Snowy conditions caused at least two accidents in Hamden this morning.
One accident involved junior Michael Slonina and junior Cierra Ponzo on Sherman Avenue at around 8:40 a.m.
Slonina was driving with Ponzo in her car when they approached an accident up ahead. Slonina slowed down, but hit a snowbank on the road and spun out, according to Ponzo.
“It was just a slow spin out,” Ponzo said. “I didn’t notice that we were actually going off the road until Mike was kind of freaking out.”
Slonina parked on the side of the road, out of traffic, and the two called the university to ask for help, Ponzo said.
Ponzo said she had just begun to feel safe when a large milk truck spun in the same place her own car had swerved moments before and hit the back of her car.
“It was very slow motion so I didn’t really know what was going to happen,” she said. “It looked like if he was going any faster it could have completely wiped out my side of the car, but because he was going so slow it just got the back, but at the time I was very very nervous. My heart was beating kind of fast.”
Ponzo, Slonina and the truck driver were not injured, Ponzo said.
The Hamden police determined the truck driver was at fault for the accident.
“My car is surprisingly drivable and there’s only just a very large dent in the back,” Ponzo said. “Everybody in the situation was fine. It was more just slippery and everybody slipped in one direction.”
Hamden police told Ponzo she was one of the 20th accidents by that time this morning, Ponzo said.
“Once [the university] saw the amount of accidents in Hamden, right down the roads and everything, I think they should have saw that as a warning sign to cancel classes [in the morning]” she said. “There was not much plows out at that time and I think that’s why there were so many accidents.”
Senior Sarah Dors drove down from the York Hill campus to the Mount Carmel campus today.
“[Classes] should have been cancelled earlier,” she said. “It was really slippery.”
At around 11:30 a.m., the university announced it would close after 1 p.m. today.
Hamden police did not return The Chronicle’s request for comment.