hours. 

“External factors are what’s the forecast, anticipated impacts and then we also have a lot of contact with other school districts and colleges,” said Stassen. “Especially when it comes to (School District) U-46 and D300, a lot of our students and staff’s families are involved there and it really does end up affecting us.”

Emergency Management uses many different platforms to access the newest information. 

“The National Weather Service is pretty spot on most of the time so that’s the reason why we really lean into (it),” said Stassen. 

As weather updates are released at 3 AM and 3 PM, ECC’s cut off times for class cancellations are 5 AM for morning classes and 4 PM for evening classes. 

The department also uses the Probabilistic Snowfall Experiment by the National Weather Service to better predict the range of snowfall possibilities. It was designed to better communicate weather uncertainties in addition to existing visual aids. 

“We’ve gotten a lot better and a lot more sophisticated about (the process) in the last few years,” said Stassen. “We can be a lot more specific with our interventions that’s helped us be better with when we’re closing and when we’re not.”

For more information on unscheduled campus closings, students can reference Administrative Procedure 3.809 Procedure for Unscheduled Closings.