"Rain, sleet or snow, the buses must go."
And despite a fallen tree, winds of 37 miles per hour and a tornado watch in the area, Night Transit Supervisor William Evans' statement held true Tuesday night.
A tree collapsed around 10 p.m. Tuesday, rendering Chapel Drive impassible until 15 students led an effort to move the tree at around 11:45 p.m.
In addition to bus difficulties, the storm caused a wireless outage across West Campus. Although the Office of Information Technology' Web site provided advance warning of "sporadic" wireless connectivity throughout Tuesday, there was no indication that connectivity would be lost altogether.
It was unclear exactly when wireless service went out, but Stephanie Ford, evening reference librarian and supervisor, said Perkins Library had lost wireless by 8:00 p.m. and had not regained it by midnight.
As a result of the fallen tree, a 20-car backup blocked almost all of Chapel Drive from the tree near the end of the road to the West bus stop. A Duke University Police Department officer on the scene said assistance had been called and officers were simply waiting for appropriate equipment to arrive.
"We need a chainsaw," Evans said at 9:45 p.m. "We need a chainsaw so we can get the traffic moving."
There were still no signs of professionals on the scene at 11:45 p.m., when students created a path on the side of the road and over the sidewalk for cars to pass the fallen tree.
Initially, bus drivers responded to the situation by using a C-4 bus to transport students from the West bus stop to the blockage, where a second bus waited to shelter students. A C-1 bus then picked up students at the traffic circle and transported them to both East and Central campuses.
Because Chapel Drive is not wide enough for buses to make U-turns, the C-4 was forced to reverse to travel up the road to the bus stop.
"It wasn't your typical East to West ride," said freshman Kim Gajewski, who was returning to East when the tree fell.
Emmeline Zhao and Galen Vaisman contributed reporting to this story.
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