Thankful for a snow day, children head to the hills for sledding in Montgomery County
LOWER MERION TOWNSHIP, Pa. (CBS) – Lower Merion Schools were closed for a snow day Tuesday, but students took over a hill at a district school to celebrate the day out of class.
"No school! No school! No school!" students chanted at Bala Cynwyd Middle School.
The hill near the tennis court was packed with kids, sleds and snow tubes. Young snow sports veterans shared tips for a perfect ride down the hill.
"I start like this," said 9-year-old Luke Bharucha, demonstrating his technique. "And I go down, and then it's so much fun, and I get so much air."
But before the snow fell, 10-year-old Benjamin Rogevich was skeptical he would get a day off.
"Last week, one of the kids at our school was telling our teacher like, 'Oh! We're meant to get 3-5 inches of snow.' And I'm like, 'Sure, of course, we are, right?'"
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Then, this snow day turned out to be an answered prayer for ten-year-old Yoni Litcofski.
"I was positive it was going to be snow today. I was laying in my bedroom saying, 'Please be snow. Please be snow.'"
At nearby Penn Wynne Park in Wynnewood, this was the type of day 11-year-old Matan Kanotopski has missed for more than a year.
"So the last year, we couldn't do it either because there really wasn't that much snow then, because it was usually more melted," Kanotopski said.
Then, Tuesday morning came.
"And when we woke up, we looked outside, and we saw a bunch of snow," Kanotopski said.
While that snow fell Monday night, Angela Bowman said she and her husband started checking their email. They wanted to find what the day would hold for their seven-year-old daughter Claire.
"And then when we woke up this morning, of course the first thing we did was check our phone, and there was the message," Bowman said. "We told Claire as soon as she got up. She was so excited, the fastest she's ever gotten out of bed, ever."
While many families walked and drove to their sledding appointments, Mike Desantis helped clear sidewalks and roadways for Lower Merion Township.
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"Our guys did a good job clearing out the streets all throughout the night and stuff like that," Desantis said. "So, easy enough."
His job was to get rid of the white stuff, but he was happy families here could enjoy it.
"I don't need the snow," he laughed. "Let the kids have fun. It's a good storm for them."
It was not all about fun for everyone. As the rain fell and froze, United States Postal Service officials urged customers to keep sidewalks safe and clear for letter carriers.